She blinked.“Getting supplies.Like I texted you.”
“Alone,” Havoc gritted out.
Her spine straightened instantly.“I told you I was fine.”
He stopped a foot away from her, crowding her space without touching.“You weren’t fine yesterday.”
Her eyes flashed.“I handled it.”
“No,” he snapped.“You didn’t have to.I did.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t exist in town without an escort,” she fired back.
His chest rose and fell hard.“You don’t know who that was.”
“I know he wasn’t Devil’s Crown.”
“That makes it worse,” Havoc growled.“That was Hyena.Steel Jackals VP.”
She stiffened.“So?”
“So he’s trouble,” Havoc said.“And now he knows you matter.”
Her mouth opened, then closed.Her grip tightened on the supplies.“I matter to myself,” she said.“That doesn’t mean I stop living my life.”
“You don’t get it,” he said, frustration bleeding into something raw.“This isn’t about paint or errands.This is about territory.About messages.”
“And I’m what?”she shot back.“A message?”
The word landed between them like a slap.
Havoc sucked in a breath.“No.”
“Because that’s what it feels like,” Ivy said, voice tight but steady.“Like suddenly my existence is a liability.”
“That’s not what I said,” he argued.
“It’s what you’re acting like,” she pointed out.
Silence stretched, thick and buzzing.
“You could’ve told me,” she added, her voice tight but steady.“You could’ve said who he was.Instead you decided to panic and ride out like I’d already screwed up.”
The words hit harder than she probably meant them to.
Havoc laughed once, sharp and humorless, the sound cutting through the air like broken glass.
“You think this is panic?”he demanded, voice rough.
“Yes,” Ivy said without hesitation.“I think you’re scared.”
That stopped him cold.The world narrowed, breath stalling halfway into his lungs.The truth of it punched through his ribs, finding old bruises he pretended weren’t there anymore.He hated that she saw it and that she could name it so easily when he’d spent years burying it.
Even worse, she was right.He stepped closer again, drawn in despite himself, heat and tension coiling tight between them like a live wire.
“You don’t know what scared looks like on me,” he said.
Her chin lifted, defiant but not unkind.“Then don’t make choices for me,” she said.
