Page 61 of Stolen Love

I scramble to answer the call. “Daddy?”

“Ivy, sweetheart, listen…” the voice is quiet like it’s far away from the phone. The line is full of static.

My heart climbs into my throat. “Dad?”

“One. One. One. Three. Zero. Three.”

“Daddy? Is that you?”

“Listen, Ivy, I don’t have much time. They’re going to kill me. Write that number down now. You’re going to need it.”

“Please, Daddy, I don’t understand.” A part of me knows from the breaks and pauses in his speech that this is a recording. I’m talking to a ghost from the past, but the ache is overwhelmingly fresh.

“I’m sorry.” He makes a strangled sound. “I’m sorry I didn’t know to protect you.”

The line goes silent.

“Dad?” I swing my legs over the bed. It hurts when he doesn’t answer, even though I don’t expect him to. He knew Nicole was dangerous, but we’ve already worked that out. He knew she would kill him.

I open the drawers in my nightstand and scrounge around for a pen, but there isn’t one.

Rogue’s nightstand yields the same result. So I rush into the bathroom, uncap my eyeliner and write the number on the mirror. “One. One. One. Three. Zero. Three.”

“Are they supposed to mean something to me, Dad? Because they don’t.” My hand strays to my breastbone, but I took the key off before I crawled into bed. His messages are cryptic and clueless and I’ve never been more confused. More lost. “What am I supposed to do without your guidance?”

A knock on the bathroom door alerts me to his presence before Rogue says my name.

“I could hear you moving around, talking to someone. I was worried.” His eyes are bleary and his hair sticks up at odd angles. The whites of his eyes are threaded with pink. I throw myself into his arms. His bare chest is hot against my cheek as he brings an arm up around my shoulders. “What’s wrong? What’s with the numbers?”

He smells so good. Too good. And if I don’t put space between us I may never be able to. I reluctantly pull away and he barely manages to let me.

I push the hair out of my face. Will this ever get easier? “I had another call from my dad’s number. This time I answered before the call dropped. It was him. It was his voice. He sounded just like I remembered.”

“Your dad… It can’t be him.”

“No, I know.” I wipe under my lashes. “It was a voice recording. He gave me these numbers. Told me that I would need them. That he knew they were going to kill him. That he was sorry he couldn’t protect me.”

“They?” Rogue raises an eyebrow. “He saidtheywere going to kill him?”

“Yes. Do you think it matters?”

“Probably not.” He bites his lip. “He could have been talking about Nicole and the man who caused the accident. Or he could be talking about Nicole and that creep lawyer. It’s safe to assume he’s as deeply a part of this as Nicole.”

“I want to talk to Nathaniel,” I say. “I think I need to see this deal my dad made on my behalf. Because he wouldn’t have made one without a good reason.”

“He doesn’t need a good reason, Ivy. Not when it’s fake.”

“We don’t know that it is.” Because apparently we don’t know anything about anything. That has become dreadfully obvious in the last few days. I’m even more determined to meet with Nathaniel after our visit to Sunny. His feelings for me could be his weakness. “And if it’s real… then maybe there is something in it that will explain why my dad felt he had to make that deal.”

Rogue rubs the top of his thumb over his bottom lip. “I’m not sure—"

His hesitancy is totally understandable, but meekness has never gotten me anywhere, and I have a feeling about this. “If I can just talk to Nathaniel, without Nicole around, I might be able to get him to admit why they need this marriage to happen. He seems eager to show me that he cares. Maybe I can use that to my advantage.”

“So we’ll go talk to him.” Rogue’s jaw softens.

“No,” I say, quiet but insistent. “I need to do this without you.”

His neck cords, the muscles prominent. “The hell you’re going to see him alone.”

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