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I didn’t know how much Ivy knew about Sasha’s brother, and while I didn’t see the problem in it, I didn’t want to upset the balance between Sasha and Ivy by spilling secrets Sasha might want kept.
“What happened to her?”
I sighed. I should have known that Ivy wasn’t going to let up. She wasn’t the type of woman who strayed from uncomfortable conversations. I understood why. She’d spent her entire life having difficult conversations. Unlike Sasha, who’d grown up in luxury, Ivy didn’t have the ability to hide her head in the sand. It was one of the things that I admired most about her.
“I don’t know the specifics,” I told her. I wasn’t trying to skirt about the subject. I really didn’t know. When Dom finally got to Sasha the night Anastasia died, he was shot in the chest.
I had been arrested shortly after, and figuring out what happened to someone else’s daughter hadn’t been high on my priority list.
But I knew that I couldn’t leave Ivy hanging. She would eventually start asking more questions, and that wasn’t something that we needed. “All I know is that she became a victim of Sasha’s family. As to what happened to her, specifically, I couldn’t tell you.”
For a moment, I wondered if Ivy was going to say something additional. But she didn’t. She leaned back into the seat. Her hand moved from my chest and into my lap. Normally, I would have tried to make a move on her, but I was no longer in the mood.
There was another difficult conversation that we needed to have. One that I wasn’t looking forward to, not because I knew that it was going to scare Ivy, but also, because I knew that she was going to buck at the new restriction in place.
Once more, I was reminded that by marrying someone outside of my world, came with its own set of problems.
“We need to talk,” I told Ivy.
She turned to look at me, her green eyes sharp. “Are you upset about Maksim?” she asked. “I know I was supposed to stay put, but I really don’t think he’s after me. I know I’m not you, but I know men like him. He’s...sad…”
I ignored her words. She didn’t know men like him. Not really. And Ivy had a bleeding heart in many ways. Mikey’s illness made her very aware of what it was like to lose others, and she often projected that feeling onto other people, ignoring all the other parts that made them monstrous.
I should know. I was pretty sure she’d done the same to me.
But I wasn’t going to get into that. Not now. It would only lead to a fight, and I needed her to hear me. To really listen.
“It’s not about Maksim,” I told her. I reached into my suit jacket and pulled out a crumpled photo. I’d kept one of the pictures of the mystery man with me. “Someone has been following you,” I told her bluntly.
Ivy said nothing. If her green eyes hadn’t widened slightly, I wouldn’t have known that she was even affected by my words. “How do you know that someone has been following me?” she asked. Her lips pursed, and I knew that she was pissed. Not by the idea that someone dangerous could be stalking her, but moreso by the thought that I was having her tailed without her knowledge.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at her foolishness. A normal person would be focused on the problem at hand, not looking for a reason to bite my head off. “Dom was following Sasha. Then, when his man realized that someone was showing up wherever the two of you were, he followed you. He needed to figure out who was being targeted.”
Ivy took a deep breath. It was another habit of hers I noticed. She used it when she wanted to avoid starting an argument. I’d noticed it more with Mikey and Sasha. She usually didn’t care too much if I was mad at her.
“Are you sure this person is following me?” she asked. “Considering I don’t go anywhere but the hospital and my mothers, it seems odd.”
I nodded. “I wouldn’t bring this up if I wasn’t positive.”
She sighed once more and leaned back against the seat. Her eyes closed, and I wondered what she was thinking. Ivy never did what I expected of her. I’d expected her to be scared similar to how she’d been the day that the restaurant was shot to hell.
I waited a moment, unsure of what to do next. I could handle panic. I could handle terror or crying. What I couldn’t handle was the calm way that my wife seemed to be taking this new news.
“Do you think this is the same person who shot up the restaurant?” she asked after a few minutes.
I nodded. “I do,” I told her. “Or at least, I think it’s tied together somehow. Because, to be honest, I don’t know who else it could be.”
Admitting that felt wrong. I was the enforcer of the family. It was the only job I’d ever been trained for, and it was one that I was good at. And yet, I couldn’t figure out who wanted my wife dead.
“At least now I know why Alex was so hesitant to leave me alone at the party.”
“He was?” I hadn’t thought much about my cousin, which was a testament to how far spun around I was. He was supposed to be protecting Ivy, and on day one, he’d already failed. If Maksim had wanted to do something to her, he would have been more than able because Alex wasn’t doing his job--the job he’d practically begged for.
“Alex is your new bodyguard. At least he was..” I trailed off, thinking about all the ways I was going to rip my cousin a new one.
“Stop,” Ivy said. “He didn’t want to leave me. I pressed the issue. If Sasha was in that house much longer, she was going to lose it.”
I scowled. I didn’t care if a meteor had been hurtling towards Earth, it didn’t excuse anything.
