Chapter 141: The beginning of the end

Ivy

I was so stunned that all I could do was stand there in my panties, shaking, terrified down to my bones.

My breath came out in wheezing pants. I knew they would be mad. I had expected this, and they had every right to be. I just needed to calm Roman.

"How long?" he demanded, his palm wrapping around my throat, his thumb stroking my skin. I gasped when he tugged me closer, his hand sliding up to grab my hair and tilt my head back so I had to look at his furious gaze.

"How long have you been lying to me? How long have you been playing us? How long have you been feeding your father everything we do?"

"Ro..."

"I trusted you," he snarled, his voice cracking. "I pined for you. I bought you a freaking building because I thought it wasn’t safe for you. You must have been laughing the whole time, right? Dumb, stupid little knight boy dancing to every tune you played. It must have been fun watching me like that."

I shook my head and tried to grab his arm. "No, no, it was never like that."

He rambled on without hearing a word I said. In the distance, I could hear a car pulling up outside. "You were in our house. You were in my bed, you were..." He trailed off, closing his eyes tightly, his chest heaving and his eyes bright with hurt. "How long?"

"Since the beginning," I whispered. "Since the very beginning."

He let go of my hair and stepped back, and I almost fell over from the sudden loss of contact. Cold air swept around me and chills raced down my spine.

"I’m sorry," the words tumbled out in a rush. "I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you. I was going to tell you today, actually. I was going to tell you all three of you everything today."

"Today," a voice drawled from the doorway.

Kai leaned against the frame with his arms crossed and his hazel eyes hard as ice. Gideon stood behind him, still as stone.

"Today," Kai repeated, pushing off the frame and walking toward us. "How convenient, little Ivy. Don’t take us for fools. Well..." He shrugged.

"Sure, we were fools. We were blinded by you. But come on, it’s over now. We’re not that stupid."

"No, Kai, for real. I was going to tell you. I swear. Today. I had it all planned out. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry."

"Miss Harpley."

I flinched at the name, and my stomach dropped as Gideon spoke up. No, no, not like this. God, not like this. "Or shall I say, Miss Kingsley."

"Please," I whispered. "Please, I know what I did was wrong..."

"Wrong?" Kai barked a laugh. "Wrong? You’re the daughter of the man we hate most in the world. You’ve been spying on us to tell it all back to that pig, or is that all in my fucking head, Ivy?"

"Have you not been spying on us?" Gideon demanded, stepping forward. "Have you or have you not been sending information to your father? Feeding him our secrets? Our plans?"

"I have," I admitted, my voice small. "But I was going to tell you. I didn’t want to anymore. I couldn’t do it anymore."

"Aww, such a heroine," Kai spat, and for once there was no humor in his voice. His eyes blazed. "I asked you. I told you to tell me anything. Anything, Ivy. You had so many chances to come clean, and you didn’t take a single one."

"I was afraid." Tears spilled down my cheeks.

"Kai, please, I was so afraid. I didn’t know what you would do, I didn’t know if you would hate me, I didn’t..."

"Why should we listen to you?" Gideon asked coldly. "Why should we listen to more lies? More pretense?"

"It was never pretense."

"Was fucking us part of the plan as well?" Roman spat, and the tears fell harder. "I’ll bet Daddy told you it’d be easier to get us if you spread those legs."

I flinched, because the worst of it was that he was half right. I wiped my face with a shaking hand and made myself say it.

"He did tell me that. He said it to my face and called it the one thing I was good at. But I didn’t do any of it for him, Roman. Not one thing I did with you was because he told me to."

"You must have planned meeting me in that club on New Year’s Eve, too," Kai added. "Damn, Harper Kingsley is such a drama queen, isn’t she? You should consider a career in acting after you’re done being Daddy’s little spy."

My heart shattered.

"No," I whispered. "No, that’s not true. I didn’t know who you were that night. I didn’t know you existed until I walked into your foyer a week later, and I nearly fainted. I swear on my mother’s grave."

"Then what is true?" Kai demanded. "What part of you is real, Ivy? What part of any of this was real?"

"All of it," I sobbed. "All of it was real. You have to believe me."

"Believe you? That’s rich, coming from you."

I opened my mouth to respond, but Gideon stepped forward, and something in his cold, icy gaze made me snap my jaw shut.

"Let me make this simple," he said, his voice low.

"You came into our home under a false name. You lied about your identity, your family, your entire life. You fed information to your father, the man who has been circling us like a vulture for years. And you did all of this while sharing our bed."

Each word was like a nail in my coffin.

"Have you not been spying on us?" he asked again, quieter this time.

"Yes," I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself as tears of shame and humiliation streaked down my cheeks.

"Have you not been reporting back to Motherfucking Felix Kingsley?"

"Yes."

"And did you not," he continued, stepping closer until my head fell back to look up at him, "plant things in our home?"

I swallowed. "I... no. I mean, yes, I planted the listening device and the trackers. But the drugs, Gideon. He gave me a bag of cocaine and told me to plant it in this house. I flushed every gram of it down a hotel toilet. That’s why the police found nothing."

For a moment, something flickered across his face, quick as a blink and gone before I could name it. Then it hardened again.

"Convenient," Kai said softly. "And yet you didn’t say a word when the police tore our house apart."

"I was too scared."

"Did you not," Gideon cut in, his voice flat, "know exactly who we were from the very first day you walked through our doors?"

"Yes,"

Gideon nodded slowly, like he was checking off a list. "And Ivy Thompson?"

I blinked. "What about her?"

"The woman you were with outside the police station. The housekeeper whose place you took. Who was she to you?"

"She showed up at the estate one day, the real one, and she blackmailed me," I said, confused. "I paid her to keep quiet. I haven’t spoken to her since the day she called me about money. Why are you asking me this now?"

Gideon watched me for a long moment. Whatever he saw in my face, he didn’t say. "No reason," he said at last, and I knew it was a lie. Dread slid down my spine like cold water, and I didn’t know why.

"Then tell me, Miss Kingsley," he went on, "what reason do we have to believe a single word that comes out of your mouth?"

I had no answer.

"I know," I said finally, my voice shaking. "I know that nothing I say can excuse it. But please, please just let me explain. Let me tell you everything, from the beginning, and why I did it. The whole truth, no more lies. Deon, I swear. Kai. Ro, please..."

Kai snorted. "You know what the worst part is? It’s not the spying or the lies. It’s that I asked you. Remember? I asked you what you were hiding. I told you that you could trust me. And you looked me in the eye and said what? Fuck if I know."

My chest ached.

"I was scared."

"Scared of what?"

"Of this!" I gestured around the room at the three of them. "Of exactly this. Of you finding out and hating me. Of losing..." My voice cracked. "Of losing you."

"Oh, now, don’t try to soften us with sweet bullshit. You were a job to us, and we were a job to you. And I’ve got to say, your pussy did a fucking good job distracting us."

My jaw dropped and the tears fell harder. "How could you say that, Kai?"

I wanted to tell him that they were everything. That somewhere along the way, between the spy games, I had done the one thing I swore I wouldn’t do.

I had fallen in love with them. But the words wouldn’t come. Or maybe they would have, if Gideon hadn’t spoken first.