Page 1 of Mercy (The Sins Trilogy 3)
Chapter One
Anthony
When the door opens, for a fraction of a second I think it’s Ryder stopping by to do his daily check-up on me. I stay on the couch, hugging Ivy’s pillow, not wanting to deal with him. Then somehow the gears in my sleep-deprived head turn a bit, alerting me that it’s way too early in the morning for Ryder. And he doesn’t have a key to my place.
I get up and start toward the foyer. My eyes are bleary and full of sand, but I almost stumble at the sight of Ivy.
She looks amazing. All that strawberry-golden hair shinning around her face and shoulders. The stunning, expressive gray eyes. The beautifully sculpted face.
My head can’t be making this up, can it? A painful, tingling sensation starts from my fingertips and toes, and I start to shake. What does it matter if what I’m seeing is real or not? This is such a beautiful hallucination. If I get to see her, nothing matters.
I suddenly stop. Don’t illusions usually vanish if you get too close? Mirages in desert always do, luring the lost with the promise of water, then disappearing when they get near.
Looking at Ivy from this distance is okay. I can accept that. It’s better than nothing.
Suddenly, I notice another woman behind her. My gut ices at the sight of a face I haven’t seen since the day “Ivy” was cremated—Mother.
Why is my brain conjuring her up too? Doesn’t it know she is the last person I want near me and Ivy? Mother never approved of us. She wouldn’t start now.
Mother hasn’t changed. No new wrinkles mark her elegantly beautiful face, the delicate small nose and green and blue eyes that study the world like an alert cat spotting a butterfly she wants to catch and toy with. She’s still too thin, and the blue jumpsuit she’s wearing doesn’t disguise that fact. My hothouse flower Mother—always looking like she’s ready to wither away at the slightest hardship. Except right now, she looks like she’s hiding a thorn or two.
Slowly, my mind takes in details and realizes I’m not hallucinating. Mother really is here…in my foyer.
Why? She hasn’t reached out in the last eighteen years. She refused to read my letters I sent her while studying in Europe. Every single one was returned, unopened. When I came home after graduating from Princeton, she tolerated my presence, but she hated me for being home. She made it clear how much she despised me for the blood I’d spilled.
She moves past me to the living room and runs her hand along the edge of the white Steinway, then opens the lid and peeks inside at the strings.
It suddenly strikes me that she doesn’t seem at all surprised by Ivy’s presence. Did Mother already know Ivy wasn’t dead? When did they reconnect? During the time Ivy exiled me from her life?
Panicked fear slices into me at the possibility. Mother hates me. I’ll never forget what she said at the memorial service while I was trying to digest the fact that Ivy was gone.
So. She wasn’t that special after all.
I don’t need her in my life, not when Ivy’s looking at me with guarded and conflicted eyes. Am I too late? Did Mother already poison Ivy against me?
“Mother,” I say carefully, wishing my head were clearer. I can’t afford a misstep, especially not when Ivy’s watching. “What are you doing here?”
Her gaze flicks over me, head to toe. It’s as empty and cold as before. I should be immune by now, but it still has the power to make something inside me shrivel a bit.
Because you deserve her contempt. You killed Katherine.
She arranges the music left on the bench, then strolls around the room, inspecting the decorations. “To congratulate the bride,” she says finally. “She’s alone now that Sam’s gone. His son, of course, is an imbecile.”
So her hatred of the Peachers hasn’t changed one bit, even if she has been investing with them.
“Every bride needs a mother figure.”
Her words make me shiver like someone’s dumped a bucket of ice water over me. A mother figure? To Ivy? Preposterous. Even if she’s gotten used to the idea that Ivy isn’t dead, she should be doing everything in her power to persuade Ivy I’m unworthy. And given the perfect grave I’ve already dug with my lies, Mother shouldn’t have a hard time of it. Even if Ivy somehow decides to come back to me, Mother should be furious.
Instead, she’s too cold, too composed, as though she’s a novice actress reading lines at an audition.
“You’re not her mother,” I point out, confusion and wariness warring inside me.
“Only because I haven’t officially adopted her.” The coldness in her voice intensifies.
Ivy flinches, then stares at Mother in shock.
I want to reach out to Ivy and shield her from the obvious discomfort Mother’s causing her, but I don’t dare turn my attention away from Mother either. She isn’t saying that to show her affection for Ivy. It’s just an excuse. Mother never bothered to adopt Ivy even though she had eight years to do so because Ivy was nothing but Katherine’s placeholder, no matter what kind of pretty spin Mother wants to put on it. If Katherine hadn’t died, Mother might’ve never gone to get Ivy after Uncle Perry’s death.
