by Jill Shalvis
Ivy turned over in her bed for the hundredth time since Kel had left at one a.m. It was now three a.m. and he still hadn’t returned, though she’d gotten a text with an update on Arlo’s condition. Stable. She drew relief from that, which backed up in her throat at the sound of someone at her door.
Not Kel. He wouldn’t be making that odd scraping noise. He’d have let her know right away it was him, knowledge that had her heart in her throat.
Rising from the bed, she grabbed her handy, dandy baseball bat and reminded herself that she was a badass tough chick who could handle herself.
That’s when the knock came, just a single, almost soft, knock. Swallowing hard, she moved to the door and took a look through the peephole.
Nothing.
When the knock came again, she nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Ivy, it’s me. Open up.”
“Brandon?” she gasped. What the hell . . . She yanked open the door and there he was, sitting on the floor.
Bleeding.
“Oh my God,” she said and dropped to her knees.
“Merry Christmas a few days early.”
“What the hell happened?” she demanded.
“It’s just a scratch,” he said, sounding far away. “Help me inside and shut and lock the door.”
At the real fear in his voice, which she’d never heard, not once in her life, not even the time he’d accidentally set their trailer on fire and they’d nearly burned along with it, she got behind him, hooked her hands in his armpits, and dragged him over the threshold.
Then, because she hadn’t been born yesterday, she left him to go shut and lock the door. Turning back to Brandon, she found he’d scooted his way farther into the room, and still on the floor, had his head tilted back on the couch cushions, eyes closed.
Crouching over him, worried about all the blood and where it was coming from, she started patting him down, arms, chest—
“It’s my thigh,” he murmured in a faraway voice. “Bullet went all the way through. At least I’m pretty sure.”
Pushing back to her feet, she rushed to her bathroom to scrub her hands and grab her first aid kit from beneath the sink, along with a spare towel. With shaking hands, she then ran to her freezer and grabbed the vodka before moving back to Brandon.
“Okay, start talking,” she said, dropping to her knees. It took a pair of scissors to cut off his pants leg to the point where she could see what she was doing.
“Just like old times,” he murmured, head still back, eyes still closed. “How many times have you patched me up?”
“Too many to count,” she said tightly, taking in the fact that yes, the bullet had indeed gone straight through. Using the towel, she applied direct pressure to stop the bleeding.
Brandon sucked a breath in through his teeth and moaned.
“You’re so stupid.”
He was grating his teeth and trying to hold still, but failing. “I know.”
“And dumb,” she added.
“I know that too.”
She held firm, watching his face as she did, wondering what the hell he’d done, knowing he wouldn’t say. After a few minutes, she cautiously peeked beneath the towel.
She’d slowed the blood flow down. “A Band-Aid’s not going to do it this time, Bran. You need an ER.”
“No.”
She lifted her head and he dropped his, meeting her gaze. “You can’t take me to the hospital.”
“Why not?”
“Because I fucked up.” He paused, and closed his eyes again. “Fucked up bad.”
“What did you do?”
He didn’t answer.
She opened the vodka and poured it over his wound.
“Jesus,” he gasped. “Jesus H. Christ . . .”
“Breathe. And start talking.”
“I need to vanish.”
“So you’ve said. And yet here you are.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“No shit,” she said.
“I mean I really need to get out of here.”
“Well I’m all for that,” she said, gesturing for him to get up and go.
He looked at her. “I need twenty grand to do it.”
Her mouth fell open. “Are you kidding me?”
“No,” he said seriously, more seriously than she’d ever seen him. “And we both know you have it.”
She just stared at him. “What the hell happened tonight?”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“It’s always your fault,” she said. “Tell me.”
He shook his head. “I needed money to pay off . . . some people. When I couldn’t get it together, I tried to . . . acquire some stuff to sell. But I ran into trouble during the . . . acquisition. Now I don’t have the . . . stuff, I don’t have the money to pay the people I need to pay, and plus, the trouble that I ran into is likely to cause more trouble. So if I want to keep my kneecaps—and I do, I really, really do—I need to vanish for a while.” He paused. “A long while. And I need money to do that.”
“The twenty K.”
“Yes,” he said.
She gaped at him. But not for long because there was a knock at her door. She rushed to it, thinking it was Kel, he’d finally come back.
But it wasn’t Kel.
It was two very large guys who looked like they ate a lot of burgers and steroids, and little else. One had a whole bunch of hair. Everywhere. The other was bald as a cue ball.
“Can I help you?” she managed to ask, keeping the door cracked so only a sliver of her showed as she slowly reached, trying to grasp the baseball bat she still had leaning against the wall from Brandon’s first visit.
“We’re looking for Brandon Snow,” Unibrow said.
“Who?” Dammit, she needed a longer arm, she couldn’t quite . . . reach . . . the bat.
“We know he’s your brother,” Thug Two said.
She kept an even expression on her face, stretching out her fingers. “I haven’t seen him.”
“Really,” Unibrow said, heavy on the doubt. “Because he says you’re going to give him the money he owes us.”
“Well that’s funny,” she said, feeling anything but amused as her fingers finally laid purchase on the bat, which she gripped like a lifeline. “Because I don’t have any money.”
“That’s too bad,” Thug Two said. “Because if you don’t, we’ll have to take it out of his flesh. You sure he isn’t inside?”
“Quite sure—”
Before she could finish the sentence, Unibrow gave the door a hard shove. It bounced off Ivy’s face, and while her vision faded for a second, it was enough time for Unibrow to hold the door open and get a look inside.
Ivy turned to look as well, her face throbbing, but still prepared to use the baseball bat she was holding behind her back. For once she was gratified that her apartment was small enough to take in with one glance. Her couch was empty. The blanket was even gone. The bathroom door was open, and also empty. No one in the kitchen either. “See,” she said, trying not to sound shocked to the core.
Where the hell was Brandon?
That’s when she saw it. One of her two windows was open, the lace curtain blowing in the night breeze. Jesus. If Brandon had crawled out the window, he was on an eight-inch ledge four stories off the ground. With a bullet wound.
“He’s not here,” she said faintly, brandishing the baseball bat in front of her like she was warming up for the big leagues. “Now get out.”
Thug One stepped back just out of reach of the bat, but didn’t look particularly scared. “He’s got twenty-four hours to pay up.” He pointed at her. “Or we’ll be back for you.”
Ivy stood there at the door, watching to make sure they left. When they’d vanished down the stairs, she shut and locked her door and ran to the window just as Brandon fell back inside.
“Shit,” he gasped, hands clutched to his chest. “While you were having a casual—and very long—conversation with those assholes, my life was flash
ing before my eyes.”
“Well excuse the hell out of me,” she snapped. “I was very busy lying my ass off! I thought you’d left me alone with them.”
A genuine look of regret crossed his face. “I get I’m a huge fuckup, but I wouldn’t have ever left you alone with them to fend for yourself,” he said quietly.
“Who are they?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“You’re right, I don’t,” she snapped. “But seeing as they’re going to come back for me if you don’t pay up, I figure I should know.”
Guilt and more regret were in his eyes as he met hers. “I’ve made a few mistakes.”
“You think?”
“I’m sorry, Ivy.”
She blew out a breath. “Okay, let’s see if I’ve got this right. You either gambled poorly, or . . . you won and blew your earnings, and now the people you owe money to are making you do their dirty work since you can’t pay them. You brilliantly figured stealing something to cover your losses would work, but you failed. You nearly got caught, got shot for your efforts, and now you’re not just on the run from the guys you owe money to, but probably from the cops as well. How am I doing?”
“Pretty good,” he said weakly.
“Oh my God, Brandon.”
“Please, Ivy. You can help me out of this.”
Kel had told her that people make choices. That she’d made good choices and her brother hadn’t. She’d never thought of things that way before, but he was right. She’d chosen to put down roots. She had a nice group of great friends, her own business, and she was buying her first home. She also had Kel—one of her very best choices to date.
Brandon hadn’t chosen any of those things. Or her. And in fact, he’d chosen her now only because he needed something. “The way I see it,” she said quietly. “You have two choices. One, you can stay here with me and face what you’ve done, meaning confess and face the consequences for whatever went down tonight, including jail time, if that’s the sentence. I’ll be at your side, rooting for you. It’ll be a fresh start, a clean start with a new slate, just like I’ve made for myself here.”
“You aren’t naive enough to think it’s that easy.”
“Oh, it won’t be easy,” she assured him. “But I want a long future. And it’d be nice to have you in it under those circumstances.”
“I’m not sure us Snows have any sort of future,” he said quietly.
“You’re wrong, Brandon. You can have a future. All you’ve got to do is live on the straight and narrow for the first time in your life.”
“Or?” he asked tightly. “Door number two?”
“You can walk out right now and run, but if that’s your choice, you can’t ever come back.” Her throat went tight. “Not ever, Brandon.”
He stared at her. “That’s harsh.”
“Is it? I’ve got something here, something good. And instead of being my brother, all you do is threaten it. If you run from this, we’re done.”
He took a long swig of the vodka and set it down. Again his head went back against the sofa. “Okay,” he said.
“Okay what?”
“Okay, I’ll stay, if you want. Which is far more than I deserve and we both know it.”
“You’ll turn yourself in?” she asked doubtfully. “You’ll deal with whatever happens next?”
“With you by my side,” he murmured. “You forgot that part.” He opened his eyes and looked at her.
She nodded and he gave her a very weak smile. “You’re a good sister,” he said quietly.
She let out a slow breath and felt herself relax for the first time since he’d shown up on her doorstep. For once, he was going to do the right thing, and the relief left her exhausted. Or maybe that was just the events of the evening. “And I want Aunt Cathy’s necklace back.”
He grimaced.
“Tell me you didn’t sell it.”
Now he closed his eyes, as if looking at her disappointment and hurt was too painful for him. “I’m sorry.”
Grounding her back teeth into powder, she got him onto her couch and beneath a blanket, where he promptly passed out cold. It was nearly dawn now. Not wanting the bloody towels to stain, she ran them downstairs to the basement where they had a communal washer and dryer. She needed to go to work soon, she thought, shoving the towels into the washing machine and adding soap.
And something else she had to do? Talk to Kel. She’d promised after Brandon had shown up the first time that she’d contact him if she heard from her brother again. She reached for her phone in her back pocket before realizing she’d left it upstairs in her apartment.
Damn.
She climbed the stairs and entered her apartment, immediately knowing something was off.
Her couch was empty.
Brandon was gone.
“Shit!” She ran through the place, which didn’t take but a second, trying to figure out if anything was missing. Her laptop was right there on the table.
In fact, just then it lit up with a notification that her PayPal transfer had gone through.
Except she hadn’t made a PayPal transfer.
Whirling around, she looked for her phone. She couldn’t find it, and she froze in place. Where had she left it? When had she had it last?
She couldn’t remember. Hell, she could barely function. Brandon had used her laptop to transfer himself her twenty thousand dollars.
She sank to a chair on wobbly knees and didn’t know who she was more furious with—her brother, or herself.
Both, she decided, and on her laptop went straight to PayPal to put in an immediate dispute to the transaction. Then she called her bank and did the same. After, numb, she looked at the time. Six a.m. She ran downstairs and went searching for Martina and Jasmine. She found them sipping coffees and discussing homeless etiquette.
“I mean, this here alleyway between the buildings is ours,” Jasmine was saying. “Until we say otherwise. So no, she can’t stay here.”
“She’s your sister and it’s the day before Christmas Eve,” Martina said.
“Fine, whatever. But I still get the good stoop.”
“Do either of you have a phone?” Ivy asked.
“Girl, what do you take us for?”
“Right,” Ivy said on a wince. They were homeless, they didn’t have money for phones. “Sorry.”
“Of course we have phones. We’re civilized.” Jasmine gave her a long look. “You got man trouble?”
“Men are trouble,” she said.
“Amen to that.”
Ivy looked down at Jasmine’s phone and realized she had a problem. While Kel was in her cell as a contact—which she’d changed to Bad Decision—she didn’t actually have his number memorized.
Nor Caleb’s.
Nor anyone’s.
“Are you okay?” Martina asked.
No. Not even close. “Yes. Everything’s fine.”
“You don’t sound okay.”
“I’m tougher than I look.”
“You are,” Martina said easily. “But just remember even the tough need someone at their back. And you’ve got that anytime you need us.”
She nodded and swallowed the ball of emotion in her throat. “Thank you.” She handed back the phone. “I’ve got to go.” She needed to get to the job she’d created for herself, the one she now needed more than ever. Upstairs, she opened her laptop. She didn’t have it set up for messages, so instead of texting, she had to e-mail.
She didn’t know Kel’s e-mail addy.
But she knew Caleb’s. So she sent him a quick e-mail that she’d lost her phone, and if he could let Kel know, that would be great, thanks.
Thirty minutes later, she was at the truck and in the middle of prepping when a noise at the back door had her turning in hope, a smile already curving her lips. Kel, she thought. Caleb must have gotten his e-mail and let Kel know her phone was missing, and he’d come to make sure all was okay.
But it wasn’t Kel.
It was
Unibrow and Thug Two. With one hand, she automatically reached for the phone in her back pocket, the one she no longer had.
Dammit.
Luckily she happened to have a massive chopping knife in her other hand and she waved it in front of her in what she sincerely hoped made her look as fierce as the mother of all dragons.
None of them said a word. But Thug Two pointed to his eyes and then to Ivy.
They were watching her.
Great. Just great. She went to point to her eyes to signal she’d be watching them right back, and nearly took out her own eyes with the knife.
She’d been in the same city for a whole year and apparently in that time, she’d lost all her hard-earned survival instincts. By the time she managed to put a menacing, try-me expression on her face, she was alone.
But what if they’d come when she hadn’t been alone. What if she’d had customers, or if she’d been with her friends? What might’ve happened?
Her hands were still shaking, and now so was the rest of her as she turned the Open sign to Closed. She needed to call Kel, but she also needed to solve her problems and fast, before anyone, including herself, got hurt.
Chapter 23
Leave it all here
Kel spent the long hours of the night dealing with the local authorities for Caleb, and going over the site. Whoever had broken in wasn’t a novice. He’d managed to avoid surveillance cameras, or destroy them by spray painting the lenses, all while revealing only a dark hoodie, no facial features.
No visual or evidence of an accomplice.
It turned out that the hit Arlo had taken to the back of his head had been because he’d been shoved and had fallen, hitting the concrete floor. It wouldn’t have been so bad except that he’d been the one in a million who developed an unexpected brain swell, requiring surgery.
When Kel was finally allowed in to talk to him in the predawn early morning, he took a seat next to the bed.
“Merry Fucking Christmas Eve,” Arlo said.
Kel had to smile. “How you feeling?”
“Better than I look.”
“Good. You went over and above the call of duty on this one.”
“I tagged the fucker,” Arlo said. “Tell me you caught him.” He looked at Kel’s face and swore. “Follow the blood trail. He was bleeding like a mother fu—” He broke off when his nurse poked her head in.
