Page 64 of Knox

A breath stuttered out of Rex and then he held the next one inside as if that could stop the past from joining the present here inside this defunct bar. “Never heard that name before,” he finally said once he got his emotions under control.

“Weird,” she answered slowly, drawing the word out into two syllables. Because I went to see her. And imagine my surprise to find Mom still alive and well.” Her smile was soft and sweet, barely a smile but enough to stoke Rex’s fury.

His ashen face darkened until red hot fury settled in. “I should’ve sold you before you even hit puberty, let those fuckin’ pervs fuck some sense into you.” He spat the words, trying like hell to hurt Ivy. “You’ve always been a disappointment, Ivy. Just like that useless bitch of a mother of yours.” He raised the gun and lined up his shot. “Never did one fucking thing right in your life.”

“Good,” she shot back, cheeks flushed with pride and adrenaline. “Because I stopped trying to make you proud a long time ago.”

He hooked his finger around the trigger. “Killing you won’t change shit for me,” he told her. “But it’s enough knowing that your death will hurt your mother.”

Fear flashed in her eyes. Fast and real, and gone just as quickly. She noted that I was on the move and her body relaxed visibly. “You’d do it, wouldn’t you?” she asked even though she already knew the answer. Ivy knew better than anyone who the real Rex was. “Kill me just to hurt her?”

He grinned and it turned into a loud, raucous laugh. “You’re already dead, Ivy. You’re just too dumb to realize it.”

Everything in me went still as Rex lined up his shot. It wasn’t fear, it was calculation. I’d been in rooms like this before where I had to make life and death calls, and it was rarely a difficult call. By the time I was standing in a room like this, death was inevitable for someone. Today that someone was Rex. His finger was on the trigger, and Ivy was in his sights, which meant there was just one way this ended.

The world around me slowed and I knew I had to act fast. I also knew that the next few seconds would impact my relationship with my wife. One way or the other, this would leave a mark. She might hate me for it. She might understand it and still be unable to forgive it. I had no way of knowing. There were no calculations I could run to determine the outcome before I acted.

Even without a guarantee, I closed the gap between me and Rex while he focused on his hate for his own fucking daughter. I didn’t hesitate because I didn’t need to, this was what I wanted for a long damn time.

I pressed the barrel of my gun to his temple, and I kept my eyes on Ivy when I pulled the trigger.

The shot was loud in the empty room. Rex crumpled to the ground at my feet.

Ivy’s eyes went wide at the sound and then slid shut as he hit the floor. She stood there with her eyes closed for a long few seconds, very still, while Dani shook and cried, clinging to the woman who saved her life.

Then Ivy’s eyes opened and met mine. They were wet but she wasn’t devastated. She looked like a woman who’d been battling a demon she thought was immortal only to find that like her, he was nothing but flesh and blood.

Desperate to touch her and sooth her, I crossed the room, arriving just as her legs gave out. I scooped her up before she came close to hitting the floor and hauled her up against my chest. When she buried her face in my neck and sobs, hard and ugly sobs, I held her even tighter. Every broken sob slashed at my heart, but I knew she needed to mourn whatever the fuck had happened today, so she could move forward.

So we could move forward.

It gutted me, goddammit, I’m man enough to admit that.

I held her tighter and carried her out of that fucking bar while her friend stuck close to us. I never spared another glance or thought for Rex as the sunlight nearly blinded me. My mind wasn’t on Dani or my brothers or anything but the woman in my arms.

My woman.

My wife.

The only thing I wanted, hell the only thing I needed, was to get her home and in my arms where I would dry her tears and be the man she needed me to be.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Ivy

Rex was dead. For years I dreamed of his death, I even wished for it. A lot of times and in great detail. I’d done it for sport when things were really bad. I’d done it because I wanted to stop waking up afraid. To stop flinching at the sound of a door. But now that Rex was actually dead, there was a conflict that bubbled in my chest.

Maybe it was the shock of watching the life go out of his eyes, of watching his brains splatter all over the floor or watching him bleed out that made me go cold and feel something close to sad. I expected relief. I expected to feel free. What I actually felt was hollowed out, like something had been scooped out and left a void I didn’t know how to fill.

Knox held me through all of it. He carried me to his bike, and I held on tight all the way back to the clubhouse with my arms locked around his waist and my face pressed to the back of his jacket.

He carried me from the bike to our room at the clubhouse where we were closed off from the noise. Knox sat on the edge of the bed and held me while I fell apart. I cried for a long time. I don’t really know what I was crying for. Not for Rex, not exactly. My body just shook and the sobs came and came until finally they stopped. And I was left empty and wrung out. And completely fucking exhausted.

Eventually I pulled back from his chest and shook my head. “Sorry about that. I’m not sad that he’s gone. I’m sad that I never got the relationship I wanted.” That was silly, I knew that, but now that he was dead the dream of getting the father I always wanted died with him.

Knox’s jaw clenched and a million different emotions flickered on his face. “Don’t apologize to me, Ivy.” That was the thing about my husband, he never made me feel small for having feelings.

“I’m not upset,” I rushed to assure him, because one of the things I’ve learned about Knox is that he took my feelings seriously. “I don’t blame you. Rex had to go, I know that.” I sucked in a long breath and let it out as slow as possible. “I know that you killed him to save me and I’m grateful for that.” I let out a shaky breath and kept going. Or I tried. I looked at my hands for a second, as if they held the script I needed to follow. This next part was harder. I had been building up to it for weeks, talking myself into it before I backed out. Again and again on a never-ending loop. “Knox, I… fuck, this is harder than I thought it would be.”