“You could go to prison for a crime you didn’t commit.”
"I’m not innocent. I did meet with Williams. I am paying his lawyer fees to keep the Blackstone name out of his testimony. Hell, if he’s telling them that, I’m in trouble anyway."
"So your plan is to throw yourself on a grenade that might not even go off?"
"If it protects them? Absolutely." I stare down at my glass. "I'm doing this. I just thought you should know first. Not after. Not like Williams."
“Then let me help. Let me go with you.”
“No.” I gesture with my glass, bourbon sloshing near the rim.
“Please don’t go alone. Is the other guy in the photo with you an attorney?”
“Yes, but I think it’d look better if I went without being lawyered up.”
“I don’t give a shit how it looks. Bring him. Please, Thorne.”
Her words echo what Voss said before the Williams meeting. The meeting where I ignored half his advice.
She knows it too. Of course she does. It should unnerve me how quickly she's figured me out.
“I’ll bring Voss.” A small grin tugs at the corner of my mouth. “And I’ll actually listen to him this time."
“Let me be there when the two of you strategize what you'll say and do when you meet with the FBI.” She steps closer and takes my hand not holding my drink. Her touch grounds me. “Please let me help.”
"I'm not good at asking for help."
"I've noticed." There's the ghost of a smile on her lips, though it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "But you're going to learn. Starting now. If you're serious about this backup plan. If you really think it might be necessary then we bring in Voss properly. We review every option. We make sure if you're going to fall on your sword, it's because there's no other choice, not because you’re convinced that you deserve to burn."
I let go of her hand. “I'm trying to punish myself?” I turn from her.
I should stop. But reality has the comforting blurry quality I need right now.
"I think you've spent three years trying to be better than your father, and the second you slip, you want to destroy yourself to prove you're not him." She rests a palm on my back. "But you're not him, Thorne. Even at your worst, you're not him."
The conviction in her voice nearly breaks me. I don't deserve her faith, her certainty, the way she's still standing here after everything I've confessed. She should be running. Should be calling her boss to get herself off this case, off this family, away from me.
Instead, her hand is on my back, and the touch is so goddamn kind it makes my chest ache.
I laugh. It’s sharp and ugly. "You’re wrong. I'm exactly like my father.”
She shakes her head.
"How do you know? You don’t know him."
"Because I know of him. And people like him. He takes. You're trying to protect."
"Or because I'm like my father—trying to control them."
Ivy narrows the distance between us, close enough that I can see the mix of concern and frustration in her warm eyes—eyes that should have turned cold on me by now. "You went to Williams to protect Sebastian. You're doing all of this to protect your family."
"And what about everything I've done in the past? I've tried to leave it behind, but I can't. It's who I am."
"I don't know who you were," she says quietly. “But I know who you are now. I've seen who you are when you're not trying to play the villain."
"It's not a part I'm playing." I take another drink. My hand is steadier than it should be, muscle memory from all those years before I imposed the one-drink rule. "You've seen the version of me that makes you breakfast and races you in the pool and fucks you until you can't remember your own name. But that's not all of me."
"Then show me the rest." She reaches out, her hand gentle on my wrist. "Stop hiding behind this act and show me who you really are."
