46. Burn It All Down
BURN IT ALL DOWN
Oliver—August
The days since that afternoon in the forest with Ivy passed in a blissful, love-induced haze.
She went to her skate lessons in the morning, and I tended to the ranch duties.
She came home around lunchtime, jotting down ideas and sections of a new book idea she had in her notebook I’d bought her.
We’d eat lunch together, and afterwards, she’d take Hudson to his skate practice, and I’d finish work.
We’d meet back up in the evening, and whoever arrived home first would cook dinner.
She slid into our lives as if she’d always been here. As if she were always meant to be here.
Happiness felt really damn nice, and I wasn’t sure if I’d smiled this much in my entire life.
Tonight though, Hudson didn’t have practice, and I’d finished up work a little early. Ivy had an afternoon shift at The Roadhouse, so she wasn’t home yet. Which meant that it was up to Hudson and me to make dinner, an activity I never tired of when it came to spending time with my son.
The plan was to fire up the grill and make steaks and twice-baked potatoes with all the fixin’s, as Mom would say.
“Dad, I have a question,” Hudson asked as he sat at the island and carved out the insides of the cooked potatoes.
“What’s up, bud?”
“Are you and Ivy…” He paused, his eyes meeting mine for a brief moment, like he was trying to carefully pick his words. “Are you two dating?”
I stared, unsure of what to say at first. It wasn’t as if I didn’t want him to know. In fact, Ivy and I had agreed we wanted to tell him soon. We just hadn’t decided on when or how it would happen.
The idea that he’d come right out and ask hadn’t even dawned on me.
“What makes you ask that?”
His eyes went back to scooping the potatoes, and he shrugged. “You two just spend a lot of time together, and Uncle Wyatt and Aunt Ember were talking a few weeks ago about how you smiled a lot around her. They didn’t know I was eavesdropping.”
I nodded and leaned down on the counter across from him. “Do you think I smile a lot around her?”
“Well, duh. But so do I. I love having Ivy around.”
I chuckled as he finished the last potato, and I got him out the sour cream and seasonings to mix into the mash.
“Ivy and I are taking the time to get to know each other, and I like her. A lot. So if it’s up to me, she isn’t going anywhere at all,” I finally told him.
It wasn’t the full truth, but it wasn’t a lie. I didn’t lie to my son, and I had no intention of it. That wouldn’t change now.
Hudson nodded, and that night when I received a text from my brother, I knew I was one step closer to ensuring Ivy stayed here, where she belonged.
She was suspicious, and she continued being suspicious even as I dropped her off at Aspen and Rowan’s house. Honestly, I believed I was a better actor than that, but apparently I was only fooling myself.
However, it didn’t change my plans.
My fist came up, knocking on the front door, Rowan on my other side.
“Wish you’d tell me what the plan is already,” he muttered impatiently.
“Don’t feel the need to repeat myself,” I replied.
He groaned just as Wyatt opened the door, a hand waving us in. Theo was already there, seated on the couch. Rowan took the spot next to him, and Wyatt gave me a patient look while the other two were antsy. Nothing out of the ordinary here.
I decided to cut right to the chase. No use shoving it off. Wyatt knew the bare minimum of what he needed to know because I needed him to investigate before I could make a plan. Information was what had taken this so long to happen.
Three fucking weeks. That was how long it had been since I’d tied her up and she’d confessed what that fucker had done to her.
Three weeks of Wyatt and I watching him. Getting a lay of his routine. His money situation. His father. His child’s mother. His friends. His job. Where he was living. All of it.
I knew everything there was to know about this man, and while I couldn’t kill him, I could make his life a living hell and protect my girl instead.
“Todd has explicit videos of Ivy. He’s claiming he’ll post them on the internet if she doesn’t get back with him,” I explained calmly. Though on the inside, I was anything but.
The rage had been brewing within my chest for twenty-one days now, and it wouldn’t be put out until those videos were destroyed and she was safe.
Rowan and Theo were wide eyed, the shocked expressions clear. However, Wyatt had the same look I did. Clear and contemplative.
“Okay, so how do we want to do this?” he asked. “Top priority is getting rid of the videos of course. Do you want me to give everyone the rest of the info? Or do you?”
Rowan looked back and forth between us. “The rest of the info? What do you mean? Did you tell him before us?”
I tried not to roll my eyes. “Yes. He’s known since just after I found out. I needed his help getting information on this asshole and making some sort of plan that didn’t involve killing him, as you so kindly reminded me I couldn’t do.”
Theo chuckled. “I think we could’ve found a way, if that’s really what you wanted.”
I shook my head, the exhaustion with this situation beginning to set in already.
“No, I don’t. I’m hopeful that having a child mixed with what I plan on tonight will make him want to…
I don’t know. Turn his life around. He’s a piece of shit, but he’s also about to be a dad.
We all know what it’s like to grow up without one, and if there’s a chance he could be better?
I just can’t let him have the opportunity to drag Ivy down with him if that’s what he chooses. ”
Rowan and Theo nodded, their expressions solemn at the mention of the loss of our father. Years later, and the ache hadn’t left. Times like this it felt bitter. Beau Carragan would know exactly what to do in this situation. He always did.
But my father wasn’t here anymore, and it wasn’t like I could call upon a Ouija board and beg him for some guidance.
So instead, I leaned on my chaotic brothers who helped me do shit that others would scoff at.
We always joked on bringing Payton in on our schemes, but then we stopped joking, because logically we knew she was even crazier than we were.
When we were teens, a boy kept messing with Rowan, teasing him about his long hair.
I told them I’d go to the principal if he couldn’t handle it on his own, so what did Payton do?
She keyed the guy's car and dumped chocolate pudding in his back seat in the midst of summer so it molded and baked into his cloth seats.
So no. I knew if I brought Payton into this, especially when it came to Ivy, Payton would more than likely do something jail worthy beyond the breaking and entering I’d planned.
“Well, Toad is staying at his father’s house on the other side of town,” Wyatt began.
“Daddy dearest just checked himself back into rehab. This time, it was court mandated. Drunk driving isn’t doing this man any favors.
Tonight, Toad should be gone from seven to around midnight.
Pool league shit with his buds. So we’ll have about four hours to get in, find the shit, and bail out. ”
“How do we know what we’re looking for?” Theo chimed in.
“Easy. Talked to his old man last week at the bar. Toad doesn’t own a computer, and neither does his father.
Which leaves his phone. I hacked that pretty easily.
His password to everything is one-two-three-four and his name.
He downloaded the videos to a flash drive and stored them in his cloud.
Deleted those this afternoon, so all we have to do is find the flash drive.
Easy.” Wyatt shrugged as if any of that made sense to the rest of us.
“Oh yeah, totally,” Rowan mumbled. “Well, let’s do this.”
“Still think we should bring Payton along,” Theo mumbled.
“Payton would look strange being invited to a guys’ night at the boxing gym, don’t you think?” I asked as we all loaded into my truck, and I drove to the gym.
The gym was our cover. A reason to be out and about. A place to store our phones and not look suspicious. Damien knew the plan, and he was tasked with rerunning the tapes on a loop, with Wyatt’s help, once we came back to box, so in case the alibi needed a backup, the tape gave us that.
It would show us showing up, dropping our stuff, doing a warmup lap around the block twice, and then boxing for a few hours. Sparring and tussling with my brothers to blow off some steam from a long week of work.
The laps around the block that just happened to be right by the trailer park Todd’s father lived in.
We pulled up, tossing our stuff in the locker room and slipping into our sneakers. Wyatt had his cut-off hoodie that he’d cropped and cut the sleeves off. Rowan was in a black T-shirt and shorts. Theo was in a basketball jersey, and I’d slid on Ivy’s favorite dark blue tank top I owned.
We made a whole show of stretching on the main floor, the sun finally sinking below the horizon as we headed out the front door and around the block twice.
The third lap—this one wouldn’t exist on the tape—took us into the trailer park.
It consisted of eight trailers. Two double wides in the back and six singles up front.
Todd’s father owned the second one on the left. Number thirty-three. White siding and two steps took you inside. The steps looked new, but one of the windows had a shattered pane, and it made me wonder if his father’s alcohol addiction went in phases like Ivy said.
Some days he was fine, working hard and being a solid member of society, and other days his addiction hit hard and nothing else mattered.
I’d never met the man aside from passing him occasionally at the grocery store, but Ivy swore when he was sober he was nice enough. But when he had even a beer, it was like a light switch flipped in his head and he was someone different.