Page 72 of Mercy (The Sins Trilogy 3)
Chapter Twenty-Four
Anthony
I tap my fingers on the phone as it stays silent. Weird. I texted Ivy an hour ago asking if she wanted to go out for dinner. Maybe she’s swamped at work. But surely she could’ve spared a minute to answer.
It doesn’t matter. She’s just probably too busy. We can decide when she picks me up. TJ’s taking Yuna out to the mall because she wants to replace everything she shipped to Korea, so Bobbi is coming to get me. If Ivy’s too tired to go out, we’ll stay in. And I’ll give her a massage. It’s so pleasurable and fun to watch tension leave her. She’s so warm and pliant when that happens. And extra affectionate.
When the red Escalade stops in front of my building, I climb inside.
Ivy’s expression doesn’t have its usual glow. Instead, it’s pinched, and she’s stretching her left leg awkwardly. I notice a huge Band-Aid on her knee.
“What the hell happened?” I ask Bobbi.
“She got mugged.” Her voice is clipped and flat.
Mugged.Not run down by some sociopath in a car. Still, that doesn’t make it much better. Just look at Ivy’s leg. That’s gotta be painful.
“You couldn’t stop the asshole? What the hell am I paying you for?”
Bobbi flushes, but doesn’t say anything to defend herself. She knows she fucked up.
Ivy places a hand on my wrist. “It wasn’t her fault, Tony. Can we just go home?”
I swallow more nasty words. What Ivy wants comes first.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “Should I call Dr. Young?”
“No!” Ivy stares at me, horrified. “It isn’t that kind of injury. I need a couple of Tylenol, and I’ll be fine.”
She might be, but I’m not. And I hate it that she’s minimizing her injury and what happened to her. Doesn’t she know if I could, I’d wrap her in Kevlar and put her in a tank so nobody could ever hurt her?
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because it would only have upset you, and you’d worry that I got badly injured,” Ivy says. “Just like you are now. The mugger got away, and there’s nothing to be done about it. And you can see for yourself I’m not that hurt.”
I check for other injuries, moving her limbs carefully and rolling up her sleeves. I suck in a breath hard when I see the scrapes on her left palm. God damn it. I hate it she hurt her hand. Hands are the most important things for pianists. Professionals routinely insure them, and Ivy’s are priceless.
“I’m really fine,” she says. “Tolyan wanted to put a Band-Aid on my palm, too, but I told him no. It felt too awkward, and it’s just a minor scrape.”
Minor, my ass.Ivy looks like she took a nasty fall. “How did it happen? Where was Bobbi?”
“Right beside me, doing her job. It just happened so quickly.” Ivy explains the circumstances.
The more I listen, the more agitated I become, especially because the mugger was working with a partner. Why target Ivy? She dresses nicely enough, but she doesn’t wear expensive designer clothes or a lot of pricey jewelry. Besides, she was with Bobbi, who can be intimidating as hell. If I were a mugger, I’d pick somebody easier. A woman distracted with texting or something.
“The worst part is losing my purse,” Ivy says. “I got it in a small shop in Italy. My favorite. It has the softest leather. But I doubt I’ll ever see it again.”
I run a soothing hand along her back. “I’ll get you another one. Or how about a Dior? They apparently have soft lambskin bags for women.” Audrey used to yap endlessly about them, hinting that I should get some in different colors and sizes for her. She should’ve saved the trouble for a more gullible man.
“It isn’t about Dior. It’s about my bag. I didn’t even have a lot of cash in it. But he got my phone, ID, keys…everything.”
“You canceled all your credit and debit cards, right?”
“Yeah, the banks are sending me new ones. But my phone…” She sighs heavily. “I haven’t backed it up in months.”
“I’m sorry,” I say grimly.
Ivy rests her head on my shoulder. “Don’t look so angry. I’m not really that hurt, and I doubt I had anything irreplaceable on my phone anyway. Oh, and I totally forgot to tell you, but Marty came by to see me today.”
