Page 16 of Recovering Ivy (Red Team #4)

Ivy

The mall was packed. I hated shopping, but I really hated it when there were wall-to-wall people.

I’d found some great deals and was ready to leave.

I couldn’t take the hustle and bustle any longer.

I’d pulled up my Uber app and was getting ready to order my car when I got the feeling someone was watching me.

You know the one, a single prickle on the back of your neck when someone is staring at you.

It wasn’t the first time it’s happened while I was shopping today, but I’d dismissed it as my aversion to crowds.

Too many people.

I hated being touched and bumped into by strangers.

With my car ordered and five minutes to wait, I stood inside the safety of the mall.

Maybe all this talk about me being unsafe had rattled me enough I was losing my mind, because I could swear someone was looking at me.

I tried to casually look around to see if I recognized anyone, but I didn’t.

And there were too many people around for me to know if someone was following me.

Damn Zane for making me paranoid. I was getting ready to go stand outside just to prove I was brave enough and wouldn’t let his crazy ideas stop me from living my life when my phone beeped alerting me my ride was waiting outside.

The woman driver greeted me and I gave her my address.

She was chatty all the way to my place telling me about her rescue cats and she drove for Uber as side income so she could take in more.

I wondered if I would be her by the time I was her age.

A lonely cat lady, driving for Uber to not only feed them but for companionship.

It sounded to me as if this woman didn’t have any human interaction outside of the people she drove.

We pulled up and I paid my toll and grabbed my bags.

I was unlocking the security gate to enter the building when I felt it again.

I quickly opened the door and slammed it behind me.

I glanced at the elevator, then the stairs, debating which one was safer.

I opted for the stairs even though the stairwell was shady and smelled like piss.

I didn’t want to wait out in the open for the elevator.

Damn Zane.

I booked it two flights of stairs and made it to my door. Once I opened the door and was safely inside, I closed the door, dropped my bags, and leaned against it. I’d gone mad.

“Nice of you to show up.”

I screamed and turned, fumbling with the keys in my hand, praying I didn’t drop them so I’d have something to gouge the man’s eyeballs out with.

“What are you doing here?” My heart was in my throat and my stomach was queasy.

“Waiting for you.”

Once the shock had started to wear off, I was horrified he was in my apartment. It seemed wrong for a man like him to sit on a raggedy couch I got from goodwill for fifty dollars. He was too good to have the second-hand fabric near his skin .

“Ivy?”

“How did you get in my apartment? And why are you waiting for me?”

It was his turn to look at me like I was the one out of place.

“Zane?” I snapped the same way he had at me.

“Where have you been?”

What the hell was his problem?

“No way. I don’t have to explain myself to you. But you need to tell me how you got in my house.”

“I broke in.”

“You broke in?” I screeched. Yes, I screeched. The nerve of this man.

“Technically, I didn’t. Leo did. But he picked your lock under my orders. And just to say, not that it matters for you anymore, but your locks are shit.”

“What? Why doesn’t it matter to me?” I crossed my arms over my chest. I was sick and tired of Zane’s word games.

“Because you no longer live here.”

“Get out,” I demanded. And because I had enough, I told him just that.

“I’ve had enough of your bossy bullshit.

You may be able to bark commands at your men and they follow blindly, but I’m not one of them.

And you may be used to the women you’ve been with to bow down to the Almighty Zane and your amazing dick, but I’m not one of them either. ”

“Amazing dick?” His lips twitched, but he remained seated.

“Are you hard of hearing? Get out of my house.”

“My hearing is just fine. I’m ignoring you. We’re leaving in ten minutes. I’ve been sitting my ass here for two hours waiting on you. I’m starving.”

“Two hours? ”

“Yes. Ivy. Two fucking hours. Now pack your shit.”

“Sorry, friend, you have me confused with someone else. I’m not going anywhere with you.

Oh, and I’m sorry you fired Donna because you’re out of a receptionist, too.

Now leave. I’m done with this bullshit. You have me so on edge I thought someone was following me around the mall.

And when I got home, I ran up two flights of stairs.

You have my head so jacked around I’m scaring myself. ”

“Wait. You went to the goddamned mall? You’re obviously not scared enough, you take your happy ass to the fucking mall and prance around without protection.”

He was sidetracking me. I didn’t want to talk about the mall, or protection. I wanted him to leave.

“I’m not in any danger. This has gone far enough. Now leave.”

“You sure as fuck are. Forester knows about you,” he continued to argue.

“Of course he does. I work for the man.”

This was fast becoming insane.

“No, he knows about you, Ivy, Joey’s sister. He’s known all along.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Is it? Because I have a hooker in lockup that says otherwise.”

“What?”

Zane spent the next thirty minutes filling me in on what Destiny…

Amy, I couldn’t think of her by her street name, had told him.

And in the two hours he’d been waiting for me she’d told Declan more.

Forester was using hookers to sell his drugs to other prostitutes and their Johns.

That didn’t surprise me, he was a scumbag.

The devastating part was Joey had told him about me, and he’d used me to control her .

“It’s my fault she’s dead,” I cried.

“Don’t go there. Nothing is your fault.”

“She wanted to leave. Maybe she could’ve gotten out if he didn’t know about me.”

“I’m gonna say this once, and it’s gonna fucking hurt, so brace, baby.

Joanna’s choices were hers. She chose that life.

You tried to pull her out of it when she was a kid and she chose to stay in it.

She could’ve gone to the police, she could’ve warned you, she could’ve chosen a different path.

Bottom line is, she didn’t. Everything that happened was her fault.

Not yours. And not the shit parents she had or the way she was brought up.

We all have choices in life. She chose poorly and bore the consequences for those choices. ”

“But she wanted out.”

“How many times did you hear that?” he asked.

A lot.

Each and every time she hit bottom and got arrested she promised that was it, she was getting help.

“I’m a sucker. I talk a big game and say, I’m done and I don’t care. But then I’d see her high out of her head or going through withdrawals and I’d cave. I’d think, this was the time she’d get clean. I wanted better for her. I thought I could want it enough for her.”

“You’re not a sucker, baby. No one likes to see family in pain. But it never mattered how much you wanted it for her. She had to want it. She had to make the choice to change.”

“Why me? Why’d I get out? What makes me any better?” I’d struggled with those questions for years.

“Because you’re stronger than she was. You took what you saw and instead of following you used it to become the strong, independent woman you are. You didn’t want that life, so you made it so you didn’t.”

“But I’m fucked up. ”

“Aren’t we all?”

“No. You don’t understand. I’m a horrible person.”

Without warning, Zane had scooped me up in his arms and walked back to the couch, situating me on his lap and let me cry.

It felt good to let it out. The death of my stepsister, my shit mother, the last few months following Forester.

Everything had taken its toll. I was nearing my breaking point.

I hated remembering my childhood; the vicious memories always gutted me.

“When I was seven, I walked into the house after school and saw my mom on the couch. The belt was still wrapped around her bicep and the needle was in her arm. I stood in the doorway and hoped she was dead.” He didn’t speak.

He simply held me while I sniveled in his lap.

“A short time after that, she woke me up in the middle of the night, shoving a butcher knife toward me, asking me to cut the snakes off her arms. She was having some kind of bad trip and kept screaming there were things coming out of her arms. She was bleeding and freaking out and wanted me to cut her. I prayed that time she’d bleed to death. I wanted my nightmare to be over.”

“Baby,” he whispered.

“My whole life is filled with stories like that. Sarah getting high in front of me and me wishing she were dead. What kind of person does that make me?”

“It makes you a child who wanted to survive.”

“By wishing her mother dead?”

“No, by wanting your nightmare to be over. Baby, no child should ever have to see what you’ve seen. You’re strong. You survived it and made a good life for yourself.”

I picked my head up off his chest, laughed, and gestured around the room.

“A good life? I have nothing. I’m broke. I sold everything I had so I could move to Annapolis after Joey died. The thought of Forester getting away with murdering my sister was appalling.”

“Objects and possessions don’t make a good life. You’re a good person. That’s what matters.”

“You’re not listening. I’m not a good person.”

“No. You haven’t been payin’ attention, Ivy. You’re so stuck in the past thinking about what those assholes did to you, you can’t see what I see. A strong, intelligent, beautiful woman.”

He was wrong. But there was no reason to argue with him. Suddenly I was bone tired again.

“What now?” I asked.

“Now you’re going to pack what you need. Then I’m going to feed you. Which means we’re going to order something so one of my men can pick it up and deliver it to my apartment. After we eat, we’re gonna get you settled and we’ll go from there.”

“Settled where?” I asked, afraid I already knew the answer.

“My place.”

“Zane…”

“Nonnegotiable. The asswipe knows you sought him out, applied to be his assistant, and that you’ve been following him. I will not take the chance of him getting his hands on you.”

“I was going to say thank you. As much as I hate to put you out, I’m afraid of him.”

His face softened as if he understood how hard it was for me to accept his help.

“You’re welcome and you’re not putting me out. I promise I’ll keep you safe.”

“I’ll get some clothes. ”

Before I could pull off his lap, his lips touched my forehead and I closed my eyes. How could the smallest brush of his mouth send waves of warmth over my body?

I wouldn’t know it until much later, but that moment was the beginning.

The first step toward healing.

The first time someone had reached out and offered kindness without expecting something in return. The craziest part was, because he wanted nothing from me, I wanted to give him everything.