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“It’s not the book, but what’s in it.” I opened the book so he could see the hollowed out pages, a clean rectangular cavity that I cut out at the print shop. Safe inside it were documents, photographs, and a flash drive held in place with a hair elastic. Evidence of my father’s crimes and what his club was into. I’d collected it over the years, not sure what I was going to do with the information, only that someday it might be my salvation.

Knox sucked in a sharp breath.

I looked over at him, gauging his expression. He looked shocked but there was something else I couldn’t quite read. Again. I blew out a heavy breath and closed the book, handing it to him. “This is everything I have on Rex.” I pushed it closer, encouraging him to take it. “You can have it. Your MC, I mean. Take him down.”

It was time for me to pick a side and I had.

Chapter Nineteen

Knox

Istared at the hollowed out book knee-deep in shock. She’d been gathering intel on her own father since long before she ever heard my name. Long before Rex had thrown her across a table like a bargaining chip. She’d been doing this on her own with no backup and no plan beyond surviving him.

“Why?” I finally asked.

“Why what?” She laughed, short and surprised. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Why did you even start gathering it?”

She lifted one shoulder casually. “I tried leaving when I was twenty-one. He came for me and made it clear that if I tried it again, I’d end up like my mother. That’s what made me realize he had something to do with her disappearance.” She shook her head, eyes unfocused on the coffee table. “I thought if I had something on him, he’d let me go.” A bitter laugh escaped. “When it became clear that was never going to happen, I kept gathering it as insurance. I thought if anything happened to me and the cops got involved then someone might find it.”

God. He was worse than I’d realized and I had a low opinion of Rex to start with. “Why me?” I asked. “Why now?”

She blinked and turned back to me. The play of emotions on her face was an open letter of what she was feeling. “Today he tried to kill me, and I want that bastard gone.” Her lips twisted into a smile but there was no humor or joy in it. “But even before that, I got thinking about my mom and realized everything was a lie,” she whispered. “I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t.” The laugh that came out of her then was sharp and brittle. “And then there’s the jacket.”

“The jacket she left behind?”

She nodded, suddenly excited. “Yeah, it’s apparently some expensive fashion house from the East Coast. Very high end, according to Skye.” She leaned forward. “At first, I wondered if my mom had bought it from a thrift store—or maybe Rex had actually bought it for her. But then I started reading up. And get this…” she began, more animated than I’d ever seen her. “I looked it up and colibri means hummingbird in Spanish.” She held my gaze expectantly. “Mom had a hummingbird tattoo on her shoulder.”

I had no fucking clue what to say so I said nothing.

“Did she have anything to do with that fashion brand? Now, I might be reaching,” she said. “I might not be, but I don’t know anymore.” The light in her eyes dimmed to something harder. “And I’ll never know because of him.” She pushed the book toward me until I took it. “So take it. Do whatever you want with it. He’s no longer my father.”

***

The book sat in the saddlebag on the ride back to the compound. That fucking book and the shit Ivy had shared with me wouldn’t let me go. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About her. About the girl who’d been quietly building a case against her own father for years, alone, just to feel like she had some kind of control over her own damn life.

I wanted to go straight to Hatchet and Switch with what I learned. Ivy wasn’t fully settled in at the clubhouse yet and I wanted to make sure she’d be okay.

“You’ll be all right?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I’m working on it. Don’t worry about me. Go take care of your MC.”

I grinned. “You’re part of this MC now, Ivy. Like it or not.”

“I don’t hate it,” she admitted before glancing around the room. “Nobody here likes me, but they’re not openly hostile and that’s a step up from my life before this place.”

Fuck. She meant it too. Said it like it was just a fact, no self-pity in it, and went back to unpacking her bag. She’d been through so much and she hadn’t lost her kindness. Hadn’t turned sharp and closed off the way most people did when the world treated them the way Rex had treated her.

My heart was opening to this woman when it shouldn’t be.

I thought about the last time I’d given my heart to someone. It hadn’t ended the way I thought it would because I’d been a naïve little shit back then. Today of all days, I couldn’t forget how it had ended, not when I drove the same road through the same mountains, took the same sharp bends on my way to a different fucking accident with a different woman.

Ivy was okay.

The relief that had consumed me was visceral and automatic. And the weight of that relief was the clearest evidence I had that something had shifted between me and my wife. Something I wasn’t ready to put a name to, and might never be.

Those thoughts stayed with me as I watched her. I stood awkwardly for a second, which wasn’t something I did. Ever. But, before I could think too hard about it, I leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “I’ll be back soon.”