‘That’s a shame,’ Brad said.

‘For who? Not for her,’ Dax said. ‘I wouldn’t have watched him put a finger on her! She’s long gone and she won’t be back here, never again.’

‘So what the fuck are you doing here, hmm?’ Trystan asked and this time Brad let him get to his feet. ‘Why not ride off into the sunset with my fucking woman?’

‘Your fucking woman?’ Dax said, striding toward Trystan. ‘You don’t deserve her. She would never have been yours, you can’t break a woman like Ivy, it’s just not possible.’

‘Because you couldn’t do it?’ Trystan spat. ‘You’re a piece of shit.’

Lurching forth, Dax got hold of Trystan’s shirt in one fist and he drew back the other one. ‘No,’ came Mauri’s voice from behind him and he released Trystan enough to turn. ‘We’re gonna be civilised about this.’

‘Civilised?’ Dax asked, knowing how Mauri hated to get blood on the family carpet. He was happy for it to get on anyone else’s carpet if it increased his means or served his purpose, but he was a firm believer in not shitting on your own doorstep.

‘Let him,’ Trystan said, shoving out at Dax who whipped around to growl at the squirt. ‘Let him hit me, I’ll get the cops on his ass so fast—‘

‘You’re gonna call the cops to this house?’ Dax said then actually laughed. ‘Jesus you’re a fucking idiot. You call the cops on me now and you don’t think I’ll start singing the minute they get the cuffs on?’

‘You’d go down, they’d never believe anything you said.’

‘They’d believe it alright, I’ve got more goodwill with the crew than any of rest of you. If I start singing, I guarantee it won’t be long before the choir joins in.’

‘Dax,’ Mauri said with a scolding tone. ‘You won’t ruin the family for the sake of a woman, will you?’

‘I know enough about all the guys to know just where to squeeze, most would snitch just ‘cause I asked them or because one of you treated them like shit. Those who wouldn’t do it for those reasons would be easily blackmailed or bribed.’

‘You’re a bastard,’ Brad said.

Dax didn’t like the positioning of everyone in the room, he was sort of in the centre of their triangle, so he began to move toward the wall. ‘No, I’m just done. I’m done being the lackey who fixes everyone else’s mess and never makes any of my own.’

‘I’m disappointed,’ Mauri said.

‘I don’t give a fuck!’ Pinning Mauri under a glare was liberating for Dax. He’d burst the dam; now he could do and say everything that he needed to. ‘I wondered how Bruno was so smart at that brainwashing shit, and now I know why, ‘cause you’ve all been doing it, all of you, since the minute I got here. I don’t know why I didn’t see it.’

‘Why the fuck would my father care about brainwashing you? You’re a piece of shit nobody! Bruno warned you,’ Trystan said, appealing to his father. ‘He’s been saying forever that we shouldn’t trust Dax, and he was fucking right! He knew this day would come! You listen to Bruno about everything, everything but this, why the fuck would you—‘

‘He’s his father,’ Mauri said and the room paused. Mauri took a step toward Dax, but Dax matched it in retreat. ‘It’s true, Dax. Bruno is your father. He and your mother were together for years. The man you thought of as your father was actually just the man your mother was in a relationship with, they didn’t meet until you were two, but you were too young to… It doesn’t matter now. Bruno is your father.’

‘No,’ Dax said, his back hit the wall though he hadn’t been aware that he was still moving until he reached it. Glancing at Brad and Trystan offered no further answers, even Trystan had shut up and appeared just as shocked as Dax felt. ‘No, my father—‘

‘Your mother abandoned you with her boyfriend, we didn’t know that had happened until years later, by then he’d already palmed you off on the fighting circuit. It took us a long while to track you down.’

‘No,’ Dax said. ‘Bruno fucking hates me, he’s always fucking hated me.’

‘He wasn’t keen on my plan to track you down and bring you into the fold. He resented your mother for leaving him, he still does. He didn’t want anything to do with you then and I was always convinced that would change… unfortunately I was wrong.’

Bruno still hated him, and it was because Bruno hated his mother. But no, that didn’t make any sense to him, yet at the same time, it made perfect sense. Why else would someone like Mauri be in a shitty back-alley club watching people beat each other. Dax hadn’t been fighting that night, he’d gone there looking for a fight, but he travelled in those circles and if Mauri had wanted to find him then going to fights would’ve been the way to do it. But it was all so long ago, and he had been so young that his memory was blurry.

‘Why are you telling me this now?’ Dax asked, realising that while it was a shock it didn’t really change things.

‘If you want the girl, you can have her,’ Mauri said with an impersonal air. ‘But you have to make things right first, she has to make things right.’

‘No fucking way,’ Trystan said. ‘She’s my fucking—‘

‘We’ll find you another girl,’ Mauri snapped, it was unlike him to publicly lose his temper. ‘There are plenty of them out there who have disrespected you.’

‘It won’t work,’ Brad said to his father. ‘You want Dax to have the girl then let him, but you know that Trystan will never let it be that easy. The animosity will build to resentment and—‘

‘That’s why Dax is going to give her up, for one night.’

‘What?’ Dax and Trystan asked together.

‘You let your brother gain her respect and she can apologise for embarrassing him,’ Mauri said. ‘Then we can all move on from there.’

Dax’s attention slid to Trystan whose depraved smug expression made Dax want to knock out a few teeth. ‘No,’ Dax said.

There wasn’t even a slim chance that he would let Trystan have a night with Ivy, it wouldn’t happen. More than that, Ivy wouldn’t agree to it, which meant she’d spend the night being tortured, just like she’d predicted, and she would never forgive him, she’d said it herself.

Trystan would probably be satisfied after a night with Ivy because it would give him the superiority over her that he craved, and it wouldn’t hurt that he’d be getting one up on Dax in the process. But while Trystan might be able to move on from that night, telling everyone that he had sampled Ivy, Dax knew that he and Ivy would never recover from it.

‘This is reasonable,’ Mauri said. ‘You let him have a night—‘

‘With my wife?’ Dax said, fixing Mauri under his scowl again. ‘Ivy is mine, every fucking inch of her.’ Speaking with such vehemence brought acid to his throat and his gaze fell. She was out there, somewhere, he didn’t know where, running for her fucking life and he’d let her go. He had let her walk out of that door, sent her out there alone, and now he didn’t know where she was or if he’d ever be able to find her.

Moving toward the bedroom door, Dax had a singular focus. ‘Where the fuck are you going?’ Brad called. ‘You can’t just walk out on this.’

Dax stopped in the open doorway. ‘I’m through, with all of you. Leave me the fuck alone and I’ll leave you all be. Hear me? We’re through. I don’t give a fuck about any of you, any of this. We’re done.’

Setting himself back on his path, he began to search his pockets for his keys, then he remembered that his bike was still at the bar and to find Ivy he’d need the car. He had to find her, but he wasn’t sure where to start.

He got out of the mansion and the cool air sucker punched him. Swaying on his feet, he squeezed his eyes shut, he needed to go home and sleep, but when he woke up she was the only mission he cared about. He had to find her and just hope that she would have him back, that she would trust him not to let her down again.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Once she had raided Dax’s storage unit, Ivy had enough cash to get her clear across the country. The ten grand that Dax had given her was still stashed in the lining of the ottoman in their walk-in closet upstairs at the beach house, but she wasn’t going back for that, not a chance. She didn’t know if Bruno was there, or any of Starks’ other men. Walking back into the lion’s den was just a plain stupid idea, even for that amount of cash.