“I think accepting is in your best interests.”

What the fuck is that supposed to mean? How is sending me to China or Sudan, or somewhere else far away from Ivy, so Scalero can tie up his loose end, in my best interests? “I’m not leaving her.” I’m not a SEAL anymore, and he can’t order me around.

“What’s this about?”

“The car that was sitting outside the house.” He knows exactly where I am right now. There’s no point pretending. “Was he on her, or on me?”

“Why would I have anyone on you?” Bentley’s friendly tone is gone, but I don’t buy his irritation for a second. Months drag between my assignments. He wants me gone now for a reason. He wants to erase this last question mark—Ivy—for a reason.

I don’t answer him. This conversation has already gone on long enough.

“Don’t forget who’s had your back all these years, son.”

“And don’t forget who has done everything you’ve asked all these years with blind trust.” He must hear the anger in my tone.

Silence hangs over the line.

Have I said too much?

“I need time.” Time to reconcile my guilt over this last assignment, a guilt that seems to grow daily, as I get closer to Ivy. Time to make sure she’s safe.

Time to get to know her.

Time to be sure that this is what I want. That she is what I want. Time to figure out how I’m going to lie to her for the rest of our lives.

“I don’t think you understand what I’m—”

“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. I’m saying no. Send your mercenaries. I’m sure between the two of them, they won’t fuck it up too badly.” I hang up and shut the phone off.

Wondering exactly what refusing him will mean.

THIRTY-FIVE

IVY

I hadn’t intended on eavesdropping. Honestly.

I left Ned’s room and went to the office to collect the debris left after Sebastian patched all the holes. The window was open a crack, letting the cool air in.

The air that carried with it Sebastian’s low voice.

At least I know he wasn’t talking to a girlfriend, or a wife.

But who the hell was he talking to just now? Besides someone he said no to. He kept referring to “her.”

Am I “her”?

And mercenaries?

Jesus Christ. Who the hell is Sebastian?

“You hungry?”

I gasp at the sound of his voice, my mind so preoccupied, I didn’t notice him slip in. He’s in the doorway, his T-shirt back on.

“Maybe in an hour?”

His gaze flickers to the cracked window and then returns to me, screaming with understanding. My heart starts pounding.

He knows I overheard him.

I wonder if this is what Dakota was talking about. His deep, dark secrets.

I wait for him to say something about it, to accuse me of something, to get angry and storm out. But he simply closes the distance and pulls me into his arms, leaning down until our foreheads press together, not saying a word.

“What are you doing?” I finally ask.

After another long moment, he simply says, “I’m staying.”

I drop down to sit on the floor outside the bathroom, my back to the wall. Sebastian is still upstairs, filling the last of the holes, quietly brooding over something I don’t understand. The pre-phone-call windowsill action is clearly not going to pick up where it left off, so I figured I’d let him brood alone.

I gingerly pick up a broken piece of tile from the box, examining it. “I don’t know why they had to break the tile. Did they seriously think he hid money under there?”

“Watch those. They’re sharp,” Bobby warns, his ass sticking halfway out the bathroom as he kneels, setting the new flooring in. “Damn near hacked half my hand off pullin’ them up.”

“Thank God this bathroom is small.” We went with cheap, generic tile and it still hurt when the bill rang up.

“You realize how much it would cost to have a professional in, right?” He peers over his shoulder at me, his brow coated with sweat and dust.

“I guess it’s good that I know an amateur who can do it for free, then, isn’t it?”

He chuckles, pushing himself off the ground to tower over me. “Ned would be laughin’ his ass off at me right now.”

A spark of sadness touches me with the mention of my uncle.

Bobby’s expression softens. “The guys called. I gotta head out now. Got a tow.”

I nod quietly.

“But I should be ready to grout here by tomorrow.”

“ ’Kay.” I hesitate. “Thanks, Bobby.” For everything else that he is, he and the guys are saving my ass here.

“No problem,” he says, peeling off his work gloves.

A shiver runs down my back as I’m hit with a flash of watching that guy Mario do exactly the same thing from my hiding spot under the desk. I was at the same eye level as I am now, and I remember focusing on the spot of fresh blood on his wrist. I was so horrified by it—by what it meant—that I dismissed everything else.

“Why you lookin’ at me like that?” Bobby asks.

“A scar. He had a scar,” I murmur, remembering it now. The skin was pink and puckered, like a burn mark. It stretched over his knuckles and covered the back of his hand.

When the cops questioned me, they pushed me to think about smaller details. Tattoos and piercings. Any other marks that would make someone stand out. I was so busy trying to push out the memory of Ned’s blood on the guy’s wrist that I pushed the scar out, too.

“Who did?”

“Mario. The guy who killed Ned.”

Bobby frowns. “You just rememberin’ that now?”

“Yeah. Weird, isn’t it?” Fields told me to call him if I thought of anything else that might be useful. I figured that was the standard party line. I didn’t expect to actually remember “anything else.”

I don’t know how helpful this will be, but . . .

I head into the kitchen to find my wallet and Fields’s business card, along with my phone.

THIRTY-SIX

SEBASTIAN

“Keep the porn to a minimum. Dakota’s streaming isn’t unlimited,” Ivy throws over her shoulder on her way out of the bedroom, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

“Like I’d even want that right now.” I eye her ass as it sways in black pants. “Leggings” she called them when I sat here and watched her get dressed, completely spent after a long day working at the house, my mind churning after that disastrous call from Bentley. The one that Ivy ended up hearing anyway, despite my efforts. I played it back in my head at least a dozen times as I worked away, trying to recall every word I might have said. It couldn’t have been too enlightening because she’s still talking to me.

She still stripped down to nothing the minute we stepped into her room, covered in white dust and both needing showers.

She turns to eye me lying in her bed, her gaze drifting over the reaper along my side that she just tended to. It’s scabbing over nicely now, and she seems impressed with the way it’s healing. “I think I’m paid up for at least a week with your bodyguard services, right?”

“At least.” I smirk. “I like your payment plan.”