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Without another look at him, I turned to see if Rook needed me. Rook was a fucking bruiser with his bare fists, and I wasn’t surprised to find him with his knees deep into the chest of the second man while he slammed his heavy fists into the asshole’s face. There was more blood than features on his face at that moment and I was in no hurry to stop my brother.

The third man moved on the ground behind Rook, slowly coming back from wherever Rook’s fist had sent him. His eyes darted around the room, recalibrating things from before he was knocked out until now. One friend dead on the ground while the other was quickly headed in the same direction.

He scrambled to his feet, with murder in his eyes.

I swiped the knife off the ground and headed that way to intercept him. I caught him just as he raised his gun arm, sliding that heavy blade into his side where I knew it sliced through several important organs. “Not today, asshole.”

He smiled even as his body trembled from the blood loss. “Rex… Furious…” he gasped out and spat out a mouthful of blood. “He won’t stop until Iron Vows are dead and buried. Until that traitor bitch of a daughter is slit from throat to cunt.” He tried for a laugh that sputtered out when I twisted the knife left and then right.

“He’ll be dead before he gets a fucking chance,” I snarled and pushed him away from the knife, smiling at the sight of his lifeless body slamming against the wooden bar floor.

After that, the bar fell eerily silent. Rook finally stood, wiping his bloody hands on his jeans as he stood at my side and surveyed the damage. “Fuck, I needed that.” He clapped my shoulder with a wide smile.

“You’re still fucked in the head, brother.”

“Maybe, but I’m feeling good now.” He grabbed a towel from the bar and wiped his hands. “I’ll call some prospects to deal with this.”

I nodded absently and looked at the bloody bar. “We need to finish this.”

“Rex won’t stop until we stop him.” Rook spoke the truth. There was only one way this was going to end.

It was time to stop responding, to stop reacting to Rex. We needed to bring the fight to him, make him defend this shit. “I’ll come up with something,” I said out loud though it was more for my own peace of mind than Rook’s. “First, we need to check out the brothel.”

It was gonna be a long fucking day. Too long until I had Ivy in my arms again.

Chapter Thirty

Ivy

Ifound my mom out back with Tripod. She sat on the concrete step outside the side door, her legs stretched out in front of her, and Tripod ate up the attention and belly rubs with his body sprawled half across her lap, his tongue hanging out of his head. She also looked relaxed for the first time since we brought her here. Her hand moved slow and easily through his fur like she was exactly where she wanted to be.

I sat down beside her, leaving enough distance between us that she didn’t feel crowded. Neither of us spoke for a long minute, we just listened to Tripod’s tail thump against the step mixed with birds chirping and distant highway sounds. “How are you settling in?” I asked hesitantly.

She smiled at me. “Good, thanks. This place is nothing like the Warlords MC. These people are rough around the edges, but ultimately kind.” Her smile faded. “Exactly what I thought Rex was when I met him.”

I turned that over in my mind for a moment. I spent most of my life viewing Rex as a larger than life villain, rotten to the core. The thought that he could pass for something other than awful was unfathomable. “Was he always horrible?” I had to know the truth. Was he just bad or was it me who brought it out of him?

Her expression was thoughtful before she nodded. “I realized pretty quickly that he was good at masking his true nature. In New York, he was charming and devilish. He seemed a lot like your Knox, gruff but caring. The moment I was pregnant it started to change, slowly at first. He was possessive and jealous, at first, I was flattered, but then I realized it was all about control.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, the guilt eating at me the way it always did when I thought too hard about the life she’d given up for me.

“Don’t ever apologize, Ivy. You were my sweet miracle, the baby I didn’t know I could have, and I would’ve done anything for you.” She reached out and took my hand, squeezing it. “Rex knew that and he used it against me. When I finally found the courage to leave, he used you to keep me in line.”

I hated him even more in that moment. I didn’t think there was any room left for more heat in my heart, but there it was. Still growing and expanding.

Tripod shifted to put his chin on her knee, and she scratched behind his ears absently. “Did you have a good life, Ivy?”

I laughed, the sound bitter and wretched even to my own ears. “It was terrible.” There was no softer way to say it and she was my mom, I shouldn’t have to sugarcoat things for her. “One day you were there and then just gone. Rex told me you died and that was it, no funeral or closure. Nothing. Most of your things were cleared out except a few photos and a jacket.” I shook my head. “Rex controlled every second of my life until he married me off to Knox, thinking I’d be the useful idiot to help bring them down.”

She fell into a thoughtful kind of quiet before she asked her next question. “Knox is good to you?”

A slow smile touched my lips. “Yes. Better than I knew men were capable of being.” That was a truth that I found both hurtful and comforting.

“Good,” she said, and something in her settled a little. “Does he know that you’re in love with him?”

The question landed like a stone in my gut and I shrugged. “Probably not. And I’m not sure it’s fair to tell him.”

She shook her head. “It is fair. A man like that, who cares so much about the men and women around him? It’ll matter. Trust me.” She smiled again, soft and a little sad. “Besides, I’m pretty sure he feels the same way.”