37. Ivy
Chapter 37
Ivy
My fingers race across the piano keys, stirring the music to life.
Mom and Levgen wanted me to play my latest composition, so they’ve gathered here in the living room to listen to me.
Even though fear clings to the air, in the quaint little cottage the music sounds homey and the warmth of love surrounds us.
I finish my piece and they applaud.
“That was beautiful,” Levgen says.
“Absolutely beautiful.” Mom agrees with tears glistening in her eyes. “I don’t know what I did to get such a talented daughter.”
“Oh, Mom, thank you. It’s not finished yet.”
“But it sounded like something from heaven.” She moves toward me and hugs me, then plants a kiss on my forehead.
“How about I get us some chocolate cake before we head to bed?” Levgen suggests, smiling proudly at both of us. “It’s been a long day.”
“Sure thing.” Mom lets out a light chuckle.
She seems more at ease today. I don’t want to think it’s because Thorne didn’t come by. She’s still wary of him, which is understandable, but at least she hasn’t tried to stop me from seeing him. I wouldn’t stop, but it gives me hope that she’ll warm up to him someday.
Levgen leaves us and Mom sits on the stool next to me.
She’s barely left my side since we’ve been staying here.
Today she took me shopping and when we got back Levgen took us sailing on the river. I was feeling a lot better, so they wanted to make the most of the time they had with me. It was nice but there were moments when I just wanted to lie down.
“How are you feeling?” Mom asks.
“I’m still the same as five minutes ago when you asked.” I giggle.
“It wasn’t five minutes ago. It was more like ten.” Mom’s eyes twinkle with humor. “Okay, I see your point.”
“I’m fine, Mom. Just tired now.”
“Yeah, me too. I think we overdid it today.”
“It was great spending time with you, though.”
“And you. It was nice to hear you play your new piece, too. When we found this cottage and saw the piano we couldn’t help but take it. The cottage is actually going on the market. We were thinking of buying it so we could be close to you.”
“Mom, you don’t have to do that.”
“We wouldn’t move from L.A. as such, but it would be nice to visit more often and have a place of our own to come to. You could also use it as a getaway whenever you want.”
“Okay. Whatever makes you worry less about me.”
The distress I’ve witnessed over the last few days returns to her eyes. “I will always worry about you. Now more than ever. I don’t want you to go back to Raventhorn, or anywhere , but I know I can’t keep you locked away in a tower forever.”
I wish I could tell her I’ll be safe, but I can’t. I can’t promise her such a thing when I don’t know what’s happening. Levgen hasn’t told me anything more since we got here, so I feel clueless.
“Please try not to worry. Levgen is looking into everything. He knows what he’s doing.” At least my reassurance seems to calm her.
The doorbell rings, interrupting her next words. We look at each other, both of us wondering who that could be at this time of night.
It’s nearly eleven.
“I’ll get it.” I push to my feet.
“Wait, maybe let Levgen answer the door. We don’t know who it is.”
“Mom, there are fifteen guards outside. And I don’t think anyone who wants to harm me would ring the bell.”
“Okay… I guess you’re right.”
I saunter away and answer the door. When I open it, I’m so glad that I insisted on getting the door. It’s Thorne.
I’m so excited to see him that I throw my arms around him. “Oh my gosh, you’re here.”
“I’m here, Bambi.” He holds me as if this is the first time we’ve seen each other in centuries.
When he releases me he cups my face and I notice the deeply troubled look in his eyes straight away. He’s also carrying a big envelope.
“Are you okay?”
“Where are your mom and Levgen?”
I notice that he didn’t answer the question, but he doesn’t look okay. “They’re out back.”
“I need to speak to them. I need you there, too.”
“What’s going on, Thorne?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute.”
“Okay. Come with me.”
I lead him to the living room where Mom is. Levgen walks in after us carrying a tray holding several slices of cake.
The venomous look Thorne gives Levgen sends a cold shiver through me. I’ve never seen him look at anyone like that. Not even Aiden when he threatened to kill him.
The look is so potent that Levgen sets down the tray.
“Is everything okay, Thorne?” He looks him up and down. “It’s late?—”
“Fourteen years ago my father commissioned you for business on a hedge fund. The two of you worked together for years before that.”
I glance at Levgen. I wasn’t aware that he knew Thorne’s father.
“I work with many members of the Knights' council.”
“Yeah, you did. Except my father was the one who put your company on the map. Your wealth grew exponentially after that. Sure we all want a piece of the pie, but what my father didn’t know was that you were working your way up to become a senior Knight. To do that you needed to possess a certain net worth.”
“Where’s this going, son?”
Thorne shakes his head. “Don’t do that. Don’t call me son.”
“Thorne, what’s this about?” I cut in, curiosity getting the better of me.
His eyes soften for a fleeting moment when he looks at me but quickly return to their previous hardness.
“When my parents found out Levgen was stealing from his clients they threatened to expose him, so he hired an assassin to have them killed. He wanted the entire family dead.”
“What is he saying?” Mom steps forward and looks at Levgen, then at Thorne. “Thorne, Levgen would never do that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“This is nonsense,” Levgen speaks up.
“Levgen, don’t fucking deny the truth. I have all the proof right here.” Thorne holds up the envelope and pulls out a few documents. “These are encrypted emails between you and the mercenary group.” He throws the documents on the floor at Levgen’s feet.
“This is the contract for thirty million that you signed with them to kill my family.” Thorne throws more paperwork down. “This is the fucking contract you signed with them for fifteen million to plant false evidence at the palace when you set up Ivy’s father. And this is a fucking picture of you and the scar-faced man.”
My lungs lock and the fibers of reality slip from my grasp leaving the air around me thick like tar.
Levgen set Dad up. It was him all along.
Him.
Thorne holds up the picture and the contract for us all to see and Mom looks like she might fade away to nothing.
Defeat has stolen the strength from Levgen’s expression and he looks cornered.
Cornered and trapped in shock that Thorne could have found out his dark, dirty secrets.
“The only reason I haven’t killed you yet is because I’m not going to do that in front of your wife and daughter.” The calm mask cloaking Thorne’s tone speaks of his danger. “With my father out of the way, you took his place in the auxiliary leadership. He’d referred you before, so they were all too accepting of you when he died. But that is just the top of the shit. All of that was done for one single reason.”
“What reason?” Mom asks, but she’s glaring at Levgen.
“To marry you,” Thorne replies.
Mom and I both look at Thorne now.
“What do you mean?” Mom’s voice is so weak I can barely hear it.
“He killed his first wife. She didn’t die of an illness. She was poisoned. He poisoned her and made it look like she died of natural causes.” Thorne continues staring at Levgen with that murderous expression in his eyes. “Why don’t you tell the family you stole from your best friend what you did to get them.”
My legs turn to water, and I feel like I might wither away. I look at Levgen, my brain struggling to comprehend what Thorne is saying. And yet something sinister whispers to me that I knew things were off. Not exactly about the way he helped us, but about him .
I was too young to really understand, but it was strange how he married Mom with ease and then they were a couple. I remember her looking awkward around him for years, but he was never like that. He fell into the role of the husband from day one.
“I saw you first,” Levgen says to Mom in a tight voice. “I met you before him.”
The him he’s referring to is my father.
“But you introduced us.” Mom’s voice trembles.
“I did, but I didn’t know you were going to fall for him. I couldn’t marry you because I was promised to Susana. I married her anyway but I always planned to kill her. When she died, my next step was to get you back from my thieving best friend.” When he blinks it’s like that mask of the savior slips off his face and I see him for who he really is. “First, I had to get in with the senior Knights so I would be allowed to marry you. My family inheritance rules are strict and I would always be bound to have an arranged marriage with anyone who was of age in Susana’s family. Unless I was a senior Knight. Nicholai Ivanov was in the process of helping me accomplish that goal when his wife and daughter discovered what I did to my clients. That’s why I had them killed, but I left a loose end.”
“Me.” Thorne gives him a mirthless grin.
“I wasn’t worried about a child but it turns out I should have been. For years I plotted to get rid of Gustave. The opportunity came about at the palace two years after I was rid of Nicholai’s family. I set him up to take the fall for the murders but I left another loose end.” Now he looks at me.
“You put me in danger,” I choke out.
“You weren’t supposed to be there. Your mother was called in to work at the hospital and your father had to take care of you.”
“I can’t believe this is really true.” Mom swallows, shaking her head. “You did this?”
“I’m sorry my love.” Levgen stares back at her. “I’ve always been in love with you and all I wanted was to be with you. You should have always been my wife, and Ivy should have been my daughter.”
“So you took me away from Gustave? You put me and my daughter in the worst kind of danger.”
“I set things up so the only thing you could do was turn to me. I thought staging your deaths would have taken care of everything. It did. Until now.”
“Nobody ever suspected you of anything, but you were the puppet master,” Thorne grates out. His free hand is balled into a tight fist at his side. “You hired mercenaries who pride themselves on working under the radar to do your dirty work. But you slipped up.”
“Ivy was the wild card.” Again he looks at me. “You weren’t supposed to be at the palace with your father that night, so you saw things you shouldn’t have seen. I didn’t know until days ago that you’d identified the scar-faced man as a Knight, and I didn’t know you heard his death chant.”
“Those two little details put everything together the moment I told Thorne.” I stare at my stepfather, not wanting to believe that he’s really this monster, but he is. “Nothing made sense until we spoke and realized we’d seen the same man.”
“Yes.”
“Then our search for the scar-faced man got you in trouble because you’d hired him for the jobs,” Thorne fills in. “You sent me the message warning me away from finding him because he was in touch with you.”
I wasn’t even aware of such a message.
“Had you listened to my warning, none of this would have happened. But you had to go and kill his spy. That’s why he tried to kill you. He will keep trying because you know too much.”
“This is madness. You have to stop him, Levgen,” Mom blurts.
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” comes a cold, raspy voice from the corner of the room.
We all turn around to look and my soul fractures at the sight of the scar-faced man standing in the doorway.
My God. He’s here. Inside the house with us. How did he get in without the guards noticing him?
He steps forward with a psychotic smile that belongs in a horror movie. “Sorry, Mrs. Yegorov, you can’t stop me and there’s no one to help you. My men have surrounded the place and all your guards are dead.” His voice is emotionless and raspy, matching the gruesome appearance of his face.
“I told you I would take care of the situation.” Levgen steps forward.
“And yet the boy is here.” The man looks at Thorne. “Here with all the evidence and probably more shit to expose me and mine.”
“You motherfucking bastard. You killed my family.” Thorne squares his shoulders. The man holds his hand up.
“I wouldn’t move if I were you.” He wiggles his fingers, and two men carrying guns enter from behind him.
One points a gun at Thorne and the other at Mom. The guns have red laser pointers shining on Mom and Thorne’s foreheads.
Terror closes my throat, and I dare not breathe. My nerves are amplified when the man approaches me and yanks me toward him.
My body is already weakened from the situation, but having him touch me makes me feel sick to my core. But that becomes the least of my worries when he places the cold metal barrel of his gun against my head.
I go still in his arms, my eyes on Thorne who looks frozen in fear for me.
“Let her go,” he barks.
“No. I don’t think so. Here’s what I want, Thorne Ivanov. You can give me everything you have on me.” He glares at Thorne, then switches his gaze to Levgen. “And you, old friend, you can give me fifty million for my troubles. And you get to pick which of your girls lives. Your wife or your stepdaughter.”
This is an absolute nightmare. I can’t believe this is really happening.
Dark terror spreads across Levgen’s face like a rash. “Let them both go and I’ll give you everything.”
“No. You’ve crossed me one too many times with your loose ends . I demand a heart from one of the people you love.”
“Just take mine. Please don’t hurt them,” Levgen begs. “Kill me and let them go.”
The man laughs out loud, and I feel the rattle of his laughter pulsating through my being. “No. Choose now.”
The sound of gunshots outside cuts through the moment.
Gunfire rips through the air again and Levgen takes the chance to lunge for Mom. He pushes her out of the way of the laser focused on her head. The two tumble to the ground but one of the guards fires a shot and hits Levgen.
I barely register what’s happening before Thorne moves into action and pulls out his gun to shoot the guard. He also shoots the scar-faced man in the arm.
Yelping in pain, the man releases me and I rush toward the corner to take cover behind the piano.
At that moment, Caspian rushes out of the kitchen and shoots the scar-faced man in the chest. Lucian is behind him with some of the guards I’ve seen at Raventhorn.
“Obviously, I didn’t come alone either,” Thorne snarls, pointing his gun at the scar-faced man. “I knew you were watching me and waiting for the right moment to attack, but you wanted to see what shit I had on you first. That’s why you came out tonight.”
The scar-faced man falls to his knees, dropping his gun and grabbing his chest. “End me then, Knight.”
“This is for my family.” Thorne shoots him in the head and the monster from my nightmares slumps to the ground in a pool of blood, vanquished.
Thorne fires another two shots.
Three bullets in total. One bullet for each member of his family. He fires two more times while looking across at me.
One bullet for each of us. Him and me.
For the pain we both suffered.
Then Thorne hurries to me and takes me into his arms.
I look across at Mom and Levgen. Mom is crying and shaking as she stares at Levgen lying lifeless on the ground before her.
She’s covered in blood, and Levgen has a bullet wound in his head.
His eyes are wide open, but he’s not with us anymore.
He’s dead.
He died protecting my mother. The woman he loved.