Page 37 of Ivy’s Poison

Champ’s deep voice, once sexy, now frightening, rumbled. “Ivy?”

“Yeah?” I timidly replied.

He sighed. “Never mind. I, uh, had planned on driving through the night, but… I’m suddenly feeling tired. You guys okay with a hotel room for a few hours?”

This was it. Bors was going to dispose of us. It was earth shattering to know you were about to go face to face with the Reaper.

Beth started to tremble but nodded, telling me to agree.

My voice cracked with anxiety as I replied, “That sounds good.”

Staying on her side, Beth searched around for anything we could make into a weapon, but granola bars, Sprite bottles, and diapers can only be so deadly. Plan B, according to all Beth’s frantic hand gestures, was her tackling the huge man to give me a chance to run with Ivy.

We’re fucking dead.

As my heart was shattering because my upcoming murder was going to be by a man I wanted, and was the father of my child, I kept trying to come up with a plan that gave us a fighting chance. Up against Bors, with no weapon or bazooka, there was no outcome I could find without our blood being spilled.

After we drove down an isolated country road, Bors pulled into a dive hotel. I understood. No cameras. No proof of life or death. The assassin was covering his tracks.

Parked right next to the office door, Bors went inside to pay, after he locked the doors and took the keys; more proof we were trapped. Beth was panting. “You run with her. Please, do this for me, Ivy. I will scratch his eyes out while you run.”

“Beth,” I heavily whispered over my pounding heart. “He is going to snap you like the skinny bitch you are.”

“Do not start giving me compliments just because you know we’re about to die—”

The driver’s door opening had us going quiet. Staring at each other again, I saw her eyes fill with tears in her silent goodbye to me. They were contagious tears. My eyes pooled immediately. We grabbed for each other’s hands again, trying to find comfort in our last moments. She mouthed, “I love you.”

Wiping my cheeks, I nodded and pulled Jade into my arms. I inhaled her scent, already missing the joy she brought into my pathetic life. Beth leaned forward and kissed the sleeping baby over and over, leaving a trail of tears. After all we had been through, this felt like such a pathetic ending, but at least we were together.

From out the back window, I saw Bors had backed up the SUV to a hotel bedroom door at the end of the one-story rundown building. When he exited the vehicle, Beth whispered, “Not going down without a fight.”

“Let him make the first move.”

“‘Kay.”

The back door opened. Bors was very quiet as Beth and I crawled out. I had witnessed this man kill eight of my dad’s men. I had learned that he killed Trent, the fucking VP of my dad’s ruthless biker gang. That was no easy feat, especially getting away with it. And I knew he could withstand torture better than any victim of Dad’s, yet I never put much thought into who this man was. To me, he was just badass Champ. Death was, unfortunately, not new to me, but now knowing who Bors truly was, his size, his expression, his mannerisms all felt… lethal. The reputation of this band of brothers, the Cavalieri Della Morte, was that absolute. I was convinced that Bors was actually worse than my father. I had survived Stain, but there was no surviving the Table of Death. Therefore, no surviving Bors.

On the side between the SUV and hotel door, his dark eyes studied us and our tears. I was taken aback when there was no reaction of disgust for our weakness. There was only regret. “Ivy, I’m sorry about your dad.”

Beth stayed quiet, but her expression spoke of the confusion I was also experiencing.

Bors went to wipe my cheek but stopped when I recoiled.

I’ll never forget the hurt that crossed his face. “Ivy… I won’t hurt you.”

Not believing him, I nodded and retrieved a still sleeping Jade. Holding her to my chest, I couldn’t help but touch my neck where he had once strangled me.

His shoulders sunk as if reading my mind. Then he deeply inhaled and looked to Beth. “Do you believe me?”

Observing his hands that she expected to be holding knives, she touched the side of her face that he once smacked. “Yeah, sure, Champ.”

Staring at the keys in his hand, he mournfully said, “I thought we didn’t lie to each other.”

Beth’s head tilted as if she was trying to read him, and was perplexed while doing so. Then, appearing to struggle through a swallow, she whispered, “Sorry.”

He looked up from the keys and tried to fake a smile. It didn’t work. He tossed the keys into the air and caught them without tracing where they were to land. “Ain’t nothing new, I guess.” Bors turned from us and unlocked the hotel room.

Too confused to run, we quietly followed. Bors shut the door behind us. I couldn’t help but slightly jump. I was fatigued. I was fearful. I had an assassin and a cruel motorcycle gang to contend with, and my nerves were beyond shot. I didn’t know his past. I was clueless about what it felt like for people to judge and fear you. Not even knowing the first thing about you, but based merely on what they saw, deep down, they believed they were right. They believed you were a menace to society.