‘It will take time to spread the word that she’s not to be harmed,’ Dax said. Once the word of a bounty was out there, it spread, and putting the genie back in the bottle was no easy feat.
‘She can stay in the beach house for as long as she needs to. You know that we can easily stock the place, and she can hole up there for months if she has to.’
Ivy would despise the idea of being back there and of hiding out, but Dax couldn’t come up with anything better. Moving her to Nevada or North Carolina wouldn’t necessarily mean her safety, it just meant that it would take longer for the crooks to find her. Until they could stop the threat at the source, it would remain. They didn’t know the threat’s motive for wanting Ivy dead or if he could be reasoned with. It was just as possible that whoever had started this would rather die than retract the bounty.
‘I can hide her,’ Dax said, trying to think of where he could take her and look after her alone while still trying to trace the threat.
‘You can’t do it alone,’ Mauri said. ‘You can’t hide the girl and ensure her supplies remain fresh, you will lead the hunters directly to her. You’re not naïve. You will be the first person others try to get to in order to find her. If she’s at the beach house, then you can stay with her. It doesn’t matter how many people follow you there, my security will keep them out.’
Mauri had resources and manpower, which were two things that Dax didn’t have. ‘I have to find out who is doing this.’
‘And you can do that while my security men keep her safe. If you stick her in a cabin in the woods, you can’t stand sentry twenty-four hours a day alone. You can’t keep her in your sight and find out who has put up the bounty at the same time.’
‘No, I can’t,’ Dax said, his rage was cooling. Every word that Mauri said was correct, these were thoughts he’d had himself.
‘You will have all the men that you need to look after her, and you can use my help in uncovering who this heathen is. You know that Starks stick together. We’ll find out who is doing this, and we will take them down, together.’
‘She won’t want to go,’ Dax muttered. Mauri was coming closer, but he posed no physical threat, so Dax remained loose while he considered his options.
‘I appreciate that the location may not hold happy memories for her. But you two found your love there, didn’t you? She may appreciate a chance of a break and some peace, it is certainly preferable over the alternative of being on the run or hidden somewhere alone. This is just like the vacation I suggested to you last night, you can sell it to her that way.’
His head came up. ‘The others, her sister and…’
‘They are both there,’ Mauri said. ‘They travelled to the beach house this morning… Ivy would probably like to have some company while you are out hunting down the threat. She and her sister haven’t seen each other for a long time.’
Ivy had worried about Rosie being close to Mauri and staying in his house. If Ivy had time with her sister, she might be able to explain her concerns. ‘Ok,’ Dax said. ‘We’ll leave tonight, that should give me time to talk her round.’
‘Good, I will prepare everything and send a car for you. It will be safer that way. I’ll make sure that there is a full security team out there. We will keep her safe.’
Safe from what, Dax had to ask himself. This morning they had been certain that they were leaving the Starks behind, and now they were about to walk straight back into Stark territory.
Murder was nothing to trifle with. After the shock of what Dax had told her subsided, Ivy was faced with the horrible truth that someone wanted her dead, and they were willing to pay big money to see her corpse. She didn’t want to die and wasn’t stupid enough to think that she could defend herself against everyone who would now be looking for her.
Only now their freewill had been taken away. One of Mauri’s lackeys was now standing outside the apartment, he had arrived not long after Dax had come home. But by the time she found out that the lackey was there, Dax had revealed what he knew, and she was still languishing in the news.
Dax had tried to question her, but she needed time to absorb the development. His questions had been about her enemies, about anyone who might wish her harm, anyone that she’d upset or angered recently. After some thought, she came up with a big fat zero. The only people she’d had run-ins with recently were the Starks, and they were apparently going to act as saviours.
She had made dinner, but they’d eaten in silence, and now she was packing up their things to go on this forced vacation.
‘Are you pissed?’ Dax asked, loitering in the bedroom doorway. ‘I can’t get a read on what you’re feeling.’
She folded a sundress from the pile of clothes they’d dumped on the bed. She placed it into the suitcase open beside the mound of clothes. ‘No,’ she said, carrying on with the folding to pack everything into the case.
‘You’re not saying much,’ he said, coming a few feet into the room. ‘If you want to get out of here… I mean if you would rather I protect you alone—‘
‘You and Mauri figured it all out,’ she said. ‘I don’t want anything happening to you either, so it makes sense to take advantage of Mauri’s offer. I would prefer one of his thugs take the bullet than you.’
‘Not so long ago that I was one of his thugs,’ Dax said. ‘He’s not doing this just out of the goodness of his heart. He wants something.’
‘He wants you.’
‘I don’t think that’s it.’
‘Are you willing to bet our future on that?’ she asked, placing his shorts into their luggage. ‘We’ll just go out there, play nice, and think of it as a vacation, just like Mauri said. We stay there for as long as we need to and then we get the hell out of there.’
‘Ok.’
She carried on packing, and he sauntered toward the closet, he went in and came out, then retrieved some things from the bathroom before going back into the closet. Ivy kept turning over her questions in her mind, letting her thoughts grow until they reached critical mass, and she dumped an unfolded top down.
‘You know what? I am pissed,’ she confessed.
‘There’s a surprise,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t it feel better just to say it?’
He left the closet and strolled out of the bedroom, leaving her to gape at his disappearing act. Not one to let him get away easily, she followed and found him in the kitchen retrieving a beer from the fridge.
‘You can’t ask me a question and then walk away when I answer,’ she said.
Lowering the bottle from his lips, he took a breath. ‘I think I can. Do you want a beer?’
‘No, I don’t want a beer. Don’t you want to ask me why I’m pissed?’
‘I would think that was obvious after the night we’ve had,’ he said. ‘But if you want to rant at me I guess you’re entitled.’
‘Rant at you?’
Leaving the kitchen, he went to the couch and picked up the TV remote. But before he could turn on the television, she rushed over and grabbed it from his hand. ‘I guess you want my attention while you rant,’ he said, flattening his hands on the couch at each of his sides. ‘Go for it then, babygirl.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that Bruno is your father?’
With everything that he’d revealed that day she guessed that he wasn’t expecting that question. Ivy knew how to get his attention, and she had it now. He’d picked up the remote because he expected her to shout at him for getting her into this mess. But she didn’t blame him for the actions of the crazy person who wished her dead. She blamed him for concealing information that he had, for lying to her by saying that nothing had happened at the midnight meeting all those weeks ago.
‘That is why you’re pissed?’ he asked after he got over his surprise. ‘I come home and tell you that someone is trying to have you killed, and that we’re going to a place where you were held against your will for months, and you’re pissed that I didn’t tell you something?’