Chapter 126: Both of them were in on it.

IVY

This had to be the biggest fucking joke in the universe being played on me.

I felt weightless, like the floor had been snatched from under my feet and the walls of Dr. Meyers’s office were caving inward, pressing on my chest and squeezing the air out of my lungs.

My father paid for the procedure.

My father?

"That’s impossible," I heard myself say. "That’s... no. No, you’re wrong. Uncle Meyers, you have to be wrong."

He sat behind his desk with his hands folded in front of him as if he had just announced the weather. The late afternoon light slanted through the blinds and striped his white coat in gold.

"I’m not wrong, Harper."

"You are!" I lurched forward and slammed my palms on the desk.

He tilted his head and then burst into laughter, a thin, jittery sound that didn’t match his steady hands. "You really have no idea why he did that, do you?"

"No idea about what?"

He leaned back, rubbing his jaw and glancing at the door as though he wanted me gone. Did my being tricked into believing I was barren amuse him?

"Should I tell you," he mused, "or should I not?"

He tapped his chin. "Mm. I think you should find out on your own. It’s safer for me that way."

"Safer?!" I wanted to throttle him. "Unless you’ve gone senile on me, what the hell are you talking about?"

He laughed again, louder, a little hysterical. "God, Felix is terrifying, truly. You’ve been living it your whole life and you still don’t see it."

"See WHAT?"

He waved a hand. "Nothing, nothing. Go home and ask your dear father."

Something cold crawled up the back of my neck. "He wouldn’t do that to me. He’s my father. Why would he stop me from having children? You better have the guts to say all of this to his face..."

His phone rang and cut me off mid word. Dr. Meyers glanced at the screen, frowned and picked up.

"What?" He shot out of his chair and knocked it into the wall with a crack. His face went pale, then red, then pale again. "What do you mean someone got into my vault?!"

He scrambled around the desk with the phone pressed to his ear, his voice rising. "How could he bypass the security? There are six layers! Six! The retinal scan alone... Oh no, oh NO! Did he clone it? Is it cloned?!"

He yanked the door open and hurried down the hallway. I was so stunned it took me a full second to realize he was leaving me.

"Hey!" I chased after him, my heels skidding on the polished floor. "I’m not done with you! Uncle Meyers! Get back here!"

He whirled around in the corridor and slapped my outstretched hand away, his face contorted.

"Then don’t be done with me! If you want to stay naive, stay naive, see if I care!" He backed toward the elevator and jabbed a finger at me.

"You heard me!" The elevator doors slid open behind him and he stepped in, still shouting.

"Your dear father and your lovely husband are in on it together!" He hit a button. "Do with that what you will. I have important things to attend to!"

The doors slid shut, and I was alone in the corridor.

Your father and your husband are in on it together.

A gaping black hole of fear opened under my ribs. All I could remember was Dad knowing Angel had been sleeping with Jake, that he had gotten Pamela pregnant, and that he had done nothing about it.

Was my father really working with Angel? But why? I didn’t understand.

My whole body trembled, my hands, my knees, even my teeth, which chattered faintly as if I were cold although the hallway was warm.

Why would my father do this to me?

He had been hard on me, distant yet demanding, but he had also been there. He hadn’t let the police take me away the night Mother died. He had raised me, put me in good schools and promised me the company one day.

It made no sense. Dr. Meyers was talking bullshit. Angel or even Jake had probably put him up to it, and I wouldn’t put it past my stepbrother to manipulate me emotionally.

I fumbled in my bag, dragged out my phone and switched it on. The screen lit up with a hundred notifications from Kai, Roman, Gideon, Ivy Thompson and spam, but I looked at none of them. I staggered into the elevator, punched the ground floor and started dialing.

When the doors opened into the lobby, it was chaos. Nurses ran across the marble, staff in scrubs shouted into radios, and a gurney squealed past me.

The receptionist at the front desk had her phone pressed to her ear and eyes wide as saucers. Someone was crying near the entrance.

I barely registered any of it, because the line had connected.

"Finally," my father’s voice said, flat and cold in my ear. "So she finally calls me after failing me. What a model daughter you are, Harper."

I blinked, the words landing slowly in my befuddled brain. "F... Failing?"

"Don’t play dumb with me. I asked if you had planted the evidence and you said you did. So why, when the police searched their house, did they find nothing?"

My breath caught. "You sent the police to search their house? Why?"

"Leverage, Harper. Leverage!" He barked the word like a drill sergeant. "The Knights have been destabilizing my plans for years. Every deal, every acquisition, they’re one step ahead, circling me like vultures. We need something to hold over their heads."

I sagged against the wall, needing something solid before I went insane. I had already felt uneasy when he asked me to plant the cocaine, but I hadn’t known he wanted to ruin them outright.

"Harper. Are you listening?"

"Yes," I croaked, the word scraping out of my dry throat.

"Good. Because here’s what you’re missing." He sighed. "The Knights and I have been eyeing each other for years. Every time I win, they take something back. You were supposed to make it easier for your poor old man. Next time I tell you to plant something, put it where the police can easily find it. It’s not hide and seek, for goodness’ sake."

Did you pay Dr. Meyers to put an IUD inside me? I wanted to ask, my lips trembling. Did you and Angel lie to me about being barren?

But the words died in my throat, because I was tired and a coward and so afraid of the answer.

"Yes, Father," I whispered instead, letting the tears roll down my cheeks.

He ended the call, and a sob clogged my throat. I wiped my eyes and rushed toward the entrance, only to bump into someone. A very familiar scent of black coffee and smoke teased my nose.

"IVY?"