What’s she doing?
I move from my Ivy files and step closer to the window, seeing that Ivy veered from her usual routine of Trini, yoga, and reading. I watch as she makes her way past the east lawns and down to the lake.
I check my watch. By now, she should be elbow-deep in a Trini cooking lesson. Instead, she’s traipsing through the tall grasses, making her way to the only hillside with no camera coverage.
I flick away my one working brain cell that should be sending a message to Hunter to check it out. Instead, I do the worst thing possible. I stalk her.
I know, I know. Once is chance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is a pattern that’s considered a Class 4 felony by the great state of Illinois and is punishable by one to three years in prison and up to a $25,000 fine.
Whatever.
I don’t know what it is about Ivy. Half the time, I want to protect her. Half the time, I want to interrogate her. And half the time, I want to slam her up against the nearest wall and fuck her into next week. And, yes, I’m painfully aware that Ivy Palmer has driven me to a world where it takes three halves to wrap my head, heart, and dick around every aspect of her.
She ambles along the path, losing herself in all the wonders of a bright, sunny day, oblivious that I’m keeping pace thirty feet behind her.
I shed my jacket. Between the unusually hot day and high humidity, I’m sweating my balls off during what’s become a two-mile hike. I’d almost think Ivy was heading to the largest pond on the property for a refreshing swim except she doesn’t swim. I’m both intrigued and suspicious.
In many ways, I’ve overlooked the beauty of the property. It’s not that I don’t see the lush gardens and serene backdrop that canvas the estate. I’m usually preoccupied with monitoring it. Surveillance. Wide range proximity detectors, 1080 resolution cameras with infrared LED night vision, and listening devices that can detect a fart from a fly from 900 feet away.
I know better than anyone, that when you're on the D'Angelo estate, privacy is as real as a tea party with the Tooth Fairy. No doubt, my men are watching me. Monitoring my every move as I monitor every move of Ivy’s.
So, why am I following her?
Because over the expanse of the hundred-acre estate, there’s one blind spot. The lake on the east lawns. And Ivy’s heading straight for it.
It would be so easy to believe Ivy is the sweet, southern girl she portrays herself to be. But what if she isn’t? What if she’s a conniving con artist—covering every secret and lie like a blanket of wildflowers over a steaming pile of manure.
When Ivy disappears over the hill, I hurry to catch up. She meanders toward the old, creaky dock that I’m not entirely sure will hold her weight. There's a wooden tackle shed that has seen better days, and my curiosity is piqued when she opens it.
The shed has to be at least a quarter of a century old, withered and dilapidated. There are no plans to replace or remove it. Antonio D’Angelo built it with his bare hands and the hands of every one of his children—a three-dimensional model of family at its finest.
I’ve heard the stories of their lazy Sundays at the lake. Enzo and Dante competing to see who could dive the best or swim the fastest. Mateo torturing Trinity, chasing her with wriggly worms. Dillon capturing everything in photos and video. And Smoke…fishing with his father—wanting to do and be everything he was.
So, why is Ivy here?
Ivy fights with the rickety door before wrestling free a fishing rod. The bass pro enthusiast in me cringes as she drags the tip along the ground.
She moseys to the end of the dock, kicks off her shoes, and sits, letting her feet swing aimlessly in the water as she casts her line. Content to have scared off every fish for miles with her careless foot dangling, she pulls out a large book and proceeds to read.
“Rookie mistake,” I say as I loosen my tie and roll up my sleeves.
She looks back, rolls her eyes, and flips the page. “I’m not hoping to snag a blue marlin. Just enjoying some alone time.”
Hint of the century.
I remove my shoes and socks, pull up my pant legs, and sink into the soft grass and damp soil. She snaps her book shut, annoyed. “What are you doing?”
Blades of grass are damp and cool under my feet. “You’re fishing expedition is missing something.” My fingers bore into a particularly moist spot of ground, unearthing a prize worm in no time. I dangle it proudly.
She winces in disgust. “Ewww.”
I move to the dock and sequester her fishing pole to properly bait the rusted hook.
“I know how to bait a hook,” she says, underwhelmed.
“I'm sure you do,” I say, sardonic as shit. “By the way you were using the pole to scribe your name into the deck, I can see you’re a real natural.” I finish and hand her back the pole. She accepts it with a frown. “What?” I ask.
Her words are timid. “I didn’t really want to fish.”
I scratch my head. “Then why did you risk a tetanus infection to get the fishing pole?”
“Trinity told me the family used to come out here on Sundays. It sounded…” She trails off, nibbling the uncertainty from her lower lip.
“Like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life?” I ask, taking charge of the pole again and casting the line far into the lake.
She shrugs and hugs her knees to her chest. “I wish I could go back in time. For just one second, see them—all of them—at their happiest.”
Her statement squeezes my heart—what little of it I have. Somehow, I’m not surprised by Ivy’s sincerity. There’s a closeness she has with the family. One that rivals my own. It’s the reason they’ve fallen for her.
The reason I fall for her…over and over again.
For a while, we sit in silence, me with my fishing line, her with her book. It's not awkward or standoffish. It's peaceful. Maybe my first taste of peace in years.
I look out on the gentle, rippling water as it leads to a forest of sycamores in the distance. I've mapped every square inch of this land. I know every building. Every hillside. Every lake. Every camera, sensor, and motion detector. But in all the years I've memorized the landscape, I'm not sure I've ever looked out and simply enjoyed it.
Ivy breaks the silence with a question. “What’s your greatest fear?”
I puff air into my cheeks. “That’s easy. That I won’t be able to protect the people closest to me.”
“You can’t control everything. Even Superman can’t save everyone.”
“The man was faster than a speeding bullet, could fly, had x-ray vision, and was made of steel. If he couldn’t save everyone, the fucker was just lazy.”
Amused, her mouth falls open, and I try not to stare at her lips. “Superpowers don’t exist. I keep my wits about me. Stay focused. I do what I do best by leaving my fears, doubts, and heart at the door.”
Her eyes move to mine. She studies me for a long beat. “And what is it that you do best?”
Her tone isn’t suggestive. She genuinely wants to know. I hold back my knee-jerk reply of plowing to the center of your vagina, and answer her question. “Protecting the D’Angelos.” She nods half-heartedly as her smile wanes. I ask her original question back to her. “What about you? What’s your greatest fear?”
She pauses for a long stretch.
I encourage her. “It can be anything. Spiders. Men with horrendous breath. Tiny penises. Lay it on me. I won’t judge.”
Thoughtfully, she answers. “I’m afraid when people get to know me, they’ll reject me.”
Her words are jagged arrows, cutting straight to my heart. “Ivy, I’m sorry about what happened between us.”
She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t mean you.”
“Ouch,” I exclaim, grabbing my chest as if wounded.
Her shoulder bumps mine as she laughs. “I mean…I found out I have a family. On my father’s side. A family that, up until a month ago, I had no idea existed.”
There’s something she’s leaving unsaid. I speculate the reason for her frown. “Let me guess. They have no idea you exist.”
She nods. “I want to get to know them. And I want them to get to know me. Does that make me selfish?”
“I’d call it cautious.”
“They’re very…private. And I know me showing up out of the blue would be a shock.” She faces me. “What would you do? If you knew you had a family out there, but you weren’t sure they’d accept you?”
I rub my neck, thinking it over. “I’d probably do what I always do. Investigate. Observe. Strike when I think the time is right.” Her nod is slight, but my words do little to console her. “A wise man recently told me you can’t be all things to all people. The ones who matter most will always love you.”
“Using my words against me.”
“It’s what I do.”
She’s quiet again, turning her attention back to her book. I pretend not to notice the title, The Psychology of Pain, and look off into the distance. “What’s that you’re reading?” I ask casually.
“Nothing. Just an old textbook.”
I recast my line. “A no-kidding hardback textbook. They still make those? Who knew?”
I can feel her smile. “I found it at a local bookstore.”
“A little light reading?”
Her posture straightens. “I’ve always wanted to help people.”
“Is that why you became a caretaker?” She gives me a cross-eyed glance. “It was on your resume.” And I’ve been investigating her like the discovery of a yeti is at stake, but that’s neither here nor there.
“I sort of fell into that when my mom became sick. Traded services for her care.”
“I didn’t know anyone worked on the barter system.”
“I needed my mom taken care of, and they needed someone willing to work nights, weekends, and holidays for pennies on the dollar and tip money in the form of Coca-Cola. Win-win.”
“Hopefully, employment with the D’Angelos is a little more appealing.”
“A little.” A reflection of sunbeams lights up her face as she smiles. “In some ways, I feel like I was always meant to meet Trinity. Like every step of my journey was leading me to help her. But…” she trails off.
“But what?”
“When Trinity and I talk, I feel helpless. I want to do more.” She flips another page in her book. “Each page gives me hope that I can.”
It’s clear that Ivy is hard on herself. “Hey.” I wait until her eyes meet mine. “You’ve done more in a few short weeks than we’ve been able to do in years. What you’ve achieved is extraordinary.” Ivy smiles, and the wider it grows, the more the iceberg wrapped around my heart melts. I lean in. “It’s little wonder that the family wants you at Erede al Trono.”
Her sigh is heavy. “Smoke invited me, but I feel like it's something too important. Like maybe I'm overstepping. I—” She cuts herself short. And I'm not in a hurry to hear what she has to say. I slowly reel in the line and set the pole aside, patient as I wait for Ivy to release whatever’s swimming around her beautiful mind.
Instead of sharing more with me, she changes the subject. “In your line of work, you probably have to keep information to yourself. Carry so many secrets inside you, you find it hard to breathe.”
“Sometimes,” I say, wondering where she’s going with this.
“Does it tear you up? Not being able to tell all of the truth all the time?”
I swallow my hesitation. “There's a fine line between protecting the interests of others and withholding the truth. It isn't that I don't want to share. When I was a SEAL, I had a lot of secrets. Where I was. What I was doing. How long I'd be gone. But if I shared any of that with anyone, no matter how trustworthy, my men, my mission, and my own life were at risk. Maybe even the person I shared the information with.” I don't look at her when I ask, “If you need to run something by me, or unload what’s weighing on your mind, I’m a vault, Ivy. Your secrets are safe with me.”
It's the first real lie I’ve told Ivy. If she reveals something—anything—that pits her against the D’Angelos, I will assume my role as the enforcer.
Like tearing the wings from a butterfly, my punishment will be swift and unforgiving.
I swallow the lump of guilt forged in my throat, moving my hand to hers. I need her to trust me. Almost as much as I need to keep touching the warm softness of her skin.
She stares aimlessly across the lake, and I push her a little. Just to test the waters.
“Is there something you need to get off your chest?”
Her shoulders slump in defeat. “It has to do with my future here. If I have a future here.”
Her cryptic little riddle disturbs me. I turn to give her my undivided attention and to ensure I have hers. “What do you mean?”
Her head shakes slowly.
Did Smoke say something to her? Or Trinity?
Again, she says nothing. The devil on one shoulder has no patience for this and is ready to interrogate her. The annoying angel on the other coaxes me to give her time. I flick that fucker away like a bug.
She needs to open up.
“I’m listening,” I say from out of nowhere, repeating the very words therapists have hurled at me year after year.
They’d have better luck cracking open a bank vault with a vibrator.
When her big, brown eyes turn to mine, I know she’s about to say it. Whatever secrets she’s held captive have outgrown their cage, wild and edgy and eager to escape.
Ivy’s show and tell time shouldn’t mean more to me than the sum of the information. She is a Pez dispenser, relaying some precious nugget of intel that I’ll chew up and spit out into one of three categories: important to her, important to her and me, or important to her, me, and the D’Angelos.
But the longer she takes, the more my chest tightens with discomfort. It’s important to her. Really, really important to her. And she’s sharing it with me. It shouldn’t mean anything to me, but it does. I want this to be the first of many secrets she shares. Her dreams. Her hopes. Her desires.
Her lips begin to part. “I—”
“I hope I'm not interrupting,” Hunter says from out of fucking nowhere. I swear to God, the man has goddamned cat feet.
And yes, he was interrupting, and at the worst possible time. Annoyed, I scowl at him the second Ivy scoots away. And his Hollywood dimple isn’t helping his cause. “What?” I seethe.
“There's something we found. You need to take a look at it.”
Ivy hops to her feet, using Hunter’s piss-poor timing as an excuse to flee. “I need to get back,” she says, clinging to her book, composure, and secrets as she rounds the hill and disappears from sight.
I narrow my eyes. “Look, when I said stay close, I didn't mean when I’m—”
“Canoodling?” he says, smirking. My death glare wipes the dimple from his face. He clears his throat.
I ignore his comment. “What do you have?”
He hands me a shriveled piece of paper that once passed as a photograph.
“What the hell is this?”
“A photograph of Antonio D’Angelo.”
I inspect the front and back. It takes me a minute to realize that the face beneath the muck is indeed Antonio D'Angelo. A much younger version, but unmistakable with his big, blue eyes and square jaw. “Where did you find it?”
“Not too far from the location we found Trinity's phone the night she went missing.” My jaw tightens. I hate that it happened. Trinity was missing for two hours on my watch. And it killed me.
I think about that night, and I hate this more. The Ivy factor. Losing Trinity was fleeting. Losing Ivy was everything. I barricaded my heart against her that night because I have a job to do.
I examine the small photo, wondering how it ever managed to survive a thunderstorm. It’s beginning to yellow. How old is it?
The mud is caked hard onto it. “Is this a tire mark?” I ask.
“Yes, sir,” Hunter replies. “It, uh, must have been run over by an ATV.”
That would be my ATV. The one I used on my frantic search for Trinity that night. No matter. “I'll take care of it.”
He nods. “There’s something else. Ivy has received eight more contact attempts. All from the numbers on the list you had.”
I breathe a long exhale through my nose. “And?”
“And nothing. She hasn’t answered a single one. If they call or text more than once, she blocks them.”
I play with the photo, deep in thought. Why is Andre trying to contact Ivy? And why isn’t she answering? Is she returning his calls and texts another way?
My nail digs into a smudge of mud from around Antonio’s face, snagging off a small bit of the photo in the process. “Shit,” I huff.
“Did you hear me?” Hunter asks.
“Of course, I heard you.” My words are even. “He calls. She ghosts. What else?”
“Maybe I could get you more if I had more men on my team.”
We engage in a small stare-off. The son of a bitch is right. He can’t watch Ivy 24/7. At some point, he has to eat, sleep, and pee. Like an infant. “Fine. One more.”
“Two,” he counters like it’s a fucking debate.
“Two. For one week. And I want results.” I hand him back the photo before I destroy it any further. “And get Sam on this.”
“The counterfeiter?”
“Photo restorationist,” I correct him. “Same timeline. One week.”