Page 22 of Reckless Forever (Jennings Mafia Family #3)

“I’m supposed to be dead,” She cried as she blew out a breath and brought her eyes to me. Shit almost knocked the wind out of me before I could ask, she continued.

“My father was Santos’s soldier. Santos made a call on another leader in the Cartel, and his daughter was killed instead.

When it came down to it, my father said he acted alone because you don’t snitch in the Cartel.

That put a target on his back; he was exiled, and he had to leave.

The next thing I knew was that I was being snatched out of bed in the middle of the night and given a folder with a new identity and taken to live with my godfather.

I’m not supposed to be alive. I don’t know how my father did it, but he convinced them that they killed me, too. Santos owes my father.”

I stared at her and started to put the pieces together.

How she wasn’t able to leave the compound, and when she did, she was dressed like a damn private eye.

Santos also said that she was protected by the Cartel.

My heart was telling me to believe her, but my mind didn’t trust the fact that she never told me this in the first place.

She could see the conflict all over my face.

“Judah, I gave you all of me. The real me. Everything except my name.” She pleaded, but I wasn’t sold.

“I don’t know if I can believe shit you say,” I said as I paced the floor. She hugged the pillow and cried. My first instinct was to pull her to me, but I held back. Finding out she was someone different had my mind fucked up.

“So, all that shit you said about your life and your moms was a lie, too?” I grilled. She looked at me like I had slapped her.

“I watched my mother die for two years, you asshole!” She screamed and hit me in the face with the pillow so hard she almost knocked me on my ass.

The way she cried, you couldn’t fake that shit. As soon as I came to my senses, I reached out to her, grabbed her, and brought her to my chest. I felt like shit. She had told me that her mother died from chemical exposure.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized as I brought her into my lap and held her there.

Once she pulled herself together, I held her face and brought her eyes to mine. They looked tired, it fucked with me for being the person that made her lose the light she had this whole time she’d been here.

“Is there anything else you’ve lied to me about?”

“I didn’t lie, Judah. My name is Ivy. I’ve been called that all my life. They legally shortened my first name and slightly changed my last.” Her eyes searched mine, never breaking contact. Call me stupid because I believed it.

I kissed her lips twice and then pulled back.

“We’re going to figure this shit out, aight? I love you.” I said as I left her in the room to go back downstairs and handle my family.

Trouble was still pacing but stopped when he saw me and leaned against my painting.

I took a deep breath and told them everything that she had just told me. I didn’t leave any of the details out.

“And you believe her?” Trouble asked me. There was no sarcasm in his tone this time, just wanting to know how he should move.

“Yeah, I believe her,” I admitted. He nodded. I could see Storm smile at me as I said it. But the moment was serious, so I couldn’t acknowledge her.

“You love her, don’t you?” He asked as he pushed off the wall and walked toward me, closing the gap. I was kind of hoping he wasn’t about to take me up on my offer to fight. Now that I wasn’t mad, and Ivy gave me whiplash with that pillow, nigga might be able to take me.

“Yeah.” I didn’t hesitate. I could see Kennedy light up.

Silence stretched as he stared at me. I kept my chin up; it was an unspoken conversation before he finally spoke again. I could see his shoulders relax.

“Then it’s your call how we go forward. If you say she stays, she stays.

But Santos sending a message through my parents is the wrong fucking move.

She might want to say that Spanish prayer for that nigga.

” He said as he held his hand out, waiting for me to take it.

I shook his hand, and he brought me into an embrace and held it for a second.

We parted ways, then he looked from me to Jax.

“Every other fucking year it’s something with y’all niggas and I’m sick of this shit.” He said, breaking into a smile.

“I saw this coming from a mile away,” Jax shrugged casually as he cleaned his gun.

“Get your girl packed up, we’re going to the safehouse until we can make it to Bolivia. Let’s get Zo and Sanchez to stay with the girls and the kids.” Trouble said to me and then to Jax as he turned and walked out.

I nodded and went up the stairs and saw Ivy sitting on the bed, picking at her nails.

“We're going to the safehouse with my family, let’s go, baby,” I spoke softly, trying to keep my tone low. I was fucked up about how I talked to her earlier.

“Your family? I don’t want to. I’ve seen people die, and nothing is as scary as that interaction you just had with your brother,” she declined.

I chuckled. “He’s good, coolest nigga you’d ever want to meet.”

“Are you sure? Seemed like y’all were about to kill each other.”

“We do this every two days. We’re all big niggas with attitudes and aggression who hate being told what to do.

It never gets that far; we respect each other too much.

” I shrugged it off because it was true.

We were all used to calling shots, and we made a million threats, but my brothers and Pops were the only niggas on the earth I’d never put hands on.

No matter how many times I said I would.

She nodded and slid off the bed slowly.

“I’m sorry,” I pulled her back and looked her in her eyes. She gave me a half smile.

“Judah, I love you, and I’m sorry I got us into this mess,” she said lowly.

I kissed her forehead and then went inside the closet, got my duffle bag, and filled it with the guns in the closet.

A switch had been flipped, and in a millisecond, I was back to the task at hand.

Santos wanted to send a message but couldn’t, no nigga whose security system I built from the ground up send a message to me bout nothing.

I waited for Ivy to gather the things she needed and put them into a suitcase. Then, I carried her things down the stairs and placed them in the back of the truck, where Hollow was waiting for us.

She was standoffish when we got in the car; she stayed on her side and looked out the window.

I was in my head about what I was going to do to Santos, but I knew that she probably mistook my silence for anger.

Yesterday our day was perfect, and today the shit just got flipped upside down, but I mean what I said when I told her that I loved her. This was just a minor setback.

“Ivanys,” I called out to her. She turned to me and rolled her eyes.

I chuckled, “Baby, stop with this sad shit. I’m not mad at you. Aight?”

She blew a breath and wiped her nose with the sleeve of my hoodie. “You can keep that now,” I said, making her smile and shake her head.

I went to my phone and hacked into the security system I had installed at Santos’ house. He had the password changed twelve hours ago, but he can’t lock me out of a system I created. I watched him as he had a meeting with his team and recorded it so Jax could translate it for me later.

We went down a tunnel, and her eyes widened. This was a safe house that Pops had built years ago when we were at war with the Rockwells, and we never got rid of it. It was underground, and nothing or no one could infiltrate it without dying first.

Our fleet came to a stop, and we all got out. No sooner than the doors of the last truck opened did my nieces and nephews, who I had banned, run up to me.

I don’t know how Trouble and Jax do it. Here, a nigga was thinking about murder, and I had to step away from that to kiss foreheads, hug kids, and blow bubbles for Cupcake.

“These are my nieces and nephews. Cupcake and Jonah are my godchildren. No, I don’t like Jonah.” I introduced them to Ivy as she laughed when JoJo kicked me in the shin after I said that. He was extra bad, even worse than Blade.

“They’re gorgeous,” she said as she touched a bow on Juree’s head.

I carried Juree and held Cupcake’s hand as we walked into the house, and the security brought everyone’s things in.

“Let’s go talk,” Trouble said after he got everyone situated. It was never like us to go into a situation like this without a plan. But we needed one now, especially since we were going up against the Cartel. I sat the kids down and then went to the table.

“You gonna be okay right here?” I asked Ivy before I went into the room with my brothers.

“Negro, we don’t bite,” Kennedy said as she rolled her eyes and threw some chips into her mouth.

“Stranger danger, she don’t know y’all.” I shot back as I waited for Ivy to answer me.

“I’m fine.” She smiled and shook her head.

Before I could even close the door all the way, I heard Rainstorm’s nice ass saying, “It’s so nice to meet you, we’ve heard so many good things.” I shook my head. Sis had good energy all the time. That might be what Ivy needs to make her comfortable.

That was one thing about my family that I respected. We might have made some fucked up calls, but we backed each other right or wrong. As long as I said Ivy was family, there wasn’t a soul around me that would treat her differently.

I closed the door behind me and looked at the faces of Trouble and Jax. Both of them were waiting for my move. I didn’t keep them waiting for too long.

“I’m shutting that nigga’s compound down and killing everything walking.”

That was my solution. They both just smirked at me.

Involving my parents was never going to be taken lightly.

I don’t give a fuck if they didn’t live there.

A nigga couldn’t even disrespect the house Meena grew up in.

It was a death sentence. He should have let my girl move to the States in peace, because she was home now.