“I’m assuming that you have a picture of this person,” Ivy asked. I knew that she was trying to change the subject, so that I would stop thinking of all the many ways to kill Alex. I nodded. “Here,” I said, handing her the crumpled photo. “He’s in the background. Looks homeless, but we are all pretty sure that that is just a disguise.”
Ivy unfolded the picture and gasped.
“What is it?” I asked, leaning forward. “Do you recognize him?” She’d been so unaffected when I told her that someone was following her that it couldn’t be anything else.
Her hands were shaking, and her eyes hadn’t left the photo. “Ivy!” I reached out and grabbed her thin wrists. She still didn’t drop the photo. “What is it?”
If she didn’t speak to me soon, I was going to lose it.
“That’s my father,” she whispered. Her voice was so low that I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly.
“What?”
She’d dropped the picture in her lap and slid her wrists out of my grip. Her index finger pointed to the man in the photo, the one who had been following her for the last month, maybe even longer. “That’s my father.”
I didn’t know whether to be upset or relieved. I’d assumed the person following Ivy was one of my enemies. Maybe they’d heard about our marriage and were looking for an opening to use her against me.
Now, I felt slightly better knowing it was her father. He might be a deadbeat, but he probably didn’t mean to kidnap and kill her. But as I looked at Ivy’s face, I was wondering if I needed to be concerned. Her normally pale skin was ashen, and she looked as though she were going to be ill.
“Ivy?” I asked. “Are you alright?” The question sounded stupid as I said it. Of course she wasn’t alright. The father that had abandoned her when she was little was back and following her.
“Why hasn’t he said anything?” she asked. I was sure that she was speaking to herself because I certainly did not have the answer. I wish I did. It would make all of our lives easier.
“We can lay a trap. Dom would be happy to lend me the men…”
I trailed off as Ivy crumpled up the photo. She threw it on the car floor and covered it with her heel. “No,” she told me. “If he doesn’t want to see me, I don’t want to see him.” Her voice was petulant as she spoke.
“Ivy…” I slid my hand up her bare leg. I wanted to say something to her, something that would comfort her, but I was out of words. My own father had been proud of parenthood. He knew that it was his duty to provide heirs, and he had. But he’d also enjoyed the role of parent. He wasn’t the warm and fuzzy type, but he’d played an integral role in the lives of all his sons.
Ivy pulled away from me. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
I could see the walls she’d erected long ago closing in around her. She wasn’t going to talk, and I wasn’t going to push her.
Sighing, I leaned back into my seat. Yes, we now knew that Ivy’s father was the one following her, but unfortunately, that opened more questions than it closed. Why was he following her? What did he want after all of these years? And most importantly, did he have something to do with the shooting that had taken place weeks ago?