11. Ivy
IVY
T he entire drive back to the city, my throat burns.
Because I wanted him to chase me.
Because I wanted Roman to need me the way he claimed to.
God I’m pathetic.
I fell into his bullshit.
And somehow, in the pit of my stomach, I know the truth.
Just like everyone else… Roman didn’t truly want me.
The drive to the city doesn’t take as long as I thought it would. Roman’s compound was gorgeous and stunning, leaving me feeling almost bereft as I head back toward familiarity.
The city doesn’t look different.
Same overflowing trash cans. Same cracked sidewalks. The buildings around my neighborhood are all still there. The same stale exhaust sticks to my skin the second I step out of the car.
But everything about this feels wrong.
My apartment building looms just ahead like it always has. Run-down, paint peeling in long vertical strips, one window on the third floor boarded up with duct tape and a prayer. And yet, after where I just came from, it feels like crawling back into a coffin.
I clutch the cash Roman left like it might turn to ash. Like everything that’s happened has been a fever dream, and I’m just now waking up to my disgusting reality.
I’m halfway to the front door when I see him.
The old man from the alley.
He’s sitting on the steps like he’s been waiting there for years. Same ragged coat, same patched gloves, same heavy eyes that somehow see through me and down into my soul at the exact same time.
“Hey, kid.”
I freeze.
He smiles, showing a few missing teeth and a mouth that’s definitely lived too hard.
“Didn’t think I’d see you again.”
“Same,” I murmur. My voice cracks like brittle ice.
He gestures beside him. “Sit a second?”
And I do. Without knowing why. Okay, that’s definitely a lie that I tell myself because I know why. This man made me care, by caring about me.
The coolness of the concrete step bites through my jeans.
The city noise hums in the background—sirens, shouts, car horns.
But next to him, it all fades because this man’s life is the life I should be living.
What I would have turned into, I’m sure, if it weren’t for Roman kidnapping me and forcing his way into my life.
“He came to see me, you know,” the man says.
I stiffen.
“Roman.”
His name cuts through my chest in a heartbreaking instant. I suck in a breath.
“Thought he was gonna gut me, honestly. Showed up in a three-thousand-dollar suit, quiet as a ghost. Just stood there, lookin’ at me like he knew every bad thing I ever did and was coming’ to reap my soul for it.”
“What did he say?” I ask, throat dry.
“He said you asked him to take care o’me. M’own personal guardian angel. I don’t matter to nobody, y’know.”
I blink hard.
“He said you gave me your dinner. Said I mattered to you.
Told me he owed you more than I could ever repay because you made him care.
Then he offered me a place. A real one. Roof, bed, heat.
Said it was mine for life, no strings. Proved it too.
Deed and trust were delivered by a lawyer. Told me that it was ‘cause of you.”
“Well…you saved me.”
“I think you saved me, kid.”
Tears sting my eyes at his words but I don’t let them fall.
“He said he couldn’t take you like he thought. Couldn’t force you. But he could give you one thing he didn’t think he could give you— a choice. ”
The man looks at me, eyes like flint softened by weather.
“So I waited. ‘Cause I couldn’t leave for good until I knew you were okay. Been sittin’ here damn near every day just waitin’ for you to come back. And here ya are.”
I stare at the wad of cash in my hands. More than twenty thousand dollars, made up solely of hundred dollar bills.
My fingers move before my mind catches up.
I press it into his palms. All of it.
“He meant it for you,” I say.
He stares at the money like it’s made of gold. But he doesn’t refuse.
His hands close around it, and something in me cracks.
“You got a good one, girl,” he says quietly. “Little messed up in the head, sure. But who ain’t at the end of the day? And if he’s good to you, it doesn’t matter what he does to the rest of the world.”
I don’t answer.
Because I don’t know if he’s right.
But I do know if I really walk away from Roman, I’m walking away from the one person who ever took on the world for me.
Only now, I know that I don’t want to stop Roman.
I just wanted him to ask before he uprooted everything I’ve ever known.
And now? Now there’s nothing in my life that I can’t leave behind. Nothing except him.
“I’ll reach out.” I tell him with a curt nod. Clearing my throat, I swallow before saying anything else. “My name is Ivy, by the way.”
“Figures.” He chuckles. “My name is Basil. We’re both named after plants. Knew I liked you, girl.”
With that, he pats me on the shoulder and starts to head in the other direction.
I don’t remember turning the car around.
One moment I’m walking away. The next, I’m behind the wheel again, the forest swallowing the road as if it knew I’d come back.
The drive to Roman’s compound is quicker than it was when I was headed to the city.
Returning feels right.
Like I’m coming home.
But the air is heavy as soon as I open the car door.
Thick. Buzzing. Wrong.
Choking me like grief.
I push open the front door and feel it before I see it.
Something shattered. Something undone.
The foyer is wrecked.
A chair lies in pieces across the floor. A lamp bleeds glass like it was thrown. The air smells like smoke, sweat, despair.
I step over broken fragments. Into a ruin I sure as shit didn’t cause.
The hallway’s worse—scrapes on the wall, a splintered mirror, deep gouges on the doorframe like someone tried to claw through it.
And upstairs?—
My breath catches.
The bedroom is a warzone.
The mattress is flipped. Drawers yanked out, contents flung across the floor. Curtains ripped from the rods, lying like bodies across the hardwood. One of the paintings has been stabbed through the canvas.
Roman sits in the center of it all.
On the floor. Legs bent. Shirt wrinkled. Bare hands braced on his thighs, smeared with dirt or maybe blood. His jaw is tight, eyes locked on the floor like it might offer absolution.
He looks up.
And everything breaks open.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Just watches me like I’m a ghost he thought he’d buried.
I cross the threshold slowly, glass crunching under my shoes.
“You redecorate or something?” I say quietly, needing to break the silence.
His voice is hoarse. “Why did you come back?”
I sit beside him.
I don’t touch him.
Not yet.
“Honestly?” I say. “I didn’t think I would when I left.”
He says nothing.
“But you were right,” I continue, barely a whisper now. “In a world where no one saw me… where no one cared what happened to me”
I look at him, and his eyes are burning.
“You saw me. You see me.”
I reach for his hand.
“I’m yours,” I say. “For as long as you want me.”
He doesn’t breathe.
And when he finally does it’s nothing but a shudder. Like he’s just been brought back to life by my words.
“Mine.” He growls as he pulls me into his arms. “I’ll fucking chain you to me if I have to.”