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I didn’t know what Rex promised him or his MC, but I knew what I had. Records. I’d been building a file on his finances for the past few years, every column, every receipt, every payoff I could verify. I kept it hidden somewhere he’d never think to look, with no real clue why I was doing it.

Until now.

I pushed off the ground, wiping grass and leaves from my ass and legs, feeling different than I had when I walked inside the park. In one week I’d be a married woman, which meant that was exactly how long I had to figure out if I was a pawn or a partner.

Chapter Three

Ivy

I’d had a week to get used to the idea of leaving, but as it grew closer, I started to have my doubts. I was getting married tomorrow, and I still hadn’t seen my husband-to-be. That couldn’t be right, could it? I tried to tell myself that this was finally my escape. I didn’t know what I was walking into, but it had to be better than my life now.

And if it wasn’t?

Maybe without Rex watching me I could finally leave Redstone Creek.

I packed light, which was odd since I was packing up my entire life to start a new one with a stranger. I looked at the small pile of bags that made up my entire life—two duffel bags and one backpack filled with things I could not live without. It wasn’t much. I was no minimalist, but Rex liked to play games, and he often took things just because he could. No warning. No explanation.

I had everything I needed. My meager items of clothing, two pairs of shoes, my camera equipment, my mom’s leather jacket, and the hollowed out art history book that held my secrets. That was it, all I was bringing with me into my new life.

I looked around the bedroom one last time, letting my gaze sweep on what was familiar. Without my belongings, I expected the room to look different, but it didn’t. It looked like the place had simply been tidied up, not like a lifelong residence I was leaving for good.

It should look different, though, shouldn’t it?

The room reflected back at me what I’d always suspected but never had the guts to admit to myself. I hadn’t made a mark on this house, or this room, in twenty-six years of living. I would leave this place and there would be no clues that I was ever here.

That knowledge was depressing as fuck.

I shook off the momentary bout of melancholy and reminded myself I was finally escaping. I reached inside my backpack for the one thing that always gave me strength when I needed it, my mom’s fringed leather jacket.

I always wondered about my parents. If my mom loved my father at some point, he couldn’t be all bad. That was the lie I told myself because it made it easier to stay, rather than leave and risk his wrath.

I slid my arms through the sleeves. The shoulders and arms were a little too big, which was the first clue I had about my mom. She was slightly bigger and taller than me, and based on the jacket, infinitely cooler than I could ever hope to be. She must have loved this jacket because it was soft with age and worn at the elbows, and under the arms.

When I slipped the jacket on, I winced. The bruise on my left side was still tender and purple, serving as the perfect reminder of why I was happy to be leaving this place. I didn’t think about the bruise—that one or the others in various stages of healing—because it was useless. I didn’t forgive Rex for the bruises, but I’d gotten very good at not thinking about certain things over the years.

Like bruises. They were here and then gone within a few weeks. I couldn’t stop the bruises from coming and I couldn’t make them heal faster, so what was the point thinking about them?

I just hoped that the bruise on my left side was the last I’d have intentionally.

“No more bruises.” I repeated the words to myself over and over as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My auburn hair was always a little too frizzy, but today it hung in natural waves that brushed my shoulders. My pale green eyes made me look creepy, at least according to the kids at school, but today there was a light to them I couldn’t explain. Maybe it was the brown liner I’d put on because I didn’t want to meet Knox for the first time looking like a ghost.

I wanted to be the best version of myself, the version I would be from this day forward, anyway.

Strong. Confident. Comfortable in her own skin.

I didn’t want to be the little girl who still mourned a mother she never got a chance to say goodbye to. I never even got to attend her funeral because Rex said I was too young. He said the ceremony was private. He said there was no grave to visit. No urn to display. No clue that my mom had ever existed and back then I’d accepted it.

Today, I was more skeptical.

I had one photograph of my mother. It was just a moment of her, before she was a mom, maybe before she was a wife. She was just a woman mid-laugh with her head tilted back, laughing at something that must’ve been genuinely funny because even the photo captured her laughing with her whole body. The photo was small and out of focus, and the woman in it looked like she knew how to have a good time. I’d studied it so many times I could close my eyes and draw it from memory.

I once thought about asking Rex more about her life and her death, but I never had. I’d been too afraid of how he’d respond, and the marks his answer would leave behind. But dammit, I had so many questions.

It was time to go.

I shouldn’t be procrastinating. I didn’t want to get married, not ever and certainly not to a stranger, but I didn’t want to stay here even more. I spun away from my sad girl reflection and reached for my phone, dialing the number of the only person I loved and who loved me back.

“The getaway car is gassed up and waiting for you to say the code word.” After a short second, my best friend Dani laughed out loud. The sound was refreshing and it put a smile on my face.