Chapter 14 Ivy
IVY
Ilose track of the days the longer I’m stuck inside this safehouse.
The walls all around are the color of weak milk tea.
The carpet smells faintly like old cleaner and mildew that has never been able to be lifted from the old, worn fibers.
The curtains are always closed, and the air conditioner rattles no matter how many times I smack it with my palm to shut it up when I’m trying to go to bed.
I pace the bedroom until my legs ache, but that only drives me deeper into myself, because the situation I’m in doesn’t change. I’m still trapped, still on the verge of completely dismantling my life at a moment’s notice, and no one aside from me knows it.
I don’t know when, or how, Mikhail will get me the information about when he wants Maksim lured to the restaurant. It’s been three days since our initial call and ever since then, I haven’t been able to get ahold of anyone’s phone.
They’ve all been guarded, swiping them to shove away into their pockets quickly whenever I arrive in the room.
Not even Maksim keeps his phone out anymore after we crawl into bed together.
It’s always handed over to Matvey at the end of the night and returned once the coffee is brewing and everyone is up for the day.
Even Katya refuses to allow me to use the burner phone she bought for me to call my sister. She calls my bluff one afternoon when I ask to borrow it again, dangling it in front of me while telling me to sit down next to her while I make the call.
All of it is incredibly frustrating.
If I try to steal a phone behind someone’s back, Matvey will notice.
He already doesn’t trust me—I could see it in his eyes when I came out of the bathroom that night.
Since then, he’s been wary of me. He doesn’t say anything, but silence is its own kind of accusation.
I don’t know if he’s told Maksim about what happened but so far, all signs are pointing to yes.
Which makes this situation all the more dire.
I need to find another way to get in contact with Mikhail before he decides he’s had enough of my fucking around. I need to get out onto the streets somewhere Mikhail’s men can find me and pick me up. I know they’re out there roaming the streets.
If Maksim has his soldiers out there, Mikhail will too.
The opportunity finally comes when Roman checks in on me mid-morning, balancing a coffee in one hand and fiddling with a set of keys in his other.
Most days, I’ve been left alone with only one of Maksim’s inner circle.
All of them have been rotation shifts, patrolling the streets and babysitting me.
“Still hanging in there?” he asks, watching me from the table.
“I guess…” I mumble, sinking further into the couch.
A talk show plays on in the background that I’ve barely been paying attention to. For the past twenty minutes, I’ve been eyeing Matvey’s tech setup, the fancy monitors and keyboard tempting me so badly that my teeth have started to grind together.
Ten minutes would be all I needed to log on to a web-to-text site and send Mikhail a message.
Roman sips his coffee softly. “Good. Saves me from having to explain to our Pakhan why you wasted away while watching some boring talk show.”
I huff, half amused, half exasperated. Strangely, he’s been the one volunteering the most to babysit me.
I’m not exactly sure what that implies, but I can’t lie and say I hate his company.
Underneath the rough exterior and the biting sarcasm that spills out of his mouth on a daily basis, he’s a pretty nice guy. “Roman.”
“What.”
I shove the blanket off my legs and swing my feet to the floor, standing from the cocoon I’ve built for myself in the corner of the couch. My joints ache from too many hours spent curled up on it.
I know it’s not ideal timing—considering they’re knee-deep in trying to locate Emily—but the walls of this palace are closing in on me and if I don’t do something to get word to Mikhail soon, it might be too late. “Can you… take me outside for a little bit?”
Roman’s brows pinch together in suspicion.
“It doesn’t have to be long,” I add quickly. “I just need air. And to stretch my legs out in the sun. Please?”
His eyes narrow. “That’s not my call to make.”
“Then ask him. I promise I won’t get into any trouble. I just… I can’t stay trapped in here. I’m slowly losing my mind.”
For a long moment, he just stares at me. His eyes scan my face, trying to find cracks in my plea to see if I’m lying. Despite the hidden agenda, it is actually a half-truth. As much as I want to contact Mikhail, I am in desperate need of some fresh air.
Finally, he sighs. “Fine. But if he says no, you need to accept it. I don’t want to hear any begging.”
I nod again, relief rushing through me.
To both of our surprise, Maksim agrees. He doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t demand an explanation as to my sudden need for a different view, doesn’t even hesitate before telling Roman to take good care of me before ending the call.
While I’m half tempted to ask him why, I decide not to question my blessings.
It wouldn’t do me any good, anyway. Bringing more attention to myself than I already have is a disaster waiting to happen.
Besides, I don’t need Maksim, or the rest of his inner circle, for that matter, to question my surprise.
I’ve already risked enough by reacting so strongly to Emily’s photo in that file.
The last thing I need is anyone sniffing too close to the truth.
So instead, I keep my head down and mouth a quiet thank-you as Roman gestures me down the hallway to grab my coat.
We take one of the rental cars parked in the private lot out back and head deeper into the city.
Roman drives us in silence, his hand resting on the gearshift, his expression impassive as always.
But I can feel him watching me from the corner of his eye, checking for signs that I’m up to something despite my hands cupped together, perfectly innocent, in my lap.
People bustle down sidewalks with shopping bags.
Some talk into their phones, sipping iced coffee because it's just another day for them and not the end of the world for someone like me.
A street performer strums a guitar while a couple of kids dance around her.
The wind whips hair and jackets, lifting the scent of food carts and something vaguely floral in through my window.
I try not to cry, but the sight of a boy across the street holding his mother’s hand nearly undoes me.
And when Roman parks the car outside a small ice cream shop and we head inside, I completely fall apart because on the chalkboard menu behind the counter, written in bright blue, are the words Cookie Dough Explosion.
Leo’s favorite.
My throat closes, my vision blurring. Before I can stop myself, I collapse at a nearby table and silently cry into my hands while he gets us two cups of frozen gelato. As soon as he comes back over to the table and sets one down in front of me, a small, strangled noise leaves him.
“Uh,” he says finally, shifting uncomfortably.
“It’s his favorite,” I choke out, tears spilling hot down my cheeks. “He loves cookie dough. He used to beg me for it every Friday. He’d eat until his stomach hurt and then still try to lick the bowl clean.”
Roman clears his throat. The sound is stiff and awkward. His eyes dart down and then over to the chair across from mine. After a beat, his fingers curl tightly around the back of as he drags it out. The legs scrape loudly against the tile floor before he sits.
His own cup of gelato thuds softly against the tabletop when he sets it down. He stares down at it like it’s a grenade he doesn’t know how to defuse. The curled tip of the frozen swirl is covered in rainbow sprinkles.
His spoon hovers over it. “That’s… tough.”
I laugh through the tears despite my horrific mood. “You’re terrible at this.”
Roman gives me a flat look, one that’s probably meant to be defensive but ends up just looking…
lost. “I don’t… do crying women,” he admits bluntly, stabbing his spoon down into his treat.
A few of the sprinkles scatter onto the table next to the cup.
“My sister doesn’t cry. She’s more inclined to throw fists…
or knives, for that matter. She’s not exactly a touchy-feely person. ”
The honesty is so absurd that I can’t help but let out another watery laugh.
I press both hands to my face, but it’s no use. The tears keep coming, pouring through the cracks I’ve been trying to hold together with spit and stubbornness. And for some reason, sitting across from Roman—the most emotionally constipated man I’ve ever met—I start talking.
“I raised him all alone. Just me. No backup. I was no-contact with my family for years before I had him, so there was no one I could rely on to help pick up the slack when I felt like I was going to fall apart.” I stare down at the table, at the cup of melting gelato in front of me that I still haven’t touched.
Roman is silent.
I continue, voice trembling. “I tried… God, so hard to be both mother and father. I taught him how to ride a bike, how to count in Russian and English, how to tie his shoes and pack his lunch and say please and thank you…”
My breath catches. “But how do you explain that to a little boy? How do you make sense of it for someone who only knows that dads are supposed to be there?”
Something shifts across Roman’s face. A flicker. His jaw tightens. “You chose that.”
I blink. “What?”
“You chose that,” he repeats. It isn’t in a cruel way, just matter-of-fact in the way only Roman could be. “You left Russia. You cut yourself off. You denied Maksim access to his son.”
The words hit like a slap. My spine straightens and heat floods my cheeks, this time not from sorrow but anger. “Excuse me?”
He doesn’t flinch. He just watches me, unblinking.
“You’re talking like it was some selfish decision. Like I wanted to disappear and screw him over. Do you have any idea what I was living through, all of that back then, as an outsider?” I snap.
Roman shrugs, still maddeningly calm. “You could’ve told him. He had a right to know.”
I lean across the table, my eyes narrowing in fury “Maksim was knee-deep in Bratva shit when I left. He was violent, emotionally shut off, constantly under fire from enemies none of you knew where they were coming from. I was barely twenty-one. You think raising a baby in that world would’ve been okay? ”
His eyes narrow. “Regardless… You think keeping Leo from him all this time was still the right call to make?”
“I didn’t want to!” I shoot back, louder than I meant to.
Roman freezes, startled by the anger in my voice.
“When I called Sergei to find a way to get into contact when I found out I was pregnant, I was told Maksim had died!” The words pour out of me. I don’t care if we’re drawing a crowd from the other patrons. “He was dead, Roman. That’s what they told me.”
A flicker of shock passes over his face. His shoulders pull tight beneath his jacket. For a man who rarely shows his hand, that is a dead giveaway that tells me all I need to know. None of them knew the truth.
“I spent years mourning him. Years raising Leo alone, telling him stories about his father, making sure he knew he was loved, even if it was only through memory. Do you have any idea what that was like?” My voice tapers off into a whisper, the fury draining out of me and leaving behind something hollow.
His mouth is pressed into a thin line, brows drawn tight over eyes that finally lose their judgment. For once, Roman doesn’t have a quick answer. No cold analysis. No stinging remark dressed in practicality.
He just stares at me, stunned.
I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, trying to slow the sob clawing its way up my throat.
My voice is quiet when I speak again, softer now.
“I thought I was doing the right thing. I really did. Maksim suddenly showing up again, wanting a relationship with me… with my son like the last seven years didn’t happen.
Do you understand how angry that made me? How betrayed I felt?”
He drags a hand over his face, the tension in his jaw twitching.
“Well. That explains a lot.” When he finally exhales roughly, he says, “I’m sorry, Ivy. I shouldn’t have said it like that.”
I blink again. “What?”
“I was out of line. I’m not… good with this stuff. The emotional stuff,” he mutters, stabbing his spoon into the melting gelato again without looking at me.
“No kidding.”
His mouth twitches into an almost smile.
I look down at my untouched gelato. The top’s melted now, soft around the edges, but still edible. The sprinkles have congealed into the center, the weight of them collapsing the treat inward from their sugary weight, making an almost gelato-like pool.
Leo would love it.
“I just want to bring him home,” I mumble. “That’s all I want.”
Roman nods slowly, rising to his feet with his half-finished cup. “We’ll make that happen.”
He leaves to toss it into the trash at the front of the parlor. I glance after him, then down at my own half-melted cup. My hand wraps around the spoon, more out of habit than hunger. I can’t even remember the last time I ate.
Just as I bring the spoon toward my mouth, movement flashes in the corner of my eye.
A woman, maybe in her twenties, dressed in the bland khaki uniform of the gelato shop’s staff passes by with a broom in one hand and a dustpan in the other.
She shouldn’t stand out. She shouldn’t register as anything more than background noise, but it’s only when she pauses close by that I notice her.
She reaches out toward me, tossing something small into my lap before she keeps sweeping as she walks away.
I glance down to see a small piece of paper crumbled in my lap, the edges of it crinkled and a little dirty.
My fingers tremble as I pick it up and slide it beneath the table, shielding it from sight. When I unfold it, all I find is a single line written in tiny, rushed handwriting.
A date and a time.
There’s no other explanation, but I don’t need one. I know exactly what this is—what it means.
All I feel is dread sinking like a stone into my stomach.