“Because you’re coming here in a…in a goddamn parade! They’ll know it was you.”
The expression on his face tells me he isn’t impressed with my reason. “He’s a prick.”
Prick is an understatement. He’s a genuinely horrible human being. I can’t really argue with the fact that he deserves to be dead. After the way he treated my mother, and me, and countless other people at Harmony Hills… he’s like a dictator. And not the benevolent kind.
Except the thought of seeing him hurt sends ice through my veins. Before I would have said it’s because my mother cares about him, but now that can’t be my reason. So I have to concede that…I care about him. Not really. Not where it counts. My brain knows I don’t care about him, that he’s nothing. Less than nothing. But there’s a muscle memory in my heart, an old lesson drilled into me, never to be
forgotten.
And I hate that. I hate the way he managed to condition me. I hate the way Ivan conditions me. “You just can’t, okay? You can’t kill someone because they’re a prick. What kind of logic is that?”
He gives me a warning look.
Which naturally I ignore. “And you can’t just…you can’t just keep people because you want to. We aren’t animals.”
“Do you really want to do this now?” he asks, even though he clearly thinks he knows the answer. Of course he thinks that.
And fuck, he’s right. I don’t want to do this now, but I want to think about where we’re going even less. I want to think about my mother and what she sacrificed, what she lost, even less. “You don’t control me,” I tell him.
Then the worst thing happens. He smiles, a little wry. Definitely amused. “Believe me, Candy, I know that. I think everyone who’s ever met you knows that.”
Now he’s just patronizing me. Everyone who’s ever met me knows exactly the opposite. Even Lola assumed I was fucking the boss until I told her otherwise. “You know what, Ivan? You can kiss my ass.”
“Maybe I will.”
God. Everything is so fucking easy for him.
Except one thing. “Excuse me if I’m a little stressed out,” I tell him, using the words like venom. “I’m going back to where I grew up, to the place I never thought I’d see again. But then maybe you don’t know what that’s like.”
He goes deathly still.
Like I’m on a suicide mission, I finish roughly, “You’re the one too afraid to go home.”
His amusement evaporates. “Is that so?”
I’m practically shaking. It’s too much. My mother’s death. Seeing Leader Allen again. Coming back to the place of my birth, my home for the first sixteen years of my life. “Enough with the fucking rhetorical questions. Yes, that is so. You act all tough and fearless, but inside you’re just as scared as me. And if you think I’m going to let you spank me because I’m telling you the truth, then I suggest you go ahead and try!”
Immediately I realize that the divider separating the front and back is down. Which means Luca and the other guard in front can hear what we’re saying. Shit.
Ivan looks furious, and I half expect him to accept my challenge. He’ll try to spank me, I’ll fight him—and he’ll win. Of course he’ll win. Then I’ll be spanked in the back of the limo, with an audience. I’ll show up at Harmony Hills with my ass red and my eyes puffy from crying.
It would almost be a relief to cry right now, to be able to cry. I want that, but I don’t want to show up in front of Leader Allen with that kind of weakness. It would only make him more likely to pounce.
Ivan leans forward. His voice is low, but I have no doubt he can still be heard over the gentle whoosh of the air-conditioning. “If we were at home I would put you in a diaper since you insist on acting like a baby. But since we’re not, you can sit on the floor.”
I hiss at him, shocked and weirdly turned on by his threat. Even in the midst of a tantrum, I know it isn’t the way to convince him I’m grown up. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Now, Candy.”
I stare at the carpeted floor. It’s probably just as comfortable as the seats. And definitely more comfortable than a concrete corner in the basement of the Grand. But still. It’s the principle of the thing.
“It’s not safe.”
His gaze flickers over me. “Because there’s no seat belt?”
Of course he’s already seen that I’m not wearing a seatbelt. “I’m not doing it.”
I expect Ivan to grow enraged at my response, but instead it seems to relax him. So it’s a surprise when his fist closes in my hair. He barely has to move his body. Just a twist of his wrist has me sliding off the seat, legs folding underneath me as he forces me to the floor.