“I have Honor,” Ava returned serenely.

“And if Smith always keeps her? If she is never allowed out of that house?” Thalia scoffed. “What then?”

“Honor will be my legacy; there is no question about that. Nix wants Ivy enough that he will make sure I get Honor,” Ava promised self-confidently.

A jolting shiver washed down my back and I was sure I would be sick for a few moments. Eventually the racking nausea slowed and I looked up in time to watch my mother smirk at her supposed best friends. “Honor will never go with you,” I spat in a hushed tone before I even registered the words were being said.

Oops.

My mother’s scathing glare swept towards me and I summoned every ounce of courage I possessed to sit up straight and stare her in the eyes. A collective intake of breath could be heard around the room and then everything was silent while my mother’s rage grew until I could feel it pouring off her in waves.

“What a strong spirit you have, Ivy,” Thalia broke the charged silence with the backhanded compliment. “No wonder Nix wants to add you to his collection.”

Strangled laughter erupted in Ava and her restrained fury turned her eyes wild. “My daughter? Strong spirit?” more crazed laughter. “You forget that this is the same child that needed to be sent away after her breakup. One broken heart and she’s a mental case! Nix is saving us all from the disaster she brings with her. She is a tragedy waiting to happen. No, Ivy has always been too weak for this world, too weak for anything of worth.”

“Weak?” I choked on the word; it felt vile and repulsive in my mouth. I had survived this long, made it this far with her and with him and she was calling me weak! I felt the presence enter the room behind me and pause in the doorway, but I was too emotionally involved to stop myself now. “No, not weak. I have a soul. That may be a weakness to you, but it is not to me. I have common decency, some f-ing standards and you call that weak! Of course I don’t fit in; I’m trying to be a good person, to be better than this life you force me to live.”

I jumped at the sound of the next voice, even though instinct warned me he would be there.

“It’s not about being a good person, Ivy,” Nix calmly soothed from behind me. I felt his voice grow more placating as he walked into the dining room. Every head swiveled around with mouth agape to stare at him. He was picture perfect in his pressed suit and shiny shoes, but his tie was absent and the top button of his white oxford was undone. He fiddled with one of his cufflinks and then continued, “You should be concerned about my expectations for you, my desire for you. You’re mother’s right, the rest is weakness, not anything else. And definitely a waste of time.”

“What isn’t a waste of time, Nix?” I asked with more contempt than I felt. Not that I didn’t feel hatred but it was being severely overshadowed by fear at the moment.

“Money, Ivy. Money is never a waste of time.” His hands rested on the top of my high-back chair and I straightened out my spine just to keep from shrinking beneath his powerful presence.

“Oh, that’s right. Because money makes the world go round, right Nix?” I held his gaze bravely. As desperately as I wanted to look away from his dark, relentless eyes I wouldn’t allow myself to show the weakness they accused me of.

Nix’s smooth, solid façade cracked at my words, anger flashed in his expression and I felt his grip tighten against the chair all the way down to my toes.

“No, Ivy,” he barked out at me. “I make the world go round. Me! And it would behoove you not to forget that.” He reigned in his temper and smoothed out his features and it was like a tornado had been destroying the room around me and then suddenly sucked through a window. The calm after the storm was as eerie and deadly as the storm itself and I shuddered despite my resolve not to show fear. “Eva, call a cab for Ivy. I want her out of my sight for now.”

With that last command he turned his back on me and stalked from the room. The entire room stayed still even with his absence until Eva finally reached for her cell phone and followed his orders. I had been banished for the rest of the evening. And even though a pit of absolute terror started to grow in my stomach and spread roots to my heart and lungs, I was thankful to be excused from this gathering. If I continued to misbehave like this I knew I would have to face discipline, but I couldn’t stop myself.

I just didn’t want to know what that meant for me.

Chapter Thirty-Two

This time the ride to visit Honor was more tense than normal. My mother hadn’t talked to me since last night at Sloane’s, except to tell me when she was leaving for Honor’s. She hadn’t left it an option to decline, but I didn’t plan on it anyways.

We pulled up to Honor’s and went through the same routine as always. She walked with me to the front door and raised her hand to knock, except at the last minute she pulled back.

“Ivy, I’m not mad at you for last night,” she allowed calmly. “Regardless of how you feel right now, you need to know that I am not your enemy. I am your ally. I have your best interest in mind. If you don’t want to go to Nix, I’m trying to understand that, but then you and I need to work together. Alright?”

I thought over her words for a moment, not really accepting them, but knowing I needed to appear to. She was right in that if worse came to worst she was my only supporter in staying away from Nix.

“Alright, mom,” I conceded. “I’m sorry for my behavior last night and recently. I just, what happened with Sam scared me. And I’m over it now, I really am,” I lied, “But I guess I’m a little…. I don’t know, like gun shy or something. Ok? I’ll try to be better though, I promise.”

“Oh sweetheart, I understand,” she cooed and then drew me into a stiff hug before I could wiggle away from her. “I know you’ll try harder. I know you won’t embarrass me again.”

She gave me an air kiss while I kind of stood there stunned. Eventually she let go of me and turned her attention back to the door. She pressed the doorbell with a long French nail and then waited tranquilly for Smith or one of his assistants to open the door.

It was the assistant this week, a twenty-something woman probably straight out of MBA school. They all clamored to work with Smith, to learn from the master of business. But Smith would only let women work for him. Not because he was some pervy womanizer, but solely to protect his life and Honor. He would never trust a man in his house.

The assistant didn’t say anything to us, just moved out of the way and allowed us to enter. She silently turned on her one inch practical pump and led the way down the hall. Smith’s assistants were generally all the same. Not that he had a type, but mainly because he required a dress code. Hair pulled back tight, pant suit or skirt suit and low heels. They all looked like uniformed flight attendants from the fifties, but I kept my opinion to myself.

In the sitting room, we were alone for a few minutes. My mother made herself at home, flinging herself onto one of the couches and crossing her legs impatiently. I paced around the room nervously. I felt itchy in my skin after the makeup session with my mom outside and anxious for her sudden compulsion to forgive and forget. Was she putting on a show for Smith’s benefit or was this something more sinister? Was Nix doling out the punishment so she felt like she could let go? Or was this really a gesture of maternal instinct, possibly her first one ever?

“Ivy!” Honor squealed from the doorway. She bounded across the space between us and threw herself into my outstretched arms. Whatever nervous energy was there before disappeared with my sister so close and so happy to see me.

“Hey, little one,” I whispered into her hair. “How are you?”

“So good,” she exclaimed and then pulled back from me. She wrapped her long auburn hair around her hand a few times and then lifted it off her neck. She twisted around at the waist until finally I noticed the two blue sapphire studs in her ears.

“Oh my gosh! You got your ears pierced!” I screamed high and loud enough for any eleven year old to be proud of.

“I know!” She was so ecstatic, she dropped her hair and grabbed on to my forearms so we could dance around and shriek at each other.

Honor had wanted her ears pierced forever, for as long as she could talk. Mom pierced mine when I was a baby and so Honor grew up fascinated by the pretty things hanging from my ears. She started bugging Smith about it two years ago. He resisted for, well, since then but something must have happened between last week and this one to get him to cave.

“Let’s see, darling. Come show me,” my mother commanded from her perch on the couch.

Honor stopped jumping around with me immediately and walked over to our mom to show them off. Smith stood in the doorway smiling at me.

“What did she do to convince you?” I asked with a smug smile.

“What didn’t I do?” Honor sighed dramatically and then plopped down next to mom. Ava extended her thin arm across the back of the couch and Honor snuggled right in. I ignored the picture of pure evil wrapped around perfect innocence and tried to school my expression into anything but the disgust I felt.

“She had to receive all A’s this quarter and she volunteered at some of my charitable causes,” Smith explained in his dignified voice. “She had to earn them, but she worked very hard. I am very proud of her.”

“Plus, there’s a dance next weekend,” Honor’s whole face lit up in expectation.

“But we haven’t decided if you will go, Honor,” Smith reminded her with gentle authority.

“Have you been asked by a boy?” It was my mother’s turn to get excited. These were exactly the signs she was looking for, more reason for her to want to possess Honor.

Honor blushed deeply, from the top of her hairline to her ankles. “Yes, but daddy says I can’t go with a boy. If I go to the dance, I’ll just go with friends.”

“What is his name?” my mother pressed, ignoring Smith’s scowl.

“Ava, she’s only eleven. She’s too young for this, do not encourage her.” Smith growled.

Usually Smith and my mom tried to hide their utter hatred for each other, but this would definitely be a volatile issue. My mom kept her easy smile and started to run her fingers through Honor’s hair. It was a soothing motion that she used to do to me when I was a child, her trick to lull me into trusting her. I wouldn’t let her do that with Honor.

“You can’t keep her locked in a tower her whole life, Smith. It’s not like she can’t meet the boy at the dance. If she really wants to go with him, she’ll find a way,” my mother’s smile turned smug. She knew she was planting ideas into Honor’s head.

From the way Smith’s face heated up and his hands clenched viciously, I started to think he knew it too.

“Honor, are those the only earrings you have? Or did Smith let you pick out another pair for when your ears are healed?” I asked quickly.

“Daddy let me pick out two pair,” she gushed. She sat up out of our mother’s arms beaming again.

“Will you show them to me?” I took a step toward her and extended my hand.

She leapt from the couch and attached herself to me. I gave my mother an apologetic smile, but she just waved me out of the room with a roll of the eyes. At the doorway I chanced a glance back at Smith who was looking at me with an unreadable expression. He didn’t hold my gaze though, fury twisted his features and before we were to the staircase Honor and I could hear them arguing heatedly.

Honor’s room was a princess palace. Decorated in all white and soft pink, there was an enormous canopy bed fit for royalty with matching dressers, vanity and night stands. A huge dollhouse took up one entire wall, extending even higher than Honor could reach and another wall displayed floor to ceiling bookcases with a moving ladder connected to the ceiling. Smith seriously spoiled his little girl.

But she was so lucky to have her father.

Fate balanced life out for her in this way. Because as lucky as she was to have Smith,

she was equally unlucky to have our mother.

So what did Fate give me? Where was my equalizer?

Or maybe I didn’t get one. Maybe life stepped in and decided a balance wouldn’t have done any good. I would be this same rotten, black-hearted witch with or without a representative from the good side.

“Is it because Tyler asked me out?” she whispered when the door closed behind us. The earrings were forgotten in the wake of the crestfallen expression painting her face.

“No, absolutely not,” I rushed to pull her into a hug. “They don’t agree, that’s all. It has nothing to do with you. I promise.”

“But it does have something to do with me,” she whimpered.

“No, it doesn’t, sweet pea. Your father loves you very much is all and he just wants to protect you. And mom…. Mom doesn’t always know what’s best for you, Honor. She sometimes…. sometimes she wants bad things for you.”

This was the most honest I’d ever been with my little sister. She was too young to see the evil creature that was Ava Pierce, and I didn’t want her to end up resenting me or Smith because I pushed her too hard. And now I wondered if I had made a mistake when she looked up at me with shimmering eyes and a deflated expression.

“Does she want bad things for you too?” Honor whispered, the horror in her face making her green eyes shine with tears.

I was momentarily stunned. Maybe Honor was more perceptive than I gave her credit for. Not really knowing how to respond, I just hugged her tighter and said, “Hey, don’t worry about me, Ok? I’m just fine. It’s you we have to worry about. With these newly pierced ears Tyler’s not the only boy we’re going to have to worry about.”

I regretted the words as soon as they left my lips.