Page 237 of Boys Who Hunt

“She destroyed our family. And you gave her a pass.”

My gaze fixates on Ivy, who desperately tries to speak, but her throat seems to have been clamped shut by all the pain she’s had to endure from whatever this fucker did to her.

I home in on her face to try to decipher what she wants, but then I realize her earpieces are missing.

Fuck.

Ivy

I’ve only just wokenup after being flung headfirst into the oven, and I don’t know how much time has passed since the lights went out in my head.

But my God … It hurts. It hurts so much that I can’t even move without feeling pain all over my body.

Hedid this.

Stefano hurt me as retribution for taking Cora away from him. And this is only the beginning of all the cruel punishments he still plans to inflict on me.

This is what he does best. What makes him feel powerful. Superior. Like a walking god on this goddamn forsaken earth.

“Please …” I squeak, but my voice box is completely broken from the amount of pressure he put on my throat.

I can’t speak. I can’t hear.

All I see are body parts and lips moving, but with hazy sight, I can barely make out what they’re trying to say. Lip-reading is hard when you’ve just gotten your consciousness back.

My head throbs, and I try to make out what they’re trying to say, but I only catch a couple of words.

Cora. Thief. Killer.

Silas

“See?She is not who she’s made herself out to be,” Stefano says, ignoring Ivy. He takes in a breath, his finger still hovering over the button on his phone like a threat.

And I contemplate shooting him right there and then, but if I do … his fucking thumb might still hit that button, and then it’ll all have been for nothing.

“Come with me. I’ll show you the proof if you don’t believe me,” Stefano says, walking out the second door in the kitchen.

“Proof of what?” Heath asks.

The only reason we follow him at all is because of that phone in his hand.

“Wait, you guys,” Max says. “I think Ivy was trying to tell us s—”

He abruptly stops speaking. In the bedroom across the hallway, an extremely pale woman lies in a bed, along with the machines next to her body, which are deadly silent.

“Ivy unplugged my wife from this machine that kept her alive after she stole my child.”

Heath shakes his head like he can’t believe what he’s hearing.

“It’s true,” Stefano says. “This is the proof.”

“Why would I believe you?” I growl.

“Why would I kill my own wife?” he says, grabbing her hand to kiss it. “I loved her.”

I turn to look at Ivy again, who continues mouthing words without saying them out loud as if her voice box has stopped functioning.

I don’t know what she’s trying to say, and it pisses me off.