Fraud (Antihero Inferno #2) - Lily White Page 0,147

it takes. Knives. Guns. Nuclear warheads. A fucking lion I abduct from the Sahara that I feed you to after chopping you up in tiny pieces. You will all die when I get out of these.”

They stare at me silently, their faces red from trying not to laugh, their lips a thin line. It isn’t until the single fucking chicken in the room clucks again that they lose their shit and can’t hold it in anymore.

To my right, the feathered fucker walks around with a little head bob like it’s dancing in place, my fingers clenching the cuffs as a fake smile stretches my cheeks.

With as smooth a voice as I can manage, I lock my eyes on Ivy. “Where do you keep getting the chickens from, love? You never have told me.”

Tears are leaking from her eyes, Tanner and Ezra no better where they stand on either side of her.

They teamed up against me, I realize, and there will be hell to pay.

Tapping Ivy on the shoulder, Ezra turns to leave the room, Tanner walking out behind him, leaving me with a soon to be dead beautiful blonde and a single fucking chicken.

“Why?”

“Why what?” she asks as she wipes a tear from her cheek.

“Why chickens?”

She glances left and starts laughing again.

“Oh, that was Tanner’s idea.”

His death will be the worst of them.

I shake my arms to rattle my chains. “And this is for?”

Eyes lifting to look at the cuffs on my wrists, the corner of Ivy’s mouth pulls into a smirk before she meets my stare again.

“That’s to keep you in place,” she explains.

“For?”

The smirk transitions into the saccharine grin that has always driven me insane.

“For the discussion we’re about to have.”

Interesting choice of words...

I smile back. “And what discussion is that?”

Silence falls for a few seconds, the tension between us interrupted by a single cluck.

“The discussion where you finally drop all your bullshit and tell me the truth.”

She takes a step toward me, but stops several feet away. “The discussion where you admit you haven’t been using me and that you only said that because you blame yourself for what my dad did.”

Our eyes dance together, hers a shimmering blue that has haunted my dreams since the day I met her.

My voice is soft when I answer, “It might be kind of hard to have that discussion with a chicken in the room.”

Her smile fades, and her expression becomes serious.

“Then try your best, Gabriel. Because if the discussion doesn’t happen today, I can’t promise you we’ll see each other again.”

I don’t like the look she’s giving me. I also don’t like how my heart is in my feet, my pulse a heavy beat that feels like a funeral march.

Letting her go would be a stupid mistake. One of the worst I’ve ever made. And after what I said to her father, after realizing that the only person I’ve been lying to this entire time is myself, the last thing I need to do is make a decision I’ll regret.

“Fine, Ivy. We’ll talk. But what the hell is there to say?”

Ivy

I’ll admit this is a little ridiculous. While Ezra and I knew we were cornering Gabriel so I could force this conversation, Tanner had to be convinced in another way.

Ezra lied and said we were playing a simple prank, and it was actually Tanner’s idea to involve the chickens. I hadn’t lied to Gabe about that.

But the lie had been enough to get a key to Gabriel’s house and also enough for Tanner to help lock him in place. He just didn’t understand the truth of why he was doing it.

Now that I’m staring at Gabriel, his green eyes unguarded and his mask slipping off, I’m suddenly afraid of what he might say.

Still, this conversation needs to happen. I need to know. Because there’s no point in sticking around and pretending this can work if it can’t. But there’s also no point in walking away just because a man who has been hiding his entire life chose to pull the mask into place one more time in order to hide his fears.

“You can start by being honest with me. For once...or again, I should say. You already promised to do that before and failed miserably.”

He blinks slowly, his tongue moving against his top teeth so that his lip bulges out.

Above him, the chains rattle lightly, and I fight not to laugh at how insane this is, but if it keeps him in place and prevents him from running, it’s