Page 83 of The Sexy Ex's Brother
Ivy looks down at the screen again, her voice almost a whisper. “So what do we do?”
“We fight back,” I say. “On our terms.”
She slips the phone into my jacket pocket. Her fingers rest there a beat longer than necessary. “Together?”
“Always.”
And as we step into the late afternoon sun, my hand finds hers again. Her grip is steady, but mine is lethal. Because if they want war, then they’re about to learn what I look like when I stop holding back.
41
IVY
The words blur if I look at them too long. Medical history. Scholarship records. Bank statements from a decade ago. All the pieces I thought I’d outgrown, boxed up, and buried, dragged into daylight by someone with the precision of a scalpel and the cruelty of a sledgehammer.
I hand Jack his phone back like it’s radioactive. My fingers are cold, though the sun is warm on my shoulders.
I don’t remember walking to the car. Just the slam of the door, the smell of his cologne, and the sound of traffic swallowing the silence between us. He doesn’t push me to speak. Just drives, one hand on the wheel, the other resting close enough that I could reach for it if I wanted to. I do. Eventually. The warmth of his palm steadies me, even as my mind runs a hundred miles an hour.
They didn’t just want to embarrass me. They want to erase me, turn me into a cautionary headline before the foundation even breathes.
The scholarship file is what rattles me most. I haven’t thought about that day in years, sliding the thick envelope across the desk to the board, willing them to see past my lastname, my uneven transcripts, the medical forms I’d tucked in the back because they were “optional.” I didn’t need the money, my family could have bought the entire program, but I needed the independence. I needed something with my name on it that wasn’t stamped with theirs. Jack doesn’t know how hard I fought to earn it on merit, or how close I came to losing it before I even began. That file was a milestone. Now it’s a weapon.
By the time we reach the penthouse, I’ve folded my expression into something calmer. The elevator rustles as it climbs, a metallic heartbeat under our feet. My reflection flickers in the mirrored walls, chin up, lips pressed, pretending I’m not still shaking inside.
Inside, Jack tosses his keys on the counter and opens the fridge like he’s been doing it for years. “You need to eat.”
“I need to think,” I counter, sliding onto one of the barstools.
He sets a glass of sparkling water in front of me anyway. “Thinking works better when you’re not running on adrenaline and caffeine.”
There’s an ease in the way he says it, like he’s not actively plotting the destruction of whoever’s behind this. But I know him well enough to see it in the set of his jaw.
I take a sip, more to make him happy than because I’m thirsty. “What’s our next move?”
His gaze meets mine, steady and unblinking. “We find them. We stop them.”
I set the glass down slowly. “And by ‘them,’ you mean Derek.”
“Derek…and whoever he hired. Santiago thinks it’s one of the ghosts from Wilson’s payroll. Former PR, security, legal… someone with clearance who still has contacts inside. Even from jail, he’s hungry for revenge, pulling strings through anyone still willing to cash his checks.”
I lean forward, elbows on the counter. “So how do we find them?”
“Two fronts,” he says without hesitation. “Santiago will trace the money. Payments from Derek, or one of his shells, to anyone who fits the profile. I’ll bring in an investigator I trust, someone completely outside Santiago’s network. And you…”
I arch a brow. “Me?”
“You still have people who’d talk to you. Old colleagues. A few who might know if someone’s been asking the wrong questions. If you frame it as groundwork for the foundation, they’ll open up.”
I think about it, weighing the risk. “So I play nice while you dig under the floorboards.”
His mouth curves faintly. “Exactly.”
“And if I find out who it is?”
He meets my gaze without blinking. “Then I’ll take it from there.”
I should tell him I don’t need him to fight my battles. But the truth is, I want him in this with me. I don’t want to face it alone again.
