Page 44 of Ivy’s Poison

Cue puckered lips, puckering even more so. “You have no right to ‘re-kidnap’ me just because you feel like it, Neanderthal.”

“It wasn’t a choice. No one is hurting you ever again. Sue me.”

She sat back and crossed her arms. “You just have a plan for everything, don’t you, smart ass?” Her eyes went wide before slowly leaning forward. “Oh, shit… You do, don’t you?”

“I had to make a few adjustments after I learned who Stain’s daughter was.” To send my message home, I winked at her.

After receiving my assignment from Arthur, research had me suspecting he wanted the President removed due to his powerful reach becoming too far and wide. There’s a proper balance in the jungle of criminals. Young up-n-comers had to be kept in line or they’d cause havoc. Arthur tended to like order in the underworld in plain sight. Stain was overreaching, crossing boundaries he didn’t even know he had.

Welcome to the big leagues.

How do you take down a highly functioning organization? You feed it a plague and let it self-destruct.

There is a dangerous illusion in power. It’s the belief that you’re in control. Sister Mary taught me that ‘control’ is a façade of the imagination. She said, “If you can see through the mirage, you can always find your way home. Now, if you learn to help guide the mirage, you can make home wherever you want.”

I think the hidden message was one Arthur also understood, and that’s why he knew Jade was his secret weapon. Once his intel had him suspecting I was the biological father, he gave me permission to start planting roots, knowing it would eventually have me craving a family. Then, to really set my unconscious desires to be a father into high gear, he had sent me on a job to bring justice to a little girl who had no one to protect her.

In order to be sure the job was done right, I had to bring down Stain’s empire. So, I set up a well-thought-out mirage of my own, that was set in motion within forty-eight hours after I opened that encrypted email that changed my life.

I had thought all the work I put into this assignment had been shot to hell when I saw Ivy at that bar and learned she was actually Ivana, Stain’s daughter. Stain had become untouchable due to the fear he instilled. So, my plague of choice was to prove him weak. By that night at the bar, four attempts of abduction had already been made on Ivana without her knowing. The abductors weren’t successful because they weren’t designed to be.

Another law of the jungle? No animal outright attacks a larger, more dangerous animal, unless he thinks he can succeed. I merely put an anonymous bounty on her head. Whoever delivered her first, unharmed, to a disclosed location, was going to receive a million dollars.

If dumbasses, the ones I tempted to double-cross Stain with, weren’t afraid of repercussions, I knew other organizations, larger ones, would take notice. I knew that plague would spread and cause rumors of Stain’s newfound, yet extremely appreciated, weakness. Stain was smart enough to know this, too, hence getting his daughter out of town on an unscheduled departure. Not to protect her, only his reputation. He sent his twin in the opposite direction as a decoy, even catching me off guard.

Stain was celebrating his victory that night, clueless his daughter wasn’t in the bathroom and that his true danger was literally fucking her in the alley. But it seemed the Devil was to have the last laugh that night when I met my daughter. Just as Arthur had hoped, I accepted the invitation inside the heavily guarded compound to get the intel he needed. Stain wasn’t a ghost.

During my interrogation, when the alarms were being triggered, it wasn’t Kay and Gawain that were setting them off. It was more hired abductors trying to win the bounty on Ivy—the woman winning my heart.

Fucking Devil.

So, yeah, knowing she was under heavy guard at the compound, I recanted my bounty. Once healed, I kidnapped her my damn self. In the hotel room, I had told her I was going to use her as bait, failing to mention I already had been.

Now, with my new family safe, I had two jobs to complete: Arthur’s assignment and Ivy’s protection.

Rumors of Stain’s daughter disappearing without a trace was spreading like a mad disease with no cure. This, in itself, was a death sentence to a criminal career. While Stain chased my false lead into California, I kept weakening his stance—his hold on others. His ego had him chasing his own tail while I worked my connections in the industry. Showing that the prez couldn’t even care for his own investment, the daughter he sold on a regular basis, made longstanding business partners, for things from such as weapons and cocaine, a little apprehensive to continue any ongoing arrangements. It’s amazing how shipments can get “lost” when people no longer trust you.

And, that shit keeps rolling downhill.

If your shipments are no longer arriving, your buyers get antsy because now their customers are about to make purchases elsewhere. I was making a complete mockery of all Stain, his brother, and their forefathers had ever built.

All for the love of a woman.

Stain tried to snuff out the damage by claiming his daughter was being held by an enemy of his chapter. He set a reward and promised loyalty for her safe return. I was prepared for that, too. All I needed was a few cell phone numbers of interested parties, so I cashed in favors, used many connections, and connections of other assassin brothers, then let the power of a shared video do all the talking.

Every time Ivy opened another package, one of the many due to the money I gave her to redecorate, I would video her. Nothing says, “I’m lying about my daughter” than a video of her celebrating being spoiled. Plus, attached to the texted videos, I used the hashtags #MyDadIsALyingDweeb, #ImAliveAndShopping, and #MyBoyfriendsDickIsBiggerThanYours just because taunting the daughter-selling asshole was too rewarding to pass up.

Knowing this beef wasn’t theirs, criminals chose to bow out of the chance for the reward and also shared the video with other “interested” parties.

Was it dangerous? Fuck yes. But Ivy is the daughter of the leader of a deadly gang. How was she ever going to have a life if I didn’t make a really strong statement? Stay the fuck away from her. If I was willing to take on Stain, I definitely had the balls to take down the rest of them.

Of course, Stain countered with claims of my videos being older and stolen. He was trying to bait me to show my identity. Not happening, fucker. Ivy questioned when I took her to a Walmart and posed her in front of an eighty-inch flat screen TV. What I was truly capturing was the sale happening on the same day I sent out the pic. I wasn’t dumb enough to use a newspaper for proof of life. And there are Walmarts everywhere.

When I got wind of Stain’s new Hit, his daughter’s death for hard cash, I revealed the twin secret then had Tristan blow up the compound. There were casualties. Maybe I’m cold, but I didn’t care who perished from that hellhole. All of those men took more than one swing at me while I was defenseless. And for what? Killing a sick fuck? Well, fuck them. May they all rot in hell.

At the dining table, a place I’m not to clean my blades, Jade was in her high chair devouring crunched up tacos. She was licking sour cream and cheese from her little fingers as if they were ice-cream cones. She even offered me one, which I took, pretending to gobble her up, too, which caused howls of laughter from the sweetest breathing lungs in the world.

Beth tossed her napkin on the table. “All right. That’s it. Champ, you’ve been re-hiding knives all over this place, and now you’ve only had seven tacos. What’s wrong?”