Page 22

The Mastermind

“Every great plan has a mastermind. What happens when two collide, and only one was aware? Mastermind or deceiver, which am I?”

—Liam

I received a text from Olive shortly after Ivy left her at the restaurant: “She knows.”

Two words were all it took for me to know exactly what my next week would look like.

My heart sank for her, rage quickly following.

Olive and I knew that it was only a matter of time before Ivy found out herself.

I had hoped to be the one to tell her before she headed back to the city come Monday, but Olive swore there wasn’t any way around it, and knowing my little bird, she saw it coming a mile away.

It’s sexy how good she is at reading people, and Olive is probably the most readable person we know.

I shouldn’t have let them have lunch together with her knowing, but I’m not here to prevent Ivy from falling, simply to catch her when she does.

Part of me is thankful I didn’t have to be the one to have the conversation with her and thankful she didn’t leave for the city before knowing, due to what has been transpiring in her fucking study, it’s not something I’d want her going through in complete solitude, alone, forty minutes away.

The city is no fucking place for her to break, the consequences of her doing it alone ever more dangerous because when my little bird feels like she has no control, she will get drunk and seek that shit, and God knows who’d she’d find comfort in.

I’ve spent far too many nights waiting to be notified she’s been taken, or killed when she spirals outside her normal fixes.

At least she’s home.

Safe.

That’s all that matters to me.

Fuck the room she’s destroying; materialistic things can be replaced.

Nothing can ever replace or fulfill what my little bird fills inside me, even if she can’t see it.

She will one day, if it’s the last thing I ever do.

I’ve sat here for what feels like weeks now, listening to the self-torment, the screams echoing through the halls.

My little bird is hurting, and there is nothing I can do.

Her torment is mine, and I’ve been stuck in it.

She hasn’t come out in days except when she needs to use the bathroom or messages me when she needs more champagne or wine from the cellar.

I sit here in my own solitude, listening to the woman I love torture herself once again, unable to fix it for her.

If I could, God, I’d do anything, but I learned long ago that this Tayden thing is something I have zero control over.

Listening to her tears, the aggressions ricocheting from the depths of her soul, makes me want to rip that fucking smug, suit-wearing phony apart piece by piece, limb by limb, and throw his cold dead body in a river and watch it float away like the selfish coward he is.

How he has ever thought keeping Ivy in his life all these years was healthy will never make sense to me.

He doesn’t know her as well as she thinks he does, or he would see exactly what it does to her, the way I see it, but I am biased.

I’m an inside trader.

That’s the only reason I haven’t killed him over the years, because of her, because I know her more than herself, more than him.

Taking a stand when it came to him was her only rule I couldn’t break if I wanted her.

Fuck, I’ve wanted her for so long, wanted Red too.

Sharing her with someone else was never my plan, but I was playing the long game, and I knew exactly what the fuck I was getting into before our first hello.

I really bet on this connection between the three of them fizzling out when I first pursued her, but I was wrong.

Man, was I fucking wrong.

I understood their bond because I understood Ivy.

I understood Red.

What wasn’t in the plan was for him to move into our fucking backyard.

It was one thing to share them emotionally over text and phone calls, but after the night of that Gala, I knew things were going to get messy .

Tayden must die, and Ivy needs to heal.

Healing her was always the plan; loving her was the reason, and killing him just may be the cost.

The only problem is at what cost would that be to her and I.

After three days of this shit, my promise to stay out of their bullshit is getting harder and harder to uphold.

What I’d like to do to him right now would please me in more ways than is humanly imaginable, and I have been a good boy, so I feel I am due for some fun.

I hear the whispers all around town, people saying I’m crazy for being with her, but they don’t even know me, just the persona I feed them, so it’s no skin off my back hearing it.

Fuck, let ‘em whisper.

When Ivy says I deserve better, it has the opposite effect than her intent.

It makes my cock harden instantly because she has no fucking idea who I am, but she is learning.

Contrary to people’s ideas of us, thinking Ivy is lucky to have me couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Small-minded people always think of small-minded fairytale ideologies.

She has never been a damsel in distress, although princess fits her quite well.

Ivy and I didn’t meet by luck; we met by intent, intent that I set out to put into action, and I conquered.

She didn’t sell me this home by chance, nor did she fall in love with me because the universe pulled us together like she thinks.

No, not my little bird, thinking she was the mastermind of our meeting.

Although, I find it quite sexy when she ravishes in all the moves she thinks she has made on her own in bringing us together.

My little bird, how wrong you are.

“Liam, can you bring me one more bottle, please?”

she politely shouts from down the hall.

Everything in me wants to break down that door, tell her to get her shit together, be who I read about, and remember who the fuck she is, but we aren’t quite there yet.

Soon, little bird.

Soon, you will fly again.

Selfishly, I find her cute when she is broken, not because she needs me, fuck no, because when the storm passes each time, I get to watch the fucking phoenix rise from the ashes.

Man, it’s fucking exquisite, something everyone should see once in their life.

It’s fucking sexy; she’s sexy, strong, bold, recharged like she’s in a completely new skin, and you better watch the fuck out because my little bird after a rapture is a fucking goddess, untouchable.

Taking a sip of my Budweiser, I set it down on the table to my left, my legs lowering themselves from the wall, allowing the front two legs of the chair to reground as I stand, heading back down to the cellar, grabbing one of the few left.

It’s a fucking art how much a scorned woman can drink when she isspiraling.

I’ve seen grown men end up at the hospital for way less in my lifetime.I fear she will end up there at some point or another, but until then, I will do as I have since she physically came into my life.

Love her, allot her the grace she refuses to give herself and be here for her until my last dying breath, something she’s never received since birth.

If the day ever comes when she no longer wants me, my path won’t falter.

I am hers, with or without her, forever. You can’t just unlove Ivy Sage Rutledge; no, you fucking mourn her.

“I brought you some food; you need to eat something, Ivy.”

I gesture, setting the food and bottle outside the door. “You can’t stay in your tower forever, princess,”

I joke, hoping for a laugh or some kind of jab of banter.

“I will stay as long as it takes, and then if I choose to, I will stay longer, Liam. Don’t give me your princess bullshit. Blah blah blah, punish me or whatever the fuck it is you do these days when I come out. I don’t care, alright? Just leave me the fuck alone. Oh, and thanks for the wine, sweet man,”

she growls from the other side of the door.

“I’ll punish you for that later, little bird. Eat,” I growl.

“Little pelican, dove, bird, fuck, call me a flamingo fucking bird,”

she bites.

God, you are so fucked.

A grin forms on my face, my dick instantly hardening.

This woman is everything I’ve ever wanted and dreamed of.

Fuck, she is hot, even when she is about to jump off a cliff.

I’d jump with her if she’d have me.

She’s been mine since the moment I saw her that day; she just didn’t know it.

I’d follow her in life and even in death.

Heading down to the basement, I grant myself a break from her tears.

Making my way over to the bar, I pour myself a bourbon on the rocks before reaching down into a hole in bottom shelf behind a shaky board.

Removing it, I pull out a stack of letters and journals.

I like to read them every once in a while and add to them when necessary.

She’s not the only one with secrets.

Little does she know, I’m the one with many.

Hers have been mine forever, yet mine left unshared.

Heading over to my favorite claw-foot leather chair off the side of the fireplace across from the pellet stove, I sit my drink down on the adjacent table.

Grabbing the journal on top, opening it to page one.

Dear Red,

I saw you for the first time today.

That red dress could make a grown man cry.

Lucky for me, I only felt warmth in your presence.

You are even more beautiful in person than what the internet shows.

I wish I could have seen the woman behind the words and files for the first time in person, but research didn’t allow for that when I was trying to find you.

There is not a woman in the world that could compare to you and that smile of yours.

You sure do have the men tripping over you as you walk down the streets of Boston, and you know it.

You don’t know me yet, but one day you will read this and have loved me for many years, and what you read won’t matter.I hope at least.

You, my love, are going to be tricky.

I’m ready for it, little bird.

—Liam

Dear Ivy,

I saw you for the first time in the record store today.

As much as I love that red dress, those sweats and t-shirt—fuck me.

I am certainly an Ivy fan.

Once again, the words and the woman are unmatched to anyone I’ve ever met in my life.

Watching you just exist in your own world, not a care to anything or anyone around you, is captivating.

I even went as far to join you in the store, watching you sift through vinyl with your headphones on.

Music really is your muse in life, isn’t it? The way your lips curl in silence when what I assume a rift comes on is the cutest thing and your choice in music?

Well, some are debatable, while others I can agree with.

However, I am certain we will have many conversations about music in the future.You walked directly past me today, not even acknowledging my existence and the smell of you, fuck Ivy.

Honeysuckles have never smelt so beautiful.

I headed to the nursery after I left to get my own honeysuckle bush, and I don’t even have a yard.

You will change that soon, though.

I’ll name it Ivy’s home because one day, I will be your home, and you will be mine, little bird.

I wanted to introduce myself, like that sudden stumble into one another you see in the movies, but knowing you, it may have worked, but Red?

Well, she’s not much for the romantics now is she? Either way, it’s not our time yet, little bird.

—Liam

P.s. I’m sure one day I will start to call you little bird, when it is time, and I want you to remember back to this day in the record store. You see, you accidentally started singing aloud unknowingly.

“Three little birds sat on my window”is what you sang before you started dancing like nobody was watching, and your voice followed, “Girl put your records on, tell me your favorite song, you go ahead let your hair down.”

This is the moment I named you little bird, and one day, you will not be Red or Ivy, just simply one, my little bird, and I will own you.

Sitting here, I flip through the pages of our story in book one, before our story even truly started, before Ivy or Red knew it began, and tonight, him, what all has become of our circumstances certainly was not in the plans when I fell in love with her all those years ago, sitting in my mother’s house.

A broken-down young man with nobody of value in my life.

I never would have thought a woman who gave me the bare minimum growing up would be the person that would give me the greatest gift of my entire life, Ivy.

Red.

My little bird .

Walking over to refill my bourbon, I ruffle through the stack of journals I have kept all these years, pulling out yet another, shuffling between our twisted timelines.

Dear Ivy,

We’ve been together for two and a half years now, and I can tell your patience for my silence is growing weaker.

I wish I could find the words to tell you how much you mean to me better at times, but I also know you well enough to know that you find joy in cracking people and getting inside their heads, and the moment you do, the moment Red gets a whiff that she has caught her prey, the ride is over, and you yearn for the chase no longer.

For them no longer, I never want you to stop chasing me because I will never stop chasing you.

Although love is what you desire, the chase is what feeds you.

I don’t want a few years with you, Ivy; I want a lifetime, and for that, I cannot let you understand me.

I cannot allow you to see into my soul.

I am not naturally a quiet human, but it is the role I have had to take and the burden I have had to bear in order for us to create what we have and maintain it for years to come.

I know this weighs on your heart, sweet bird, and I hope one day you will be at a place where I can divulge these journals to you and you can read the love I have for you and that I am not a pit of silence, only silent in your presence.

It drives you crazy not being able to read me like you do everyone in your life, which has been my plan all along because knowing how you work has been the key to keeping you.

You are mine and always will be, for your game of chess is being played at my table, and you are none the wiser, little bird.

—Liam

Dear Red,

Hello, my little firecracker.

The things you do to me are those of a goddess.

Fuck me, you make loving you so fucking hard and rewarding all in the same.

You are strong and calculated, just like what I read about you, but our relationship is starting to crumble.

The Gala changed a lot for me, for all of us.

You made me fucking sick knowing what you had brought back into our lives that night.

I knew when Ivy never made it home to me that something was wrong, and you were more than likely to blame.

I am aware of why you are the way you are and your role in Ivy’s life, but that night, you not only shared yourself with him, you re-opened that door for her, sharing her with him, and for that, I have never wanted to bend you over so bad and spank your ass until it bleeds as you beg me to stop.

On the other hand, I’m glad it happened.

For the same reason I have yet to allow you both to know me emotionally.

I am hoping that to be the exact downfall of you and Tayden.

You crave to know me more.

I am still the mouse to your burning desire to chase someone.

Now that you’ve had him sexually after having him emotionally all these years, I would bet your excitement fades per the rules of your game, and I quote, “What if we finally do connect physically, and it’s nothing like it has been in my head all these years? Or the chase of accomplishing that with him is all the cravings have ever been, and after, he no longer feeds me? Or I him? I’d rather spend a lifetime imagining it than one without him as I see him now.

That’s why I’ve never crossed that line.”

Oh, little bird, here’s to hoping you haven’t changed.

Ivy doesn’t realize how much she needs you.

I do understand, though.

I love you as I do her.

You are safe with me; however, we will have to get you to get in line and soften your walls.

For you.

For her and us to truly be happy—mostly for her to be happy.

Mom was right about you.

You are a force to reckon with, but one day you will find out who I am, and I can’t wait to give you that fucking lesson as I have her.

Fuck your cravings, fuck the cold.

I can’t wait to see the look on your face when my secrets are exposed.

Your reaction isn’t my concern; Ivy’s is because you are a fucking master of deception, and I know your crazy ass will devour it.

You’ll be mad, but you will find the sexy in it all.

Little devil bird you are.

—Liam

Running my hand across my mouth, staring at the pages I have written to her brings me comfort in this current situation but terrifies me all the same.

The thought of losing her is one I can’t bear to imagine.

It would kill me and everything I am.

Without Ivy, there is no Liam, and I can’t help but let that slight possibility creep into my thoughts.

Ivy thinks I saved her, but she saved me, and she saves me again and again every day that she wakes up and chooses to love me.

I look over at the pen sticking out of the leather-bound notebook that I haven’t fully completed yet and take this moment to write to her once again like I have so many times before in this brown leather chair.

Ivy I saw it coming just as I see all of your moves every day.

In a sense, I signed up for it, and I’d sign up for it every time again and again.

I just wish every day I could heal the pain inside of you that says you aren’t good enough or worthy because baby, you are everything this world needs and doesn’t deserve.

If I could erase him from the face of the earth, I would, and trust me, I want to so fucking badly, and I would enjoy every minute of it.

You and I both know I haven’t because I worry about what that would do to you and, in return, do to us.

Patience is the most underrated human trait, and I have a lot, but I’m running out, little bird, and I am not sure how much longer I can maintain my calm while your world is falling apart, doing nothing, following your rules.

I have faith that you will find your way out of this, that you and Red or whomever will figure this out and get past it.

I just hope this time it is for good.

You always spoke of wanting someone who understands you and accepts you.

I’ve been here all along, princess.

I know you in and out more than you know.

Say the words, I’ll kill him, then I can be a killer like you, little bird.

Fuck, I wish I could have been there to see it.

Ever & Ever Amen,

—Liam

Closing the books, I place them back in the bar, securing the wood plank that keeps them hidden from my little bird.

I’m not sure if now is the time to demand her to open the door or not, but one thing I know for sure is I need to head back up and evaluate the situation before I make that decision because callus moves never end well, only calculated ones in our home.

Three little birds sat on my window, and they told me I don’t need to worry.

I sing in my head, with each footfall on the stairs, heading back up to my chair, to my place of awaiting.