Page 45 of Crossover

“Your attempted kidnapping scared him enough to turn a blind eye to the illegal activity. And for a while, things were better. You started self-defense classes, which helped you regain your confidence, and it also gave Dad the confidence that you could defend yourself better. Eventually, the weapons ring came back in full force, though, and when it did, they weren’t just moving weapons with the fire trucks; they were moving drugs. Again, Dad tried to keep his head down and pretend he wasn’t seeing it. But his conscience weighed on him. Every drugoverdose, every shooting, left him haunted, wondering if it was one he could’ve prevented by coming forward.”

She rubbed her pant legs nervously while I screwed my eyes shut in fury.

They should have told me this. Both of them. It felt dirty, being angry at someone who’d passed away, but Dad should have realized keeping something from me and protecting me were two different things.

“By this point,” she continued, “you were an adult, so he thought the right thing to do was to go to the authorities. I begged him not to; I was scared. They’d gotten you once before, so what was to stop them again? But he…” She shook her head. “I guess with you being an adult, he thought it would be different this time. Especially because he was working with the FBI, not the police like years ago. But that’s when everything went sideways. The investigation was taking too long. They were making small dents in the organization, arresting small-level criminals here and there, but in the meantime, the men were going to make your father suffer a fate worse than death for what he’d done.” She hesitated. “They put a target on you, Ivy. To teach your father a lesson.”

So many emotions charged through my heart. First out was anger. If they didn’t feel I deserved to know back when I’d been almost kidnapped, how about when there was a target on my back? How negligent to not even give me a heads-up! Every moment I was out in public, I could have been in the crosshairs of some killer, and they didn’t tell me? How did keeping my safety a secret protect me, for God’s sake?

I forced myself to take a calming breath, thinking back to any warning I might’ve missed from them. Dad had been calling me much more often leading up to his death. I thought it was because he was down emotionally, but I bet he was checking on my safety.

“Witness protection fell through. So, he did the only other thing he could think of to keep you safe.”

“He turned himself over to them?” I asked in horror.

She shook her head. “That wouldn’t have saved you.”

I blinked, feeling like some awful answer was just within reach, but I couldn’t place it.

“The threat to you was only there so long as your father was alive.” She hesitated, dropping the volume of her voice. “So, he arranged his own death, hired someone to kill him.”

All the air escaped me at once, and pain shot through my abdomen with the gut-wrenching, terrible realization that I’d have to live with for the rest of my life—Dad killed himself to protect me.

Along with it, a sequence of agony I’d never wish on my worst enemy ripped me apart.

First came shock, a stillness of pain unbearable and unending.

The second wave was heartbreak for what he must’ve been feeling in those final days or weeks before his death, so full of suffocating despair and terror that he thought there was no other way out.

No other way to keep me alive.

Third was fury. Dad shouldn’t have taken his life. There had to be a different way to keep me safe! And how could Dad have kept me in the dark about all this, if it had reached that level? Maybe if he’d have talked to me, I could have assured him we’d find a solution that did not consist of him on a morgue slab! By not trusting me with the truth, he took away my voice in the matter. He made a decision that greatly impacted my life, without respecting me enough to include me in that decision. He had to know I’d have chosen to fight alongside him rather than let the bad guys win, so how dare he take that choice away fromme? And how dare he give up the fight, leaving me alone with my survivor’s guilt?

“He’d had a life insurance policy for years,” Mom continued, pulling me from my thoughts. “But the payout was an afterthought. His primary goal was to save you. If his death provided money for Grams’s medical care in the process, great.” Mom wiped a tear from her cheek. “But it would only work if his death wasnotruled a suicide.”

I was going to be sick.

“He, uh…” She cleared her throat. “He found someone on the dark web willing to do it. And he started to get his affairs in order.”

“This whole time, you acted like you had no idea why he killed himself,” I whispered.

“Your father made me promise not to tell you. It was for your protection, Ivy. He knew that if you found out, you would go looking for those men. You would push the police to find them, and then you would be in danger. Was he wrong?”

“I pushed the police anyway!”

“I tried to stop you!”

Ending his life to save mine? How was I supposed to live with that? My dad was the sun in my solar system, and for over a year, grief had entrenched my soul in darkness. How could I ever live a happy life again, knowing it came at the expense of Dad ending his?

“You claimed you were mad at Dad for committing suicide!”

“Iwasmad at your father, and I was scared, too! He was warned not to go against them, and I wished he’d have let someone else take down the bad guys. He should have kept his nose down. He shouldn’t have poked those damn bears. If he’d left well enough alone, he’d be here. And now…Grams, the bills, his choices have all fallen on your shoulders. I know it’s not fairto be upset with him, but it’s not fair what his choices did to you, either.”

I turned to the window, hot tears streaking my cheeks.

“The parking garage incident. Did you know that was Steve? I mean, Daniel? Pretending to be Bob?”

“No! Of course not.”

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