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Alex had the sense to at least look ashamed. “Look, I didn’t plan on leaving her with him. I was trying to calm her down. She was upset…”
I tried not to focus on the fact that being pregnant with my child upset Ivy so much that she was willing to run away. Sure, we hadn’t planned on having kids. Hell, we hadn’t even talked about it. It still bothered me that she’d been so upset about it, and when she was back, I was going to make sure that she knew how I felt about all of this.
“We need to find her,” Dom said. “Do you have any leads?”
I knew what Dom was trying to do. He was trying to keep me from killing Alex because if we didn’t find Ivy, that was likely what I was going to do.
“I can find her,” Alex said, earnestly. “There are CCTV cameras all over that block.” The doctor was one of the richest in the city. Hell, I’m sure that we could probably get camera footage from people’s doorways.``
He was hopeful, but I couldn’t be. “We need to get her back as soon as possible.”
Dom’s dark eyes collided with mine. “What do you know?” he asked.
I closed my eyes and took a calming breath. I knew that Dom was wondering why I was so on edge. Yes, Ivy was gone, but she was with her father. A man he was assuming wouldn’t hurt her. The problem was that I knew differently. “I dug into her father’s background,” I said. “He’s dangerous.”
Dom raised a brow. “He’s a gambler,” he said. “I’m sure he owes people money, but I can take care of that.”
I shook my head. I’d never planned to tell Ivy any of the information I discovered about her father. I knew that it would hurt her, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. “He’s got ties to another organization,” I said, solemnly.
Dom’s expression changed in a moment as he realized there was more to what I was saying than he knew. “I was able to tie him back to the O’Connors. He’s been known to do odd jobs for them.”
“The O'Connors?” Alex asked. His voice was hard.
I turned to look at him, and for a moment, I felt sympathy for my cousin. “His father was an enforcer for them. There’s talk that his mother was the old man’s mistress for a while…” I trailed off. One of the reasons I hadn’t shared what I knew was that I also didn’t want my brother questioning Ivy. It was one thing for his wife to have ties to another organization, one we knew about. It was a different thing altogether to have it slipped in under our noses.
“I knew Ivy looked familiar…” Alex muttered.
I knew who he was thinking about. Years ago, when we were just kids, Alex had fallen for one of the O’Connors. It ended in tragedy, and he’d never seemed to get over it. I hadn’t thought much about it until I realized why he was fixated on Ivy. He thought he could protect her in a way that he couldn’t protect someone else he loved.
Didn’t make me want to kill him any less.
“If he’s with the O’Connors, we need to get Ivy back as quickly as possible.”
I nodded. Ivy was my wife, which made her a target. The O’Connors didn’t play by the same rules as the Russians. They would kill her in front of me just to prove a point. Wives and children were ransom to be used to grab power, and the O’Connors had been angling to take Blanchi power for years.
I wanted to kill my cousin, and I still might, but I was glad I hadn’t. “Get on the computer and dig up everything you can about the O’Connors,” I ordered, pointing at the laptop on Dom’s desk.
Alex shook his head. “I don’t need to,” he said. His voice was quiet as he spoke. “I think I know where they are.”
My brow raised. “What do you mean?”
Alex ran a hand through his hair. “When an old flame and I and I would sneak around, way back when, she’d take me to a boarding house. Her uncle used it to house some of their men. It’s not too far from where Ivy’s dad ambushed me.”
“Let’s go,” I said. There wasn’t time to think. I was ready to get Ivy back.
Dom’s hand reached out and grabbed my forearm before I could get too far. His hands squeezed tightly stopping me in my tracks. “What the fuck?” I asked.
“We need to be smart about this. The O’Connors are dangerous, and if we storm the place half assed, we risk Ivy and the baby.”
I wretched my arm out of my brother’s grip. “That’s rich,” I said. “I don’t seem to recall this energy when Sasha had been taken by her mother.” When Sasha had been missing, Dom was ready to destroy the world to get her back. Now, my wife was gone, and he was all about sitting on our hands and coming up with a plan? That wasn’t going to work for me. Not at all.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Dom said. He was using his calm tone. I recognized it because I’d been hearing it a lot lately. “I’m just suggesting we don’t go off half assed. We got lucky last time.” He pressed a hand to his chest, and I knew that he was remembering how lucky we’d gotten.
I shook my head.
“Just listen to me…” Dom trailed off. “For one fucking minute.”
My whole life I had devoted myself to my brother. I’d made sure to have his back, even when I didn’t agree with the choices that he was making. I’d been willing to die for him, and I’d brought that same energy to Sasha. But he was asking me for too much.
