Remy attempts to call—multipletimes—before adding to my text cue.
Remy
Where’s Ivy? What the fuck did you do to her?
I should pack a bag and get her out of here, but there’s nowhere I can take her that they wouldn’t find. Not without having more time to prepare.
Instead, I retrieve my gun from the back of my waistband and palm it against my chest, snatching whatever sleep I can get.
I’ve barely dozed for more than twenty minutes when my cell vibrates with an incoming call from the guard stationed at the front door.
“What?” I growl in answer.
“Sir, your siblings and their partners are at the gate. I’m not sure if I should keep them out. Bishop is threatening to open fire.”
Of course he fucking is.
“Let them in.” I shove from the bed and freshen up in the bathroom in time to walk into the living area and take a seat on one of Lorenzo’s sofas as the room is inundated with unwanted guests.
Matthew glares as he makes his way into the room, Layla at his side. “You were told to lay low.”
“I don’t like unscheduled plans, Salvo,” Abri announces behind him. “And I definitely don’t appreciate leaving my daughter with the nanny unnecessarily.”
“That makes two of us.” Bishop snarls from the rear.
They infiltrate the room, fixated on me like mountain lions ready to pounce.
It’s Remy and Olivia who poke at my agitation, though, remaining at the archway to the open living area, Olivia’s attention fixed down the hall toward the bedrooms.
“Where’s Ivy?” she asks.
“Sleeping.” My tone is clipped.
“So something’s going on, but she’s not even awake to know about it?” She turns to my younger brother. “Remy, when are you going to tell me what’s happening?”
Layla excuses herself to use the bathroom while my dick-leashed brother placates his fuck buddy. Matthew answers a phone call. I take the pause in scrutiny as an opportunity to stalk to the kitchen and make necessary use of the coffee machine.
“What the fuck have you done?” Bishop’s voice is a murmured sneer as he settles behind me, all up in my personal space.
“What the fuck haveyoudone?” I insert a coffee pod into the slot and shove my mug under the spout. “You called a fucking family meeting.”
“I got news Ivy was stabbed.”
“And?”
“And drawing attention to the fact you’re harboring the enemy’s daughter is one thing, almost getting her killed is another, but then Matthew mentioned you’ve got lover’s nuts for the girl, which makes this situation a whole lot more complicated. Lorenzo is going to fucking kill you.”
“You think I can’t handle Lorenzo?”
He scoffs. “Iknowyou can’t. But my priority is Abri, and more specifically her hang-ups with her mother.”
I stare at the coffee machine as it sputters liquid gold.
“I read the fucking medical report,” he hisses under his breath. “And there’s only one bitch in the vicinity that has a knitting-needle fetish.”
I keep my mouth shut.
“If you’re tripping over your dick for this woman like Matthew thinks you are then I can’t imagine you let the attack on her fly, so what the fuck did you do, Salvatore?”