Page 133 of Burning Ivy (The KORT)

But sadly, although we’re exhausting every angle—tracking down every vehicle registered to anyone Ivy’s ever met, combing through traffic cameras and airport surveillance, and examining any other needles we can sift out—the waiting is what it all amounts to.

Waiting until that motherfucking ruby necklace dings in the system like Pavlov’s dog bell to every goddamn hit man in the United States.

Then, we’ll race against the clock, hurdling her barriers one by one. She might have burned our home, but I’ll burn every inch of land leading to her regardless of what it holds, leaving a charred path in my wake.

We’re in Ohio, back at the apartment we occupied to observe her trial. I’m frantically scouring the dark web, refreshing alerts, and eating myself into a sugar coma. No scotch today. I need to be ready.

At four o’clock, as I’m swishing the lemon Skittles juice around my mouth, salivating because it’s reminiscent of Ivy’s flavor, it happens. The ruby necklace flashes in the jeweler’s system.

“There,” I direct Liam, whose fingers prance over the keys in a violent dance.

“Fucking. Goddamn. Asswipes,” he mutters, eyes trained on the screen while my stomach churns in a turbulent spin. The poundof every punched key pierces me as I screenshot the information. He grunts, shaking out his fingers. “Done.”

“Fifty-three seconds,” I say, both of us panting as though we’ve just finished our SEALs workout. “How bad is it?”

He rubs his forehead with worried strokes. “It could’ve been copied for repost later.Anyone with an alert could have it, but it’s been years, so we can hope.”

“New Orleans.” I study the address, a bubble of solace swelling that it’s the jeweler around the corner from La Lune Noire. “Maybe Axel has her.”

Ty and Gage gather our go bags while I connect us to Axel via speaker. The unnerving ring reverberating through the space is like a somber overture.

He answers with a clipped, “Yeah?”

“Is she there?” I rush out.

“No,” he says, his curt response echoing in a way that magnifies the tunnel of loss and betrayal I see us barreling into.

Motherfucker.

“Since you know who I’m talking about, she was,” I snipe.

Three beats of silence on his end and a slew of curses from my crew later, he sighs. “Yes. She was.”

Shoving my chair backward as I spring up, I shout over the clank of it toppling to the ground, “The fuck? I hope to hell for your sake that you know where she is, Axel.”

“I’m tracking Ryker down. He’ll explain.” A frustrated grunt seeps through the speaker. “I wasn’t here, man.”

“Bullshit.” I scoff. “You should’ve called—”

“He’s my brother. You know how it is.” He leaves no room to argue with his sorry-ass excuse for whatever the hell they’ve done, but the divisiveness of his statement is crystal clear.

A minute later, we’re out the door, loading into the Jeep when Ryker booms through the phone, deadpanning, “Wells.”

“Where the fuck is she?” I hiss, nearly wrenching my door off the hinges with the slam.

“That I don’t know,” he says, no urgency and plainly ignoring mine, as though we were discussing what was for dinner.

Gage steers us toward the highway, leading to our jet that’s stationed only minutes away at a nearby hangar—closer than the other one for emergencies like this—while Ty and Liam crack into all security footage in the jeweler and surrounding area, and I deal with Ryker.

“Start fucking talking.”

His middle finger is audible, his voice like stone. “She was only here for dinner. I took good care of her, and she went on her way.”

He’s got to be fucking high.

I try another way. “Know anything about a necklace?”

“Sure do,” he quips. “But probably no more than you.”

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