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I was already out of bed. “Come on. Let’s get dressed and go find Switch.” I held out my hand and pulled her to her feet, tugging her from the bed to the bathroom. “Shower first.”

She grinned. “If you insist.”

“I do. Come on, I promise I’ll be quick.”

“But not too quick,” she added, swinging her hips wildly for me.

Just for me.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ivy

Days passed and Knox said nothing about my suspicions.

I waited. I told myself I was being patient, that these things took time. That Switch was thorough and thorough took however long it took. But I also couldn’t help but worry that maybe they had found something and were keeping me in the dark. Not necessarily because they didn’t want me to know, more that they didn’t want to worry me.

I left Knox’s room, bypassing the bar and heading out into the compound to the field that had quickly become my favorite place. I paced in the grass, the wildflowers sprang up at my feet, and I tried to make sense of the delay.

I wanted answers but I was in no position to walk into a room and demand them. That wasn’t how this worked. If they found something and decided for whatever reason not to tell me, then I had to be satisfied it was for my own good.

I was trying to put all that out of my mind when my phone buzzed. I pulled it out and looked at the screen to find a message from Rex.

You were lucky, girl. You won’t be so lucky next time.

I stared at the words until they blurred with my heart in my throat.

“Ivy.” Knox’s voice scared a throat scratching scream out of me.

I spun around, one hand holding my chest to keep my heart from escaping, and found Knox standing a few feet away, his mouth pressed flat in a losing battle against a grin.

“Knox,” I breathed. “What’s going on?”

“Sorry?” His lips quirked up and he didn’t sound sorry. He chuckled when I glared at him, and it softened the hard lines in his handsome face in an unexpected way.

“Hmm.” My hand slid slowly from my heart. “Are you just here to give me a heart attack, or what?”

“As fun as that was, no.” He held my gaze as humor left his gray eyes, replaced by business. “I’m here because we have something. I think. Maybe…”

My heart stopped. “Yeah. Okay.” I folded my arms, trying to look calmer than I felt. “What?”

“Come on,” he said and held out his hand.

I took it without thinking about it, and we walked back toward the clubhouse with my heart hammering the whole way.

Switch looked up when we came in and pointed at me with a wide grin. “Hey, super sleuth. Take a seat.” He gestured to all the chairs in the room.

Hatchet was there too, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed. He greeted me with a solemn nod, which I returned before taking the nearest seat.

Knox settled beside me, a close and constant support.

Switch waited until I sat before he began.

“Your mom was definitely one of those Morels.” He pulled up something on his screen and turned it toward me. “Loaded as fuck for nearly a century.” He ran through it efficiently. “By all accounts Magnolia had a good childhood. The best of everything. Private schools. Tutors. Multiple languages. Musical instruments. The kind of upbringing typical of the one percent.”

“Wow.” I shook my head, completely shocked to hear the truth of my mom’s life before Rex. Before me. “I thought maybe I was seeing ghosts where there were none.”

“Nope.” He leaned back in his chair, that light in his eyes of a man who loved his work. “She met a biker and fell hard for him, but she thought he was a businessman. By the time she found out what he actually was, she was already a long way from her family.” He paused for dramatic effect. “With a bun in the oven.”