Chapter Fifty
Mike
Mike felt as if someone had clocked him in the jaw. He couldn’t believe this witch had the audacity to come to his house.
“Well, well, well,” she said a bit too lustfully for his liking as she drank him in the closer he got. “Look at you. All grown up into… a big man now.”
“You have that little value for your life?” Mike asked, truly curious.
“Mike,” Manny warned in a low rumble, standing close to him. His friend knew the hell and torture he’d suffered from this woman’s conniving ways.
“Okay, okay, everyone, let’s just keep a level head and talk about—”
“Who the fuck is this?” Mike pointed to the man standing beside a fancy Jag. He looked like a Wall Street reject, complete with the hair plugs and the oversized smartphone clipped to a leather belt holding up his overstarched shorts.
“Michael, this is my husband, Riley St. James the Fourth. Rye, this is him. This is Bishop’s father.” She shook her head. “I told you he was a pit bull.”
“All bitches recognize a stud when they see one,” Mike retorted.
Her smug smile slid from her lips before she turned them up into a sinister sneer. “I didn’t come here for your shit, Mike, or to be insulted. I came to see my son.”
“Fuck. You. Ivy.” Mike accented each word with a step closer to her until he was right in her face. “You left me asleep in a hospital room with a damn infant, and now you show up thirty-three years later with the balls to just barge back into his life?”
She cocked her head again. “Funny. That’s almost verbatim what Mama said. Do you know she refused to tell me where you lived? But lucky for me, the Devil Wreckers’ new SGT at Arms was more than happy to show me.”
Mike turned and stared at Snake until he got back in his Jeep and drove away. There were no cops called or insurance information requested because the bastard knew better.
“Mama also said that her boys were happy and I should go on about my business.” She mocked Mama’s Southern accent as she closed the tight gap between them. Mike sucked in a sharp breath at how close her lips were to his. She always was gutsy as fuck—it was why he’d been enamored with her all those years ago. “I just wanted to see for myself. You’re looking really—”
“My son is fine. You’re gonna have to take my word for it. Now, leave,” Mike ordered, unsure how long his patience would last.
“Now, hold on one minute,” Wall Street butted in. “Ivy has turned her life around. And she wants to right some of the wrongs she’s—”
“Ivy, you were bold enough to come here because you know I’d never put my hands on a woman… not even one as vile as you.” Mike pointed at Mr. St. James the Fourth. “But there’s nothing stopping me from whipping his ass for every piece of shit you say out of your mouth that I don’t like.”
“Whoa, whoa.” Ivy’s husband held his hands out in front of him, his head swinging between Mike and Manny. “There’s no need for threats of violence.”
“Oh, there’s definitely a need,” Mike snarled. “And after I knock your ass out, don’t fight that bright light you see. Go towards it.”
Ivy rolled her eyes as if she was annoyed. “Rye, just wait in the car. I’ll handle this.”
“Mr. Mike. Um, Big Mike… can I call you that?” Riley asked.
“No,” he and Manny said in synch.
The husband’s Adam’s apple gave a noticeable dip before he cleared his throat and tried again. “Mike. Ivy is a good woman. She’s changed… a lot.”
Mike gave Ivy the most disgusted look he could muster. “Well, I broke her, Rye. Anybody can ride her ass now.”
“Riley.” Ivy’s voice was strained like the fucked-up part of her wasn’t rehabilitated in the least. All of her junk was still right there, concealed under the layers of her designer clothes. Camouflaged but there. “I said wait in the car, please.”
He did what she asked, and Mike turned to look at Manny in disbelief. Both of them had confused but repulsed expressions on their faces.
“Did he… he really left his wife out here and went and hid in the car?” Manny asked.
“Does he think that door and a single pane of glass will stop me?” Mike couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped as he glared at Ivy’s pinched features. “I see you finally found yourself a rich chump to do whatever you say. All money and no balls.”
“Just the way I like ’em,” she answered with a shrug.