Chapter 31
IAN
The man sitting on top of Ivy cranked his head around. “Who the fuck are you? Oh, hold on, you’re the popstar. This was all a setup.”
“Ivy, are you alright?”
My adrenaline was pumping hard and fast through my system, and every one of my senses was on fire.
Ivy’s round eyes took up half her face, but she didn’t look like she was in any pain. The guy on top of her was pinning her down, but he didn’t have his hands on her, except his fingers circled around her small wrist. “I’m fine, sort of. What are you doing here?”
I lunged forward, fists at the ready. “Get off her, mate, or I will fuck you up.”
Matt, I’m assuming it was Matt, laughed. “Come at me, pretty boy. I’ll fuck up your face so bad, you’ll never sing again—not that you can sing now. Total shit.”
I advanced and loomed over him and Ivy on the floor. Matt didn’t have any weapons, so I closed my hand around the back of his neck to pull him away from Ivy. “You don’t wanna try me, bro. I trained with Marky Mark.”
Ivy’s head shot up. “Who? Get off me, Matt.”
“When was that, at bandboy bootcamp? That’s supposed to scare me?”
Matt shifted a little, and I saw my chance, although he looked so much like Ivy, this would hurt me more than him. I landed a punch on his jaw with a satisfying smack, and his head snapped back, a surprised look on his face.
Ivy took advantage of her brother’s incapacity and wriggled from beneath him, dancing to her feet. The screen door crashed behind me, and I swung around, my fists still clenched, one hand throbbing from the punch.
Chloe, her hair a wild nest, her makeup smeared, tripped to a stop. “Ian?”
Ivy held up her fist. “I got it. What did he do to you?”
“He shoved me into the back seat of the Tesla and locked me in. Took me a minute to find the fucking door handle.”
She reached into her purse. “Make a run for it. I’ve got my pepper spray.”
These Yanks and their weapons.
Ivy spun around and rushed toward the loo, and I took off hot on her heels as Matt began to lumber to his feet, squarely in the bullseye of Chloe’s pepper spray.
I squeezed in after Ivy just before she slammed the door and locked it. I took her by the shoulders. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
She fell against my chest and wrapped her arms around my waist. “I can’t believe you’re here. How’d you find me?”
“Find my phone. Will you tell me what’s happening?”
“I will later. I need to do something first.”
She opened her fist, revealing a green flash drive. Pinching it between two fingers, she held it over the toilet.
“You’re going to flush that?”
She nodded. Her hand trembled as she chewed on her bottom lip. Then she jerked her hand back and stuffed the drive into my front pocket.
“I can’t do it.”
***
The following afternoon, I sat behind the wheel of my rental car in the parking lot of the Federal Building in Westwood—not too far from where I first met Ivy.
We stayed up all night talking, and she told me everything—about how her father had used both her and Matt in some of his cons, how he involved her in a scam against a crime family in LA, how she and Matt suspected the hit and run that claimed her father’s life was no accident, and how Matt had video of her participating in that con. He’d then used it to blackmail her for my money.
My heart broke for her when she explained that she’d done what her father asked because her mum had already left her, and she didn’t want to lose her father too, no matter how flawed he was. How could she think I’d ever blame her for that?
Finally, she emerged from the building. Her clothing hadn’t been replaced by an orange jumpsuit, and she wasn’t sporting handcuffs, so I figured things had gone well with the FBI.
I got out of the car and when she spotted me, she started running towards me. I met her halfway and picked her up in my arms. “Is everything going to be alright? They’re not going to charge you. Even if they do, I’m here for you.”
Cupping my face with one hand, she said, “Agent Reynolds told me that while the statute of limitations for bank fraud is ten years and my father did, in fact, commit bank fraud, I wasn’t a party to that. The statute of limitations is five years for fraud, so I’m past that, and he told me they would’ve certainly taken my situation under consideration, and the fact that I’d been coerced into participating, and wouldn’t have charged me, anyway. I’m free.”
I kissed her and led her back to the car. When we were seated inside with the engine running, I turned to her. “I can’t believe you’ve been living with that all these years. I just wish you would’ve explained everything to me from the beginning.”
“I told you, baby. Matt would’ve made your life...and mine, a living hell.”
“I wouldn’t have allowed that to happen.”
I smoothed her hair back from her beautiful face. Her eyes had lost their mystery, but the light that shone from them now made them even more addictive.
“I know that now. You were always stronger than I thought, stronger than you thought.”
She glanced down at her hands in her lap. “I-if you want to go home now, that’s fine. I understand.”
“You mean without you?”
I gripped the top of the steering wheel and stared at the cars rushing down Wilshire Boulevard. She’d lied to me. Tricked me. Hid her identity from me. Had run cons with her father. Had a dirtbag for a brother. My brain was screaming at me to run in the opposite direction. But my heart knew her smile, her touch, the way she believed in me like no other. The way she saved me.
“I don’t think I could ever do anything without you by my side, Ivy Chase.”
I covered her hands with one of mine, and a little sob escaped her lips. “I have my issues, and I can’t guarantee I won’t fuck up. I’ve just been allowed to see my own daughter unsupervised in over a year. What does that tell you?”
She sniffed. “It tells me you worked hard to overcome your demons and beat them into submission.”
Skimming her fingers across my forearm, she said, “You inspired me to beat mine back, too. That’s why I couldn’t destroy that flash drive. It was time to come clean. Even if I never saw you again, your example gave me the courage to face my mistakes.”
“But you are going to see me again.”
I slung my arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “Over and over and over. You’re going to see me so much, you’ll plead for a break. You’re coming on tour with me—for as long as you can. And you’re coming with me for the holidays to meet my family. And you’re going to meet Thea. And you’re going to be in my bed every night because I can’t even go to sleep without you next to me.”
“I think I can handle that, but you’re going to have to walk me through the whole family stuff. It’s foreign territory for me.”
She pinched my chin. “I just have one question for you.”
“What’s that? How’d I find out about my...not my record company’s...payments to Chase Arts?”
“Oh, yeah, that too. How did you find out? I know Jack didn’t tell you.”
“You know that meeting I had with my accountant the day you left. I saw the payments then and confronted Jack. He never could lie.”
“You’re not holding it against him, are you? I know he wanted to protect his job, but he really cares about you.”
“I already hired him back. He’s been texting me every five minutes to return to England for my first interview on the Brit Morning show in a few days.”
“And you’ll be there.”
“Only if you’re coming with me.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything, but that wasn’t my question.”
I teased her earlobe with my thumb. “What’s your question?”
“Did you really train with Marky Mark Wahlberg?”
Laughter bubbled from my lips, and I rested my forehead on the steering wheel. “I can’t believe I said that. It’s the first thing that came to my head. Are you going to be able to put up with all that rubbish from me?”
“You have a lot more to put up with from me, including my annoying brother.”
She patted my arm. “No more crimes, though.”
“Yeah, about your brother.”
“I know. He’s the worst, but we don’t have to deal with him. I mean once he knows we’re back together, he’ll probably hit you up for money, but we can ignore him.”
“I paid off his Tesla today.”
She snapped her head around. “You did what? Why would you do that for him.”
“I don’t know.”
I stroked her hair. “While we were talking last night and you were telling me all about your childhood, I felt sorry for Matt. Your mum left him, too. Your dad used him, too. Yeah, you were able to turn out okay, more than okay.”
I kissed the side of her head. “But experiences affect everyone differently, look at me and my brothers in the band, and Matt probably would’ve been a different bloke with a different background.”
“You have to be the sea lion.”
She shook her head. “It’s a good thing I’m coming back to England with you. You’re a babe in the woods.”
She rubbed my thigh. “Emphasis on babe. I can spot a con a mile away, and I’ll make it my mission to protect you from the vultures.”
I grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss against her wrist. “And I’ll make it mine to protect you from yourself.”