Ivy

For what seems like the tenth time in the past two days, I’ve wandered around Cade’s apartment trying to figure out the man behind all this black.

I’ve watched television, which I never do. Ellie brought me a few books and magazines. Chaz took me to the gym and even roamed around the mall inside this building. After hours, of course. I’ve seen the doctor, and even though birth control pills aren’t additive, to me they’re still medication. So, we decided to go with an IUD. The one person I haven’t seen since we returned from the gun range is Cade.

A gun range that had many thoughts running through my head as to why we were there other than him making sure I could take care of myself. And, why this particular warehouse that was set deep on the property of The Diamond Estate when Cade told me all he did was live in their building. Of course, I’ve never been to their immaculate home, but I know where they live. I’m sure most everyone in this city who has heard of them knows. And the guns. There were dozens of them. Cade has always had an obsession. Still, I’ve never seen so many and to top it off; I know that’s what The Diamonds do. They smuggle guns.

I should have asked him. Made him demand to tell the truth. He works for them, I know he does. I didn’t because my body was still floating from one of the most intense orgasms I’ve ever had, and my emotions were clogging my throat.

When we left, I told him how good the gun felt in my hands. How natural and how my heart rate kicked up from pulling the trigger.

I felt alive holding that tiny gun. More alive than I’ve been in years, and even though it should have scared me that I was holding a weapon of death in my hands, it didn’t. It had me on a high like never before. It had me wanting to bolt like a strike of deadly lightning up the driveway of Drew’s home and blow his brains all over his pristine white floor.

I take a seat on a barstool and glide my fingers across the smooth marble island in the middle of the kitchen. My gaze traveling to the windows. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the view. Something tells me that wherever Cade just up and disappeared to in the middle of the night is the reason I should get used to this view. He’s not going anywhere. This I can feel deep in my bones.

“Where did you go and why didn’t you wake me?” I will the questions to stop screaming at me, to stop piling up, and yet they prattle on trying to search for answers.

I can barely sleep. My concentration is higher than the other night when Cade used his hands, mouth, and words to detour my focus.

Since he tore me wide open by asking me to tell him things about my past. Telling him about the beatings, the guns, the pretending stripped away another piece of it and leaving it behind.

Except my past is still out there lurking. He’s looking for me; I know he is.

Trembling, I grip the edge of the chair to keep myself from falling to the floor. “What if he finds me before Cade kills him? What if he shows up here while he’s gone?” Panic claws at my stomach. Knowing Chaz is sleeping down the hall doesn’t do a thing to stop the anxiety blocking the air to escape from my throat. It swells until I can barely breathe.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Hate, hate, hate trembles and spreads. Remembering what Cade said when he told me to aim and fire.

All I saw was Drew.

His malicious decision to rob me blind of the person I was. Drew twisted the knife in my back until he shattered my spine, yet I’m still walking. Still breathing and as long as I continue to remind myself of that. I’ll get through these attacks that come at me out of nowhere.

I hate him more than I ever thought I could hate a person. I want him destroyed, a massacre of his cold-hearted blood to stain my hands. To seek my own vengeance for not only taking from me but killing his family. Hurting Cade, and becoming my ruin.

I open my eyes and slowly lift my head when the door opens.

Tension.

It tightens the air in this room.

The thundering beat of my heart heightens until it rumbles like a roll of thunder in my chest.

Worried and tired dark eyes stare back at me. The mysterious man rigidly stiff and as he peels off his jacket, tattoos I still haven’t gotten a close-up of hiding behind his blood-splattered shirt.

Tears roll down my face, and I blink past them, trying to see Cade completely.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Wasn’t expecting to see you sitting there at three in the morning. You look good there, Ivy. Like you belong.” He drops a black bag by the door. The same one he took with him the night I found out he was alive.

Pain clutches hold of my being, sending some wicked emotions of turmoil through me as I clutch harder to the barstool. “Whose blood is that?” We haven’t talked about when he was going to kill Drew. After shooting the other day, I was hoping Cade would let me be the one to draw Drew’s last breath. However, I don’t believe that blood is Drew’s.

My pulse hammers when he rips the shirt over his head. A wide range of muscle with a rippling effect of abs from chest shooting below the waistband of his jeans greets me, perfect bone structure and all man. His perfect body has me fighting not to strip right here. To lay on this island and have him take me every which way he can.

“It’s not Drew’s.” His tone wavers on the edge of disappointment that it’s not. My mind rattles and shakes. I have no idea whose it is, only have a feeling in the pit of my stomach I’m about to learn exactly what kind of man Cade is.

Powerfully, he steps toward me, grabs his pipe and tobacco off the table. Eyes directed down while he packs his pipe.

The man is sinfully beautiful.

Raw and hard.

Handsome and brutal.

Framed in threats.

Bleeding in danger.

Smoke curls around his face, flowing upward in a curly ribbon. His eyes full of worry and want and need and desperation land on me.

“Tell me, please. I see you, Cade. You’re there. I want you to see me too, see inside of me and never let me go. I want us to secure ourselves to each other and support each other and fight off anything or anyone who dares to stand between us. But I can’t fight off you. I don’t want to, you have to tell me where you’ve been.” I know where he’s been. I can read his lips before the words come out. I can see it in the way his Adam’s apple bobs.

In a blink of an eye, his gaze changes.

Fear.

It stretches across his face.

Fear of losing me. Fear of what I’ll think.

That bitch strikes at the most dangerous times.

“I’m a cold-blooded killer, Ivy. That blood was from the man I beat to death.”