Page 148 of Burning Ivy (The KORT)

Moseying out to the living room, I plop onto the couch with my laptop for the family meeting I’ve been summoned to. Wells scooches next to me, smirking at my scowl and kissing my temple. The other three encircle us, intense divots lurking between their eyes.

“Are you ready for tonight, Freckles?” Ty asks.

Flapping my hand in the air, I swat that irritating inquiry away like a pesky fly. “I don’t want to talk about that yet. Let’s discuss where we’re going to live instead.”

Wells chuckles, keen on my avoidance, but Liam and Gage both widen their eyes with excitement. I wink, knowing they’ll help me distract Wells and Ty from fussing over my mental state about cabal inductions and execution orders. Opening my computer, I pull up the home I’ve been obsessed with for the last twelve hours.

“You’re all sure you have no opinions about where we move?” I ask for the five hundredth time because I still can’t believe they’re leaving this up to me.

A myriad of grunts and murmurs, telling me they havenotchanged their minds, follows.

“Fine,” I say, biting my lip with the first sense of genuine hope I’ve felt in a while. “I found a gorgeous French chateau on a hundred sixty acres. It’s twenty-seven thousand square feet, sixteen bedrooms, nineteen bathrooms. The layout of the kitchen is a dream.There are twenty-two fireplaces. Room for all of us, even separate wings.”

I notice their eagerness to ask questions and see pictures, but I don’t permit any reactions. “So, here’s what I’m thinking: It needs a little work, updating and such, but there’s privacy for each of you if you choose to entertain ladies. There’s a home gym, a movie room, a twenty-car garage, space for Liam’s immense computer setup. Offices. The acreage will offer plenty of space for an obstacle course and shooting range. There’s already a pool and pool house, a hot tub, basketball and tennis courts. It has flowering shade trees and a forty-acre pond. But here’s the best part.”

Wells laughs, tickling my hip while carefully avoiding my still-sore ribs. His lips graze against the shell of my ear. “So well-rehearsed, Little Storm. You’ve practiced since I heard this at four a.m. Far more polished. Lessbreathy.”

I spewed this all to Wells before the crack of dawn, assuring he was on board first. He insisted on planting his mouth between my thighs for the recitation, so the cadence wasdifferent.We’ll each receive a sign-on bonus of two hundred fifty million upon induction into KORT. It’s obscene, but I intend to put it to good use.

I drink in a deep breath, fretting over whether I can sell this. “There will come a time when you three will each meet someone, get married, and have a family. This property provides options. There’s enough room that you and your families could stay in the main house, but there’s also enough land that we could build other residences and share the outdoor facilities if you or your wives preferred that. Whatever you want. I just want us to be together. Always. It’s an absurd amount of space, so I’d also like to build a facility dedicated to the abuse victims Ty is helping.”

My spiel seems to have rendered them speechless, which is a first and knots me up until Ty’s voice untangles it. “Freckles,fuck, that’s … perfect.”

Liam swallows, visibly choked up, dragging his hand down his face while Gage jacks him with a punch to the bicep, hissing, “Fucking pussy.Jesus.” Wells and Ty laugh as Gage turns his grumpy gaze on me. “Itisperfect, Ivy. Where the fuck is this place?”

Before I answer, I lock eyes with Liam, knowing how crucial being chosen is to him. Wells filled me in on both the loyalty test and the authenticity of what Liam had said to me that day at the park. I don’t think Liam ever felt as romantically connected to me as he believed though. It’s not that there weren’t some tiny sparks between us, but neither of us was ever ignited with an unbridled heat. And he deserves fireworks and passion. To all-out lose his damn mind, like Wells and I did before we ultimately caved to each other. Liam fell in love with the fact that I wanted him forever—that, no matter what, I’d still claim him as my family. He’s convinced himself his upbringing wasn’t as harsh or shaping as Ty’s and Wells’s, but he’s wrong. It’s irrefutable in the glossy eyes hitched to mine.

Wells and I are sending a message that he belongs with us, that he always will.

They all do.

Liam and I exchange a subtle grin of understanding as Wells squeezes my thigh in gratitude. As jealous as my husband can get, he loves Liam and knows how paramount this is to us all moving forward. It’s vital to liberate not only Liam, but each of us—from our past and our demons—so we can forge a new vision for our future.

I clear the sappiness from my throat before Gage scoffs at me, too, and share the icing on this several-layered cake. “It’s about thirty minutes from New Orleans.”

They said location didn’t matter, that I could choose anywhere in the world, and they’d be there for it, but the whooping men flattening me to the couch screams something else entirely.

WELLS

The elation resonating throughout the sprawling apartment and the man-child pileup on Ivy are endearing, but my wife needs to breathe, for Christ’s sake. And we’ve got other topics to discuss, whether she wants to or not.

“All right, all right. Off!” I bark, shoving them all away while they howl and Ivy spurs them on with her giggles.

House-hunting has become a coping mechanism for my grieving wife. I’ve appreciated the distraction as well actually. Losing the man who was more than a father to both of us is a constant ache. But Ivy, she’s been lost to herself. Tossing and turning all night. Barely eating. Indulging in uncharacteristic day drinking. And disappearing into wherever it is she ventures. It’s new. That much I know. Her mind vacations used to drip with contentment, but lately, her face contorts into that of a tortured inmate.

So, this—her giggles and joy engulfing me—is a tactile gift I want to bathe in, but there isn’t time today. There’s never been enough time.

It takes a beat for them all to settle down—mutterings of La Lune Noire and the house, plans for the land and more cars floating through the air—but the guys are aware of the purpose of this meeting and the intensity it will hold, so my leer eventually snaps themto attention.

Ty glances at me with a reluctant jerk of his chin, so I launch us into what is sure to be a heated debate.

Twisting toward Ivy, I sweep her hair behind her shoulder, tucking her—thankfully red again—wisps behind her ear. “We need to discuss some things—”

“I know,” she breaks in, her hands flying into the air. “But I’ve told you, Wells, I need to look them in their eyes and do it my way.”

My knuckles dust over her cheek, and I note the heat already rising to the surface. “That’s not all we want to talk about and not where we want to begin.” Although we’ll be circling back to it.

“Oh, what then?” Her tone is instantly placid, her big blue doe eyes scanning all of us.

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