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I stood rooted to the spot staring at the woman who had haunted my dreams for over a decade. Hell, she’d haunted them even when we were together. Ivy wasn’t a woman you simply forgot, not even in your sleep while she lay next to you.

I’d never wanted to forget her.

Nor had I tried.

I’d always welcomed the raging torrent of memories, even on the days they almost strangled the breath from me. They served as a reminder never to trust people or love again. Those memories were a tangled vine of Ivy, Jethro, Bethany, and my mother. Love, hate, lies, betrayal and death, all wrapped together in my head. Although I’d fucked up and fallen in love again after Ivy, I’d tried like hell to never go down that path again. Nothing good came from it.

“Hello, King. It’s been a long time.”

I’d stopped counting the days years ago. The years, however, sat between us, a harsh reminder of the choices I’d made. Choices she knew nothing of.

She watched me closely. When I found no words, because she’d caught me completely fucking off guard, she spoke again. “Are you going to say anything?”

The room had swallowed me. Consumed every thought I had. Jen’s death—her baby’s death—vanished from my mind.

I took a step towards her. “You look well.”

Ivy would be thirty-eight soon. She looked all of thirty. The beauty she wore today was a far cry from the ravaged beauty she’d walked out of my life wearing. I’d never forgiven myself for breaking her.

“Looks can be deceiving.”

My mouth turned dry, and I had difficulty swallowing. “What’s going on, Ivy? Are you not well?” What the fuck did she mean by that? Was she not fucking well? My mind raced with the possibilities of what could be wrong. The thoughts flying at me, though, became one big fucking jumbled mess.

Nothing fucking made sense right now.

Why the fuck was she here?

“Nothing that would ever concern you,” she snapped. “But I didn’t come here to talk to you about that.”

I restrained my frustration. Ivy always had liked to stretch me to breaking point. “Ivy,” I warned. “I asked you a question.”

The dull tone disappeared from her eyes. Resentment slashed the air between us as her hostility roared to life. “You gave up that right a long time ago, King.”

Fuck.

Ivy was the lightning to my thunder. When she sparked, I rumbled. And she had just fucking sparked. The raging storm inside me exploded out. I couldn’t hold it back any longer. “Answer me!” I needed to fucking know that she was okay.

She moved towards me, our bodies unbearably close. Her eyes were cold. The only time I remembered her looking at me with these dead eyes was the day I told her to get out of my life. “You don’t get to demand answers from me, King, so don’t fucking ask them. Now, if you want me to tell you what I know about the shit going down with your club, have Hyde take his gun off me.”

“I’m fucking confused here, Ivy. You came here, knowing we’d be here? And what the fuck are you doing in the attic?” She would at least answer those questions before I made my next move.

“Yes, I organised this meeting. This is a house I own. And I waited up here because I didn’t want all of your men pointing their guns at me.”

More confusion snaked through my mind. It made no fucking sense for her to have organised this meeting. “Put the gun down, Hyde.”

“You sure about that, brother?”

“Yes,” I barked, not removing my eyes from Ivy. I didn’t believe she would have a gun, but I wouldn’t have believed she could have anything to do with the shit Storm was in, either, so it was best to take precautions. Watching her closely was the only one available to me. I knew she wouldn’t talk until Hyde did what she wanted. Stubbornness was a classic Ivy trait.

“Fuck,” Hyde muttered as he lowered the gun.

Ivy glanced at him before giving me her full attention once she was satisfied. “There’s an attack coming. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but I’ve heard him talk about it for weeks. And it won’t just be on your club, it’ll be on your families, too. He wants them all dead.” She stopped to take a breath. “He wants to wipe everyone and everything you care about off the face of the earth. And I believe he could do it.”

He?

My jaw clenched. “Who?” I demanded. “Who the fuck are you talking about? And why?”

Her hard eyes refused to let me look away. “My husband. You took what was his, so now he wants to take what is yours.”

Understanding smashed into me. But this puzzle was still a long fucking way off being solved.

“Fuck! Tony is the one behind all this?”

Hyde moved closer to Ivy, anger clouding his face. “What the fuck did King take?”

She looked at Hyde. “He took me.”

I drew a long breath and then slowly released it. “How the fuck did I take you?”

I hadn’t had any contact with Ivy since the day she walked out of our house. This bullshit her husband was carrying on about enraged me. Fuck, he’d killed a woman and her unborn child today because of it.

Ivy’s eyes came to mine again. “You didn’t, but he thinks you did. He thinks I’m leaving him because I never stopped loving you.”

My chest tightened as my mind went into overdrive in an attempt to keep up with my rapidly-firing thoughts. I might have broken Ivy when I told her to go, but living without her had completely annihilated me.

I met Ivy when I was eleven.

I promised her forever when I was twenty.

I fucked it all up when I was twenty-four.

“Is that true?” I demanded.

I didn’t want to know, but fuck, I needed to know.

She stared at me.

Didn’t answer my question.

And then she blinked. “No.”

Her lie blazed between us.

It was in her blink.

Ivy always blinked when she lied.

Fuck.

We could never repeat our history.

Never.

It would fucking kill us both.

“Round everyone up, Hyde. We’re heading back to the clubhouse.” I reached for Ivy as I issued the order. To her I said, “You’re coming with us.”

She attempted to shrug out of my hold. “No, I’m not.”

I gripped her arm hard. “This isn’t the fucking time to argue, Ivy.”

Her eyes turned from cold to angry, and her body tensed. “I didn’t come here for you to stop my progress with leaving Tony. I’m flying out of the country today, so take your damn hands off me and let me go.”

I shook my head. “Change your plans. This isn’t up for negotiation.”

“I see you’re the same old King you always were,” she spat. “Always completely focused on what you want. God forbid what anyone else wants.”

My fingers dug harder into her skin as I lowered my face to hers. “I’m not going to say this again, so listen up close. You came to me with information I need to check out. While I do that, you’ll stay with my boys. And you’ll do this willingly, Ivy, or else you and I are going to have a big fucking problem, and you won’t like the outcome.”

Her eyes widened a fraction. She seemed surprised. “You need to check what out? You don’t believe what I told you?”

A headache clamped down over my skull. Too much shit had happened today, and I had a lot more to deal with now that I’d had this conversation with her. Ivy and I had history—a fuckload of it—but that didn’t mean I would simply take her word for this. I may have loved her once, but I’d learnt a long fucking time ago not to let love get in the way. These days I ran on distrust and gut instinct. “Did you ever know me to be a man who didn’t check shit out? Not even you could make me roll the fuck over and blindly believe something.” I yanked her arm. “Now move!” I barked as the pain in my head intensified.

“God, you’re a bastard!” At least she’d stopped resisting me and had taken a few steps towards the attic ladder.

“You already knew that. Were you expecting something different?” I wasn’t the man she’d known. Not anymore. And if she thought I was a bastard back then, she had a lot to learn about who I was now.

She chose not to answer that. Instead, she gave me one last filthy glare before following Hyde down the ladder. When I reached them a few moments later, he had her by the arm.

His eyes met mine. “You want me to take Ivy back to the clubhouse?”

My natural instinct was to keep her as close to me as possible, but I fought that. I needed to be smarter here. I knew if she stayed with me, it would likely fuck with my thinking. “Yeah, brother. I’ll meet you there. And can you send Nitro over to Nik’s to bring her back to the clubhouse?”

He nodded and headed outside. Ivy didn’t put up another fight. And she didn’t look back at me. She simply allowed Hyde to direct her movements.

Everyone had cleared the house, leaving me alone, which was a good thing. I fucking needed the space.

I sucked in a long breath and exhaled it harshly. Fucking Tony Romano. I’d never suspected he was behind all the shit going on. I’d heard the stories about his and Ivy’s marriage. That they were a volatile couple. It hadn’t surprised me, though. Not with the history she and I shared. But what she’d told us seemed extreme. Fuck, Tony ran an empire; he didn’t have time to be fucking around on a revenge mission.

Pulling out my phone, I dialled my sister Skylar. It went to voicemail. Fuck. She had a habit of missing my calls. Or fucking ignoring them.

I dialled her again, my chest tightening with the need for her to answer.

Voicemail again.

I stabbed at the phone to try her again.

She finally answered. “Jesus, King, I’m in the middle of studying for an exam here.”

I ignored her attitude. “And I’m in the middle of trying to save your fucking life, Skye. Pack your shit up. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes to pick you up and take you to the clubhouse.”

“Ah, that would be a no. I have too much studying to do.”

I massaged my temple where my headache kicked at my head. “This isn’t up for negotiation. Take your books with you.”

“Why?”

Skylar’s twenty-four years were her downfall. She was too young and too sheltered to understand the darker parts of life. That was entirely my fault because I’d raised her that way. I’d fight every fucking minute of every fucking day to keep her sheltered, but the sooner she grew up and realised I knew best, the easier my life would be.

“Because I said the fuck so,” I barked, unable to keep my frustration in any longer. “Be ready when I get there.”

Without waiting for her reply, I ended the call and dialled my other sister, Annika.

She picked up straight away. “Hey.”

“Nik, I need you to pack up the kids and wait for Nitro to swing by your place. Some shit is going down with the club, and I want you all safe with me at the clubhouse tonight.”

Silence for a beat. And then—“Is this you being overprotective or is it for real?”

“Fuck, between you and Skye...,” I muttered. “I’m being deadly serious. Nitro is on his way. Be ready for him. I’ll see you at the clubhouse.”

Again, I hung up before she could attempt to argue with me. Today wasn’t the fucking day.

Images of Jen crumpling to the ground after that motherfucker put a bullet in her flooded my mind. Her eyes would haunt me forever.

The way they came to mine in disbelief.

The way they screamed her horror.

The way they condemned me for her child’s death.

This really wasn’t the day for anyone to fight me on any-fucking-thing.

This was the day for me to stand the fuck up and take control of this fucking city.

Jen was right in her condemnation. I may not have put that bullet in her child, but I may as well have. No fucking way would I allow that shit to happen again.