Page 154 of The Secrets That Kill

“Daddy, can I get you and your friend a drink? I want my Daddy happy when I sit on his lap. It’ll be extra fun when I take care of him after.”

“You’re such a good girl. Let Daddy feel your cunt.”

“Pour the drinks, bitch,” Jeremy says to me. “You canfisther cunt after we get business done.”

I swallow down the bitter burn of bile and take the bottle. At the wet bar, I fuss with glasses.

“Straight up,” Henderson says.

Breaking the vial open is easy, and I pour half in each, on top of the bourbon.

I bring them over and set them down, then move back to my position.

They’re talking about a senator, but the beat of my heart is too loud to make out all the words. My vision wavers. I’m partially horrifiedby what I’ve done.

“Come. Here,” Henderson says.

I see that both glasses are empty, and I don’t know how long the poison takes to work, or even if it will work at all. I freeze for a split second and realization smacks me across the face.

It’s too much of a risk, waiting for them to succumb to the poison.

I need a backup plan. I have to shoot them, too.

Because there is no freaking way I am going anywhere near them ever again.

So I smile again. “Yes, Daddy.” But instead of walking toward him, I pull Mercer’s gun out of my bag.

Time slows to a near stop. I don’t think, I don’t breathe. I just open fire.

THIRTY-SEVEN

mercer

“Ivy!”

Her name shoots through my lips like me saying it will protect her. Or maybe me, since she whirls around like a deer in headlights, my gun in her outstretched hand. Two dead men lay in pools of their own blood on the floor behind her. One of them is that bastard Jeremy. I suck in a breath. The other one is Henderson.

And she’s…fucking naked.

Panic and rage create a funnel cloud inside of me and it spins, gathering force as it goes. If those motherfuckers weren’t already dead…

I stuff my gun into the waistband of my pants and cover her with my body, blocking her from Orion’s eyes. And whoever else showed up as backup for us. I can’t remember who he called since my brain stopped functioning the second we barged in here.

Ivy still has that stunned look in her eyes, the kind where I don’t think she knows where she is, what she’s done, or who the fuck I am. I give her a shake to break the shock. “Ivy, it’s me, are you all right? Did they touch you? Hurt you?” I rip offmy jacket as I talk, then take the gun before wrapping her in it. “Ivy?”

“Please don’t let them touch me,” she whimpers, almost in a trance. “Don’t let them hurt me.”

“They’ll never come near you again. They’re dead, baby. You got them. I swear I’ll never let anyone near you again. Nobody will ever hurt you.” I never babble and here I am, rattling on with pretty Pollyanna in my arms because she has my head and heart in a tailspin. She’s cold, wearing lipstick, and goddamn naked for reasons I can’t get at and really don’t fucking want to know.

All I can say is it’s a good thing for the dead guys that she got to them first.

We shot the guards on the way inside, silencers on.

And Ivy…

I search the room, trying to process what the hell happened. Two empty glasses sit on a small table, a bottle of bourbon on the bar.

James told me he spotted her getting into a cab after that blowout at the warehouse. I knew she didn’t have her wallet because I do. I keep it in my safe. And I already knew she took the gun from my desk. Luckily, she used a credit card of mine, so tracking her here was easy enough.

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