She’d made their bed with fresh sheets and then moved into the closet. Ignoring Dax’s things, she sought out a sports bag because she needed luggage that would be smaller than the suitcase they’d brought on their trip here.
The bag that she located she recognised as the one they’d had in Vegas when they got married. Taking the bag out, she laid it on the bed, and unzipped it to check that it was empty. Inside she found only one thing: a pile of zip ties bound by an elastic band.
Removing them, she thought of their wedding night, which was the night she’d found this same item in this bag. Fingering the plastic, she was reminded of the night she tried to escape from the beach house on the first night that Dax had introduced her to these restraints. Now she would never consider sneaking out of her husband’s bed in an attempt to escape from him.
Tossing them aside, she put her hands in the bag again, this time to push out the sides and give the bag its shape back. Then she went into the closet to retrieve some of her folded clothes from a shelf. She carried them to the bedroom and put them in the bag.
She was back in the closet picking her underwear out of Dax’s top drawer when the front door opened. Digging out the last of her lacies, she grabbed a pair of Dax’s socks, and closed the drawer with her elbow.
Quickly dropping the apparel into the bag on the bed, she hurried through to the kitchen intent on talking to Dax about her trip during lunch. But when she got there, it wasn’t her husband plating up lunch that she focused on, it was the giant standing at his side.
‘Ivy,’ Dax said. ‘You remember Serg?’
Her forced smile couldn’t be confused for genuine, but Dax carried on pulling containers from the brown bag he had on the kitchen counter behind the hutch that concealed the specifics of what he was doing.
Serg rose from the stool on the living room side of the hutch and came toward her with a hand out, but Ivy took a step back. ‘Don’t come over here,’ she said and Serg stopped.
Dax looked up at her, then cast his eyes to Serg and brought them back to her. ‘You don’t have to worry about Serg,’ Dax said.
She wasn’t worried, but she also wasn’t an idiot. The guy was nearly seven feet tall, and his ice blonde hair and narrow eyes were designed to set a person on edge. ‘Who is worried,’ she said without taking her eyes away from Serg. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Catching up,’ Dax answered for Serg and brought three plates around to the dining table.
If Ivy had superpowers, she’d be reading Dax the riot act through telepathy. To say she was pissed right now, was an understatement. This apartment was supposed to be a safe space, and as much as Serg had not done her direct harm, that didn’t mean that she trusted him.
Dax sat at the head of the table and began to tuck into his food. Serg picked up a bag from his feet, then sat in a chair next to Dax and pulled out a pile of ledgers, which he pushed over to Dax before tossing the bag aside and tucking into his lunch.
‘This is everything?’ Dax asked, Serg nodded. ‘Where’s the little green—‘
‘In the front,’ Serg said, leaning down to pull a small dark green, leather-bound book from the front pocket of the bag on the floor.
He handed it over to Dax, who pushed all of the larger books aside to focus on the little green one. Dax opened it and put it next to his plate. He read a bit and took another mouthful of food. She was still looking at Serg, who glanced up at her and their gazes locked. Dax must have felt the connection because he had been reading, but he looked up at her too.
‘Are you gonna stand there all day?’ he asked. ‘Want me to get you a knife from the kitchen? Will that make you feel safer?’ She didn’t appreciate his sarcasm, which she hoped that her glare conveyed.
‘You married a lethal weapon,’ Serg said. ‘I might be a big guy, but size doesn’t matter to Dax. I’ve seen him take down guys bigger than me.’
She trusted Dax to protect her if he had to. But he and Serg were friends and possibly future-colleagues, Dax wouldn’t be pissing off Serg any time soon.
‘What is that?’ she asked, nodding to the book that Dax’s hand was open on.
‘The unofficial operations log,’ Dax said. ‘This is where we keep track of who owes us what and how long they have to pay it.’
We. Us. She couldn’t help except to read into what Dax said. He didn’t speak of his life with the Starks in the past tense; he was in the present and very much a part of what Serg was showing him. His eyes went back to the book, and she crept around the table to where he’d put her lunch on the opposite side of the table to Serg’s.
Now that there was a person in their home whom she considered an intruder, she wasn’t in the slightest bit hungry. But her thoughts jarred, this wasn’t her home. Dax had lived here, but she had spent very little time here herself.
‘I’ll leave you men to it,’ she said, lowering her hand to pick up her plate. But Dax snatched her wrist, and she was surprised to see the anger in his eyes when he regarded her.
‘Sit down,’ he said, squeezing his grip on her wrist to bring her into the chair perpendicular to his. When she was down, he turned to Serg, but didn’t let go of her. ‘This is a fucking mess.’
‘Yeah, things have gone to shit since you’ve been gone,’ Serg said, still eating his lunch. ‘I don’t mind admitting that I’ve struggled to keep it together. We’ve lost three guys since you left.’
‘Who?’
Serg gave three names, and she forked some salad leaves into her mouth. Dax still held her wrist, pinning her arm down and rendering it useless, meaning she had to eat her lunch and drink her water with only one hand.
Not that either of the men noticed her discomfort, they kept talking while eating. Dax was interested in what Serg was saying about who owed them money. Some of the names Serg relayed peeved Dax to the point of raising his voice because apparently it was some big affront when particular guys tried to take advantage now that Dax was out of the picture.
‘Got a few places to hit this afternoon,’ Serg said. ‘Wouldn’t mind company.’
Raising her chin, she held her breath in anticipation of Dax’s response. Neither of the men paid her any attention.
Dax pushed his plate away and nodded. ‘Sure,’ he said, and her mouth dropped open. ‘I could use the exercise.’ The men rose from the table and because Dax had a hold of her, she was forced to stand up as well. ‘Take care of this mess, will you, Minx?’
When he let her go, she immediately took her turn to snatch hold of him. But when her action drew the focus of both men, her words slipped back into her throat. She couldn’t chastise Dax in front of Serg. The last thing they needed was for the Starks to think that there was tension in their relationship. Ivy wouldn’t give Mauri the satisfaction of knowing that he had the power to cause conflict.
If the Starks took it upon themselves to use a wedge to pry the couple apart, then they might be successful, she’d seen it before. So instead of speaking, Ivy moved around the corner of the table and slid her hands up his chest and brought his mouth down to hers.
‘Be back by bedtime,’ she murmured and touched his lips with her fingertips.
‘Start without me,’ Dax said. ‘Creeping up on these guys in the dark is sometimes the best approach.’
So he was telling her that he wouldn’t be back all night? If the men were going to do their enforcing under the cloak of night then there was no need for Dax to leave at lunchtime, which meant there was something else on the cards for this afternoon – be it business or pleasure. Ivy wasn’t sure that she wanted to know what they had planned, but that wouldn’t stop her from asking Dax when he got home.
Maintaining her smile when Dax smacked her ass, Serg grabbed the bag and books, and she remained stuck in the same spot while the men vacated the apartment. Lowering her attention, the lunch mess was still on the table waiting for her to clear it up. Except after Dax’s show, the last thing that she felt like doing was playing the dutiful housewife.
Grabbing her purse, she checked for her passport and her credit cards. Dax had made sure she was covered which included getting her a cell phone, so if he wanted to chase her then he was welcome to. But if she could get to the airport fast, he might never notice that she was gone.
Chapter Five
Serg had happened upon him at the lunch place, one of Dax’s favourite restaurants, and Dax hadn’t been naïve enough to believe that the meeting was a coincidence. It had been a setup, Mauri had probably kept Serg on his tail since they’d arrived back in California, and Serg had made contact in the restaurant because Mauri had told him to, it was the only explanation for the serendipitous meeting.
Playing along when Serg had offered him a look at the books, Dax had declined Serg’s invitation to take a table and eat in the restaurant. He had told Ivy that he wouldn’t be out for long, if he’d just disappeared she might have worried or been pissed off at him for ditching her. So inviting Serg back to the apartment had made sense.
But taking Serg home hadn’t made Ivy happy, he could sense her spitting fire throughout the meal in their apartment, and he knew that she was going to kick his ass when he got home. When she’d tried to walk away from the dining table, he couldn’t allow it, he just couldn’t let her leave. She was his life, and whatever his business ventures were going to be in the future, she was going to be a part of them.
He had nothing to hide from her and wanted it to stay that way. If they did choose to stay here and work with the Starks again then Ivy was going to be a big part of that; she would never want to be a trophy wife, as most of the Stark women had been. She was going to sign off on everything, and if she didn’t then it wouldn’t happen; for him, it was as simple as that.
Holding onto her wrist during the lunch was for his benefit, she kept him anchored. It was a strange sensation to need something as much as he needed contact with her throughout that meal. Being in Serg’s company, talking business with him, was something that Dax had considered a part of his past. Having to deal with it all again was disconcerting, because he was reminded of just how good he had been at what he did.
However, that woman, his wife, there at his side, in his grip, she was his future, and she made it ok; she made everything ok. He could play the game as long as he had her at his side. Letting Serg and the Starks believe that he was still a force to be reckoned with was essential to their survival here.
Showing them weakness, or letting them think that he was subordinate to Ivy, would put her in a precarious position. Dax wouldn’t allow them to use her against him. They had to believe that he still had control of her, or they could hurt her to get to him. He himself knew the truth – he would never act in a way that would upset his wife.
As they went around to all of the work sites that afternoon, he and Serg acted as if nothing was different, it was as though he was just getting an update after being away with Trystan on another of his ridiculous party binges. When the rounds were done, he and Serg went to the bar. The guys there gave Dax quite the welcome home and hadn’t seemed too surprised to see him.
After dark, they started to visit the known locations of the men who needed to be scared into submission. They had already completed the first three visits when he glanced at the clock on the car dashboard and read that it was after midnight. Knowing that they still had half a dozen of these to do and that it could take hours to track down a specific person, he realised that Ivy was going to hand him his balls when he got home.
Elevating his hips, he took his cell phone from his back pocket and punched in the apartment phone number then held the device to his ear.
‘Checking in with the wife?’ Serg asked from his position in the driver’s seat.
‘Yeah,’ Dax said, but the phone was just ringing, no one was picking up. When the answering machine clicked in, he hung up with no intention of leaving a message.
‘No one home?’
‘She’s probably in bed,’ he said, but that wasn’t their deal.
Ivy waited up for him when he was working late, at least that had been the deal when he worked in Risqué. He worked the night shift doing security at the strip club, and he often wasn’t home until three in the morning. Ivy always picked up when he called her, no matter what the hour was.
‘You did tell her to start without you,’ Serg said with a smile that Dax wanted to wipe off his colleague’s face. ‘Maybe she’s busy.’
If Ivy were pleasuring herself, then she would definitely have answered the phone just to rub his face in what he was missing. She would probably have used her breathy narration of her actions as an incentive to bring him home. Either she was far more pissed off than he’d taken account of, or she wasn’t home at all.
That alarming idea made him sit up straighter to dial the number of the cell phone he’d given her. The chill on his skin was a testament to the adrenaline making his jaw tense. If she wasn’t in the fucking apartment he was going to go straight to wherever the hell she was and have it out with her right there; he’d drag her back to the apartment by her hair if he had to.
Being out on the streets of LA wasn’t safe at this time of night and a woman like her, with her figure and face, would be in more danger. He couldn’t believe that she would think of going out without him there by her side. She wasn’t from LA, she’d never lived here, so she didn’t know anyone. Nor did she know the different areas of the city, she could wander into trouble without realising the area’s potential for it.
‘Hello?’ she said when she picked up the phone.
The noise echoing in the background of the line brought his chin up, because it was evident that she wasn’t home. From the music and chatter, he would assume that she was in a nightclub. How dumb could she be? He wanted to yell at her, to drum into her how crazy it was for her to be out without him in what could be a threatening environment.
‘Where are you?’ he growled.
‘Where are you?’ she asked him right back.
Glancing at Serg, who was fixated on the windshield, Dax turned to his side window. ‘Give me the goddamn address, I’m coming to get you.’
‘You’re not home,’ she said. ‘You would have called me from the landline if you were. You’re still out with him, aren’t you?’
‘You’re gonna be like this?’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘You walked out on me, tough guy. You can’t be pissed off that I did the same thing back to you.’
‘Give me the address and we’ll talk about this at home after I pick you up,’ he said.
Cooling his anger, his chest tightened with the sheer weight of his compulsion to snatch hold of his woman and shake some sense into her. He wanted to grab her and pin her to the nearest wall. Throughout their relationship, he’d been so busy trying to make sure that she was happy he hadn’t attempted to urge her into a submissive position. Though that was a joke, Ivy would never surrender her will to anyone, he knew because he and Bruno had tried it.
‘I’m in a club,’ she said.
‘I can tell.’
‘I can’t hear you properly.’
But she heard him just fine, the tinge of antagonism in her tone betrayed how she didn’t want to be talking, or rather answering, to him right now.
‘I’ll check every damn nightclub in LA if I have to,’ he said, forgetting for a moment that Serg was by his side.
‘Won’t help you much,’ she said.
‘Why’s that?’
‘I’m not in California anymore.’
He hadn’t expected her to say that. ‘What the fuck—‘
‘You deal with your shit, Dax. I’ll be back when I’ve dealt with mine.’ And she hung up the phone.
Lowering the phone from his ear, he blinked at
the offending device. ‘Is there a problem?’ Serg asked Dax.
‘No,’ Dax said, stuffing the phone back into his pocket.
His new mood didn’t bode well for the next scumbag they were going to come across. He might enjoy beating the little shit to a pulp just for sport. He’d chased Ivy across the country once and if he had to do it again, then he would.
Tracking her down shouldn’t take him too long; if she’d taken the cell phone he gave her then she would have his credit cards too. In the information technology age, his wife wouldn’t get too far away from him.
Retrieving his phone again, he went online and logged into his credit card account to check the latest transactions. He and Serg were nearly at their destination, so there wasn’t much time for him to pin down Ivy’s location.
Vegas. There was a transaction for a hotel in Las Vegas. Gritting his teeth, he put the phone back in his pocket. Dax didn’t know why she was there or what business she had to take care of, but something had taken her back to her old stomping ground.
Because she was using his credit cards, which Ivy knew he could track, she wasn’t leaving him or ending their relationship. She made a habit of making herself easy to locate if she wanted him to trace her, she knew how to leave breadcrumbs for him. The day she chose not to leave those breadcrumbs was the day he would start to worry.
There was no hurry to get back to the apartment now that he knew she wasn’t there waiting for him. He would finish his shift with Serg and take out some of his frustrations on those who tried to disrespect the Starks. But the minute he got back home, dealing with Ivy would be his number one priority.
She wasn’t in a Vegas nightclub looking for a good time. No, she had checked into her hotel and gone on the hunt for the people she was here to deal with. Getting back to Vegas didn’t feel like coming home. Almost as soon as the plane landed, she wanted to leave again. There was no familiar apartment for her to go to, just another hotel.
Fighting Back (Harrow Book 2) Page 5
