Was Ivery spy all along?

**Ivery Clark POV** 

The words hit me like a slap across the face. My breath caught, my chest tightening painfully as I stared at Alrigo in disbelief. 

“A spy?” I whispered, the accusation slicing through me like a blade. "You think I'm a spy?"

"Why? Are you not? Of course it makes sense now,” he said, his voice dripping with cold realization. “You were perfect. The soft-spoken stranger… the timid woman in the restroom, at the auction. So lost. So desperate. I even… ” He trailed off, a flash of pain crossing his face before it was smothered by fury.

"Is this why you approached me? Is this why you came into my world? To kill me?” He stepped closer, his imposing frame towering over mine. His eyes darkened into an abyss, a vortex of hurt and anger I didn’t recognize.

“You’ve been playing me this whole time.” His usually composed facade cracked.

"You..." he started, his voice low and laced with venom, though it cracked at the edges, betraying the storm beneath. 

"You played me mercilessly…and I fell for it?" he said, the words biting and bitter, as though speaking them aloud was torture.

“No!” I shouted, shaking my head as I backed away. “I didn’t know—I swear, Alrigo! I didn’t know anything!”

His lips curled into a bitter sneer. “Convenient lies. Very convenient lies. You stumble into my life, play the victim, and then conveniently your brother—who just happens to work for the gang that wants me dead—shows up? Tell me, Ivery, was any of it real? Were you real?”

Alrigo’s hand trembled slightly as he pinched the bridge of his nose, his chest rising and falling in ragged breaths. 

It wasn’t anger at this point—not entirely. It was something far heavier. The look of betrayal clawed at him, more visceral than any bullet he’d ever taken. 

“Was that your plan all along?” His voice rose, sharper now, harsher, his pain bleeding through with every word. “To worm your way in? To make me… make me trust you? Make me care for you?”

Tears blurred my vision, my throat tightened, and I struggled to breathe through the tidal wave of emotions crashing through me.

"You…how can you even say that to me?” My hands trembled, clutching at my chest as if it could keep my heart from shattering under his accusations.

“How can I not?” he snarled, his voice raising, sharp enough to cut. 

His broad shoulders tensed, and he turned to pace for a moment, as if he couldn’t bear to look at me. 

When he swung back, his lips curled in a dark, sardonic smile, so foreign on the man I thought I’d begun to understand.

"Too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say? You stayed. Attached yourself to my life, to me. Making me believe—" 

He didn’t answer immediately. His silence screamed louder than any words, and my heart twisted painfully. When he finally spoke, his words were cold, damning.

“That you were different. But I guess I was a fool all along.”

The crack in his voice wasn’t enough to shatter the weight of his accusation.

"I swear to you, I didn’t know. Rowan never told me anything." I shot back, my voice stronger now, my heart screaming for him to understand. “Yes, he’s made mistakes, but that doesn’t mean I knew anything. I didn’t even know he was here until today. You have to believe me—”

“Believe you?” Alrigo scoffed, the sound dark and mocking as his lips twisted into a cold, humorless smirk. He leaned closer, his voice dropping to a dangerously soft whisper. “Why should I believe you, ma bella? Tell me.”

“Tell me why are you kneeling before me for his life, who came to kill me?” Alrigo hissed, his voice dropping to a sinister murmur, the kind that raised the hair on the back of my neck. “Don't tell me you think you could bat your pretty lashes and convince me to do any fucking thing you want?”

"Do you take me for a fool to trust the word of a girl who shares blood with the boy who tried to kill me?”

His words struck me like a blow, and for the first time, I couldn’t respond. Words felt futile against the tidal wave of his wrath.

"“You… you don’t trust me,” I said, barely above a whisper, my heart breaking at the realization. “After everything, you think I…” I trailed off, shaking my head as tears brimmed in my eyes.

Alrigo’s gaze didn’t soften. If anything, it grew sharper, colder. “Trust is earned, Ivery,” he said, his voice low and cutting. “And you’ve just given me every reason not to.”

How can he be so cruel?

The crushing weight of his doubt, the venom in his tone, was too much to bear. I could barely breathe under the pain of his accusations. But I couldn’t stop now—not if there was still a sliver of hope, as fragile as it was.

Tears welled in my eyes, blurring the edges. “Please, Alrigo…” My voice was faint, desperate, pleading for a lifeline. For mercy.

But he only smirked darkly, his lips twisting like venom dripping from a wound. “Don’t beg, amore mio. It doesn’t suit you. Actions will speak louder than tears.” He tilted his head toward the figure across from me—Rowan. My brother. Bound. Bloodied. 

"Fine, I'll give you to prove your loyalty to me." Alrigo stepped forward, the crunch of gravel beneath his shoes the only sound against the hum of tension strangling the air. 

The steel of the gun shone as he turned it in his hand—slow, deliberate—before holding it out to me. 

“Take it,” he said, his voice quiet, but far more dangerous than a shout.

I didn’t move.

“Take the gun, Ivery.”

My breath caught as I looked at the weapon, his demand heavy in the charged space between us. “W-What are you—?

“Shoot him.”

It wasn’t a request. It was a command—merciless and immovable.

The words struck me like lightning, and my heart thrashed against my ribs, a frenzied rhythm of terror and disbelief. I stared at him, my lips parting but no sound leaving me. 

"What?" 

“You either choose me or him.” Alrigo’s voice, low and smooth, was cruelly calm—a knife hidden in silk. His eyes bore into me, cold and unrelenting.

There was no softness, no shred of the man I’d once glimpsed behind the mask. Only the predator—only the Mafia Lord, staring me down like I was nothing more than a game to be won. 

"Show me your loyalty. Prove you aren’t lying."