Page 106 of Ivy's Venom

“I don’t think anyone will ever find out and if they do, I know some people.” I smile wide when I see his throat working hard to swallow. “Thing is, Ivy said something about seeing a flash of green and I thought that was fucking funny. Any idea why?”

“It’s funny she got hit?” He asks quietly.

“Careful, Deputy Dipshit, I can see intelligence is not needed to enter the academy, huh?” I tap the back of his head with the barrel of the gun, “I’m saying it’s funny because I know a guy with a green car,” I shove his head with the gun, “don’t I?”

“Why are you doing this? Because I slept with her once? Are you so jealous?” His words are like an accelerant to a flame, “don’t end up in jail for a whore.”

“You’re just angry you could only get it once, huh?”

He snorts like I said something funny, “I take what I want, no need to be angry.”

He takes what he wants? Like he forced her? Did Deputy Dipshit rape my girl? Was she too ashamed to tell me?

Everything in my vision flips to red and he sees the exact moment it does.

“No,” he begins to shake his head. “Listen, I didn’t hurt her.”

I slam the handle of the gun into the back of his head and he falls forward with a grunt, he’s out fucking cold.

I step out of the car and walk to the front passenger side. I sit in the seat and press the gun to his temple, then I say a quick prayer. The moment I pull the trigger, a complete sense of calm comes over me, and I’m suddenly lighter than I’ve been in a long while.

Grabbing his right hand, I slap it a couple times against the blood on his head, and then position the gun on the floor by his feet, letting his hand hang down over it.

Fuck, that shouldn’t have felt so good, right?

After spending two weeks in the hospital and then another month practically bedridden at home, my ribs are nearly healed. I can now laugh loudly and breathe deeply, and the whole time I had the best company.

Carmelo spent the weekends he wasn’t training in New York here with me, Cam would randomly pop in with Amelia in tow, my brother and sister barely left my side, and Neil treated me like his princess.

Mom and Dad have been attentive and at times really overbearing, but I love it. Uncle Travis brought over books for me to read, Aunt Adri tried to kill me again with her cooking, and Uncle Emmett solved my case. He really did.

When Officer Adam Van Dyke failed to show up to work a few days in a row, they traced his cop car to outside of Neil’s house, it looked like he was staking him out, but he wasn’t asked to do that.

Uncle Emmett was the one that found him with a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head and when his location was suspiciously near where I was hit, Uncle Emmett obtained a search warrant for his house. They found the green Honda Civic with an Ivy sized dent on the front left side and my blood on the hood. My parents also figure it was Adam standing at our gates that night, do they know for sure? No. Do I? Fuck yes.

Maybe he was feeling tortured about what he had done to me and felt like he was going to be caught for it, I’m not sure but I’m glad he’s gone. Are all my problems fixed? Hell no. I still have Dean to worry about. He’s been eerily quiet since I threatened him with child pornography and rape, but that doesn’t mean shit. He may be just planning my next big problem.

My first day home, I gave Neil the diary, and sat on the bed to cry with him as he read. When he learned she was being bullied for wearing second-hand clothes to when she decided to sell pills to buy new ones, we cried. When he learned she began taking those pills to experiment and decided she really liked them, we cried. Her professing her feelings for me and still feeling confused because she liked a guy at school, we cried.

But when he read about her pregnancy and how she decided to somehow move to Whitsborough and raise the child with me, we lost it. It was a hard few days after that but eventually the heaviness of grief began to subside and his healing began.

“Babe,” Neil moans and rolls into me, burying his face into my stomach, “I can’t watch these true crime shows anymore.”

“Fine, let’s do Harry Potter.” I pick up my remote and point it at the TV.

“Ivy Greene, we’ve fucking marathoned that like three times now.” He hovers over my face and gently kisses me.

Everything he does to me is gentle and it’s fucking frustrating, I want some rough-unable to containment himself-love. I try to deepen the kiss but he pulls away and gives me a stern look.

“What?” I toss my hands up in frustration. “I want my boyfriend.”

“Say it again,” his eyes darken and the smirk on his full lips is sinful.

“What? That I want you?”

“No, you called me your boyfriend.” His lips brush over mine, “say it again.”

“You’re my boyfriend, Neil Jones.”

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