Page 6 of Recovering Ivy (Red Team #4)

Ivy

I hated this place.

I hated sitting at a desk thirty feet from the man that had held my sister against her will. Oh, she didn’t protest; she swore she was in love. He was the man for her. Her dream come true. He’d plucked her off the streets and gave her a beautiful home.

And kept her in drugs.

She got a house, clothes, a car to drive, and all for the very low price of moving his drugs. The cost seemed rather steep to me, especially considering it had cost her her life. But for Joey, she was living the dream. A habit she’d started as a teenager and one that took her life at nineteen.

What a waste.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, would change her mind.

Joey’s addiction started at the tender age of fourteen and she went downhill from there.

She was fifteen the first time I’d pulled her out of a dealer’s bed.

When I took her back to the apartment, she shared with my mother, her stepmother I had actually contemplated taking her back to the dealer’s shack he called a home.

At least his rundown house had electricity, and he was careful not to have needles and other paraphernalia scattered about.

The place we lived was filthy and my mother paid no mind to what she left out for her daughters to see.

Pills, powder, bongs, the bands she used to tie off with when she shot up; they were strewn about.

I couldn’t remember a time the kitchen had been used for anything other than cooking her meth.

I had long ago given up on helping my mother.

Not because I was heartless – but because she didn’t want it.

She’d yelled and cussed and told me to mind my own business every time I tried.

And I’d been trying for a long time. She’d been an addict for as long as I could remember.

I didn’t have a single memory of her not strung out on heroin.

My dad exploited her addiction and used it as a means to keep her quiet, then he’d rail and carry on about what a piece of shit she was when she’d smoke the dope he’d brought home for her.

It was ugly.

It was my life.

That was the sad cycle of a drug addict.

He left when I was sixteen. That day I thought the Lord had finally blessed me and removed one toxic parent from my life, leaving me with the lesser of the two evils.

My father was a liar, a cheat, and had a nasty habit of knocking around my mother, not caring his child was witness to his verbal and physical abuse.

Come to think of it, neither of them cared much about anything.

Then came Lance, and with him his eight-year-old daughter.

Much like me, she had two addicts as parents - only her mom bailed and left her with her dad.

They moved in with us days after my dad moved out.

Of course Lance was my mom’s dealer and she needed free drugs considering she didn’t work.

When Joey came to live with us, there was already something broken inside of her.

We were the same, her and I, but different sides on the same coin.

I wanted out. I fought like hell not to follow down the path my mother had gone.

Joey was resigned. She never believed we could be better.

She was ten when I left. I tried to take her with me, but she refused to leave.

I called CPS and tried to have her taken away, but they’d come and do an inspection, the drugs would be gone, power on, and food in the fridge.

Joey would lie and tell them both her dad and my mom were wonderful loving people and they’d leave her there.

And so began the merry-go-round of Joey’s life.

At some point, to save myself I had to step off.

I couldn’t keep trying to save people that didn’t want help.

Yet, I always went back. When Joey called because she was in a tight spot, I would go to her.

When my mom would call and promise she wanted to get clean and needed money to feed Joey, I gave it to her.

Over and over, I never learned. Then a few years ago I couldn’t mentally take it anymore and I stopped answering their pleas for help.

They were both liars.

Now Joey was dead.

“Excuse me?” A deep voice pulled me from the report I was supposed to be finishing.

“Yes?” I looked up and smiled.

Holy hotness!

“I’m looking for Forester Grant. Declan Jones.”

His name fit him.

If I hadn’t met Zane last night, I would’ve said Declan was one of the hottest men I’d ever seen.

My girly parts clenched remembering Zane.

I’d thought the same thing about his name – a sexy name for a sexy man.

Not that sexy did Zane justice. He was smoking hot, and the sex was epic good.

Off the charts, infinitely fabulous. I could barely crawl out of his bed this morning, let alone walk. Regret washed over me.

I wished I was a different kind of woman. One that didn’t have a shit ton of baggage and self-esteem issues.

“Miss?” Declan called.

“Sorry. Not enough coffee. Follow me.” I stood, and my thighs screamed as the over-worked muscles protested.

A night with Zane was better than a week at the gym.

I stopped at Forester’s door and knocked.

“He’s expecting you.” When I heard Forester yell come in, I opened the door and announced, “Mr. Jones is here to see you.”

“Thanks.” Forester stood to greet Declan and I shut the door.

I’d spent too much time this morning daydreaming about Zane and all the shit things in my life I couldn’t change. I had reports to file and revenge to plan.

The time was so close I could taste it. And nothing had ever tasted sweeter… except Zane.