Page 51 of Knox

Hatchet nodded. “Agreed. We tighten up everywhere. Nobody rides alone. Careful eyes on every business we got, day and night.”

I inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “Guess I need to tell Ivy we’re going on a road trip.”

“Good luck,” Rook laughed. “I’ll gas up the station wagon.”

“Asshole,” I grumbled and left the office, in search of my wife.

I found her behind the clubhouse with her camera in hand, looking at the screen. She looked up when I approached without turning. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. We’re going on a road trip.”

“Okay,” she said softly and got to her feet. “How long will you be gone?” She finally turned to me, worry swimming in her eyes.

“We’ll be gone for a few days. You and me.” I turned away and stalked back into the clubhouse, leaving her behind to process it and get on board, which she would.

While she did that, I spent the next thirty minutes getting ready to hit the road. I had two prospects clean and fill the black truck that nobody knew about, packed a bag with clothes, burner phones, guns, and ammo. With twenty minutes to spare, the only thing left to do was wait for Ivy.

And take shit from my best friend.

“A minivan would really finish the look,” he said, unable to withhold his laughter.

“Eat a dick.”

He laughed again, then it faded. “Watch the open road, brother. And your back. You’re gonna be a long way from home.”

“I know it.”

“So where are we going?” Ivy appeared at my side with the same duffel bag she arrived with.

“Reno, Nevada,” I told her, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. My hand looked gigantic on her delicate shoulder, but perfect. “We got a lead on where the trust money is going.”

She stepped back. “And you need me for this?”

I gripped her shoulder tighter. “I don’t need you, but I want you with me. This involves your family and I don’t want to keep anything from you.”

She nodded, slowly looking up until our eyes locked. She was quiet for a long moment, something flashed in her eyes, and it was warm and soft, and almost affectionate. “Okay,” she said with a more determined nod. “I can do that.” She reached out and laid her hand on my forearm. “Thank you for trusting me with this.”

Goddamn this woman was going to be the absolute death of me. She was so open and vulnerable, so trusting. She saw me, saw the parts of me I stopped sharing with the world and she liked them.

She liked me.

And I was too fucking close to liking her. Or more than liking her.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ivy

We’d been on the road for hours by the time the landscape started to change. Colorado faded slowly, the mountains flattened out and the shades of green turned gold and rust colored.

Knox drove with one wrist hooked over the top of the wheel and his other hand resting on my knee like it belonged there, like we drove like this all the time. I watched the changes through the windshield, trying not to think too hard about where we were headed.

It didn’t work. Not that I expected it to because the harder I tried to ignore a thing, the more it made its presence known.

There was a gas station bag crumpled on the floor at my feet, the wreckage of four hundred miles. Sunflower seeds. A bag of jerky Knox had torn into like he hadn’t eaten in a month. The little bag of donut holes I’d sworn I wasn’t going to finish and then finished anyway. It was all there, lighthearted and carefree like this was just a weekend getaway. Like we were just a normal couple.

Knox hadn’t pushed me to talk. That was one of the thousand small things about him I appreciated. I was still getting used to the way he could let a silence sit without needing to fill it, the way he didn’t treat my quiet like a problem to solve. Rex had hated my silence. He read it as defiance and made me pay for it where Knox just turned the radio down low and let me sit in the silence as long as I needed to. So when I finally broke it, it was because I wanted to, not because I was scared of what would happen if I didn’t.

“What do we actually know,” I said. “About her. Carla Price.”