‘I have a feeling that I am not going to like what you’re going to say to me,’ Mauri said, pushing back in his chair.

‘Probably not. I’m not coming back, Mauri. It’s not going to happen.’

‘Simple as that?’

‘Yeah,’ Dax said.

‘We can’t accept that, rejection is not an option. The Stark family needs you—‘

‘But I don’t need them,’ Dax said. ‘It sounds like a great opportunity, and you know that this time last year I’d have jumped on it. I’m sorry that you’re sick. But Brad will never accept my—‘

‘I can deal with Brad. I will talk to him—‘

‘And as soon as you’re gone we’ll start butting heads,’ Dax said. ‘I won’t take orders from him. I never respected him because he never respected me. I’m tired of Trystan, he’ll cause more problems when you’re not around. Brad can’t control him, and I won’t be his babysitter anymore. And Bruno—‘

‘Is no longer around.’

‘Because of me,’ Dax said, sitting forward. ‘He doesn’t like me, doesn’t respect me, and the feeling is mutual. He has the means to ruin the family, he might not do it when you’re here because he still has respect for you. But I guarantee that as soon as you’re not here, we’re going to be dealing with blackmail and extortion. He knows all of the family secrets and unless we give him a position of power or a load of money, he can blow the whistle to the cops or start in-fighting among the men.’

‘You’ve thought about this.’

‘I used to take orders, do what I was told because I respected you, and I wanted your approval. I don’t need your approval anymore, and I don’t need any part in what you do. Brad lives to run the business, and Bruno can be his problem. There’s no incentive to come back.’

‘You will have financial security for life.’

‘I’m an easy fall guy, if that’s not your intention now then it will be Brad’s when he’s tired of hearing my input. We don’t need you, Mauri, any of you.’

‘You need us now, we can offer protection for Ivy against these bounty hunters out looking for their money. She is in serious danger, and you have to keep her safe, it’s your job as—‘

‘I know what my job is,’ Dax said. ‘I’m not going to stop looking for the person responsible for the bounty, and I know how to keep my wife safe.’

‘You don’t have the resources that we can offer you,’ Mauri said. ‘You can stay here at the house, and you know that Ivy will be unharmed. At the beach house, we proved that Ivy’s wellbeing is important to the Starks, our security men—‘

‘Let Trystan come in and take her sister away,’ Dax said. ‘Your men are loyal, and they follow orders. But they don’t know the history. You would never let anyone know what you did to Ivy, what Trystan and Bruno did, what I took part in. That would bring shame to you and the family and despite all that he’s done, you still defend Trystan.’

Mauri’s cool expression switched to her. ‘You have changed him,’ Mauri said.

‘He did all the work himself,’ Ivy said. ‘And he’s not changed, he’s just a better version of himself.’

Dax had learned not to follow orders without question, being with her had taught him that he was more than what Mauri and the other Stark men saw him as. Dax knew now that he was valuable, just for being himself. He didn’t have to work for her, or run any operation well enough to make her proud.

‘You are very lucky,’ Mauri said to Dax. ‘I’m surprised that you found something real and sustainable in such oppressive circumstances.’

‘He didn’t oppress me,’ Ivy said. ‘Dax embraced who I was just as I embraced him. You wanted him to change me, to make me a different person, to break me. But he didn’t.’

‘I never even tried,’ Dax said, bringing his focus to hers. ‘No one changes you, Minx.’

‘Can’t mess with perfection,’ she smiled and rested her mouth on his arm. ‘Dax has kindness and modesty under that hard-ass, arrogant-as-hell exterior, and those are things that he didn’t learn from you or what you do. We have a new life together, and it’s one that won’t involve any of this.’

‘I’m curious,’ Mauri said. ‘If he had wanted to return, would you have allowed it?’

‘You’re asking if she’s the only obstacle to my agreement,’ Dax said. ‘She’s not. I told you that I wanted nothing more to do with you before you ever made this offer.’

‘So why did you come back?’

‘Brad said you were sick, and it seemed like the right thing to do. I was curious too about… I always thought that meeting you at that fight, where I pickpocketed you when I was thirteen, I thought that was an accident and to find out that you were looking for me, that you meant it… You lied to me through my whole life.’

‘Bruno didn’t want to accept you,’ Mauri said. ‘He saw you as a threat though I didn’t know why. I wanted him to embrace fatherhood, I thought it would change him, make him realise that there was a softer way to be; he’s often too heavy handed and impulsive. Having a child makes a man reconsider his life, at least it did for me.’

‘Didn’t work for Bruno,’ Dax said. ‘I’ll never accept him as my father, but I would like to know how you found out about me.’

‘When Carina was pregnant, she kept it to herself at first. She told Bruno, and when he reacted in a negative way, she fled. At the time, I didn’t know that she was pregnant, I found out later.’

‘How did your wife die?’ Ivy asked. The worst he could do was refuse to answer the question and his answer was an evasion.

‘Trystan was only five,’ Mauri said. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘You found out about her affair with Bruno,’ Ivy said. Though she could feel Dax’s stare, she kept her attention on Mauri.

‘I see that locking you in a house with Carina was not a wise decision,’ Mauri said. ‘Why did she tell you?’

‘I wanted answers to Dax’s questions,’ Ivy said without admitting that she and Dax had not discussed what his questions were. ‘Carina kept evading my questions, and I put it to her that she couldn’t expect trust if she didn’t show honesty.’

‘So she told you?’

‘Yes,’ Ivy said. ‘She didn’t know if you knew.’

‘I didn’t at the time.’

Locking her fingers between Dax’s, she filled him in. ‘Carina caught Bruno sleeping with Mauri’s wife at around the same time she found out she was pregnant. Bruno didn’t want the truth to come out and by that time he was beating her regularly. He didn’t want to have a baby with her, which is why Carina left, to protect you.’

‘How long did the affair last?’ Dax asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Ivy said, shaking her head and turning to Mauri.

‘I don’t know when it started,’ Mauri said. ‘I wasn’t aware that they were together at first. I discovered them together not long before Winnie, my wife, died.’

‘Did you kill her?’ Dax asked without any of the tact or hesitation that Ivy had felt. ‘Did you kill her for sleeping with your best friend?’

‘No,’ Mauri said. ‘Bruno killed her.’

That was unprecedented, if questionable, honesty. ‘Why?’ Ivy asked. ‘Why would he do that? Carina believed that he was in love with her.’

‘Maybe he was, but it was Winnie who confessed to me that Carina had been pregnant. When Bruno found out that she had broken his confidence he was angry, and it was after that, when they were resolving their differences, that I found them together. Winnie asked me to cast him out, he was violent and unpredictable. When Bruno heard that she had turned on him, he turned on her. He was angry and holding a gun…’

‘He shot her?’ Ivy asked.

‘Only one of them could have survived in my inner circle,’ Mauri said. ‘Bruno knew that.’

To speak of the death of his wife without emotion was chilling to Ivy, but Dax seemed to understand. ‘It was one or the other,’ Dax said. ‘You forgave him?’

‘It was that or lose him too,’ Mauri said. ‘I told him that we had to find his child, and we spent years tracing you. Bruno was never interested, but he listened to me and by the time we found you, most of our issues had been resolved.’