Novels by Ivy White

Miles's POV "You're asking the wrong people the wrong questions." Vincent said it quietly, without looking up from the inventory sheet he was pretending to read, and I understood immediately that word had already reached him about the conversation I'd had in the laundry room two days earlier. "I asked one guy if he knew anything about university endowments. That's it." "You asked a man with three drug charges and a gambling debt whether he'd ever heard of a research board. In a room with six other people listening." Vincent finally looked at me, and there was nothing warm in it. "That's not subtle. That's a flare fired straight up." "I needed a name checked. He was the only one who'd talk to me without wanting something first." "He'll want something now. That's how men like that work. You just handed him a reason to think you're worth selling out." "I'm not going to sit on this." "You're going to sit on it until I tell you it's safe not to." "You keep saying that like there's

Julian's POV "You're quiet today," Vincent said. "That's not like you." We were in the back office above the warehouse on Ninth, the one with the windows painted black and the only camera feed that answered to me. I hadn't sat down since I'd walked in. I didn't sit down now. Outside, the city kept doing what it always did at this hour, indifferent to whatever had happened inside a prison forty minutes north of it. "How did the meeting go?" "The meeting went the way it needed to go." "That's not an answer." "It's the only one you're getting tonight." Vincent knew me well enough not to push on the things that didn't matter. He also knew me well enough to recognize when something did. He set down the folder he'd been holding and looked at me with the particular patience he reserved for conversations he'd already decided not to walk away from. "He asked exactly what I expected him to ask," I said. "He's smarter than the men I usually deal with. That's not new information." "Then

Miles's POV Vincent was already waiting by my bunk when the block opened for morning work detail, arms crossed, watching the door like he'd been standing there longer than he wanted anyone to notice, patient in the way that usually meant bad news. "You're riding out tonight." "Good morning to you too." He didn't so much as blink at that. "The truck going through the east gate. You're on it." I set down the tray I'd been carrying and studied him for a second, trying to read whatever was sitting behind that flat expression. Vincent showing up before breakfast meant this wasn't something that could wait for the yard, and that alone told me more than anything he'd actually said. "What's the job?" "Ride with the shipment. It runs through the east gate to the second checkpoint, handed off to a broker named Reyes. You make the delivery." He paused, long enough for it to register as deliberate. "And you pay attention to him while you're there." "Observe what, exactly?" "Faces. Vehicle

Julian's POV The phone rang once before I picked it up. "It's done," Vincent said. "The meeting's over." "Is Dominic still there?" "No. He's already clear of the building. On his way to you now." "Anyone see him come or go?" "No one who matters. He used the east corridor, same as we'd planned it out." "And Miles?" "Back in his block before anyone would have thought to look for him. Composed, far as I could tell from the corridor after. Nothing went wrong on my end. He didn't linger, didn't make a scene walking out." That was the entire report Vincent could give me, and I didn't ask for more, because there wasn't more he was in a position to know. Vincent had stood outside a locked door the whole time, no more able to hear through it than Miles could see through it. Whatever had happened inside that room belonged to Dominic to tell, not him. "Call me the moment he arrives." I set the phone down. I'd been outside Blackgate two days now, the warden's paperwork listing me as a t

Miles's POV "Where did you get that?" Vincent's voice had lost its usual flatness, and for the first time since I'd known him, I watched him cross a room like the floor might give out beneath him. Whatever composure he usually kept folded around himself had slipped, just for a second, before he caught it and pulled it back into place. "From him," I said. "The man I just met." "He gave you this himself?" "Is that a problem?" Vincent reached for the page and I pulled it back before his fingers closed around it, some instinct telling me not to hand over the one piece of leverage I'd walked out of that room with. The instinct was older than Blackgate, older than fear, something primal that recognized the difference between holding power and having it taken from you. His jaw tightened, the same small tell I'd learned to catch months ago, back when catching it had still felt like an accomplishment instead of a habit I couldn't switch off anymore. For half a second I saw what he looked

Miles's POV "Sit." That was the first word out of his mouth. No greeting, no name, nothing to soften the command into a request. The room was smaller than I'd expected, plain walls, a metal desk, a single lamp casting light across a surface bare except for a closed folder. No windows. No decoration. Just enough furniture to hold a conversation and nothing that could be used against him if that conversation went badly. Whoever had built this room had thought about exactly one thing, and it wasn't comfort. The man himself wasn't what I'd built in my head either. Broad through the shoulders, dark suit that fit like it had been made for exactly this body, a face carved into stillness so complete it looked practiced rather than natural. He watched me the way a man watches something he's already finished deciding about, patient in a way that had nothing warm in it at all. I sat. "You wanted this meeting," he said. "You have it. Use it well." His voice matched the room, flat and unhur

"Since when?" Ivy asked, still trying to decide if he was serious, her eyes tracking the shift in him from the man who'd just kissed her to something looser, almost playful."Since tonight."He didn't explain further than that, and he didn't need to. He crossed to the cabinet by the window instead, the one she'd never seen him open in all the weeks she'd lived here, and came back with two glasses and a bottle he chose without hesitating over the label, like he'd already thought about which one before she'd even answered his door."What do you actually drink?" he asked. "Not what you order to look normal at a table full of my father's people.""Wine, usually. Not much of it.""How much is not much?""Enough to be polite. Never enough to actually feel it.""Tonight isn't about being polite."He poured her exactly that amount, not the strongest thing in the cabinet, and handed it over before pouring his own, a darker glass he drank fast, like a habit rather than a pleasure. She noticed t

Ivy came out of her room expecting an empty penthouse, the way it always was by this hour, coffee gone cold in a cup he hadn't finished and a note about being back late if he bothered leaving one at all. Kade was standing in the living room instead, fully dressed, phone in hand, like he'd been waiting there for a while and had run out of things to check on it. He looked up when she stopped in the doorway. "You told me not to run." She hadn't expected him to say it first. "I didn't think you'd listen." "Neither did I." She crossed her arms, mostly to have somewhere to put her hands, aware of exactly how much her pulse had picked up for someone standing perfectly still in her own living room. "So you're proving a point?" "I'm proving I don't scare that easily." "You scare everyone." "Not you." She didn't have a ready answer to that, so she moved past it instead. "Don't you have meetings?" "I moved them." "You canceled your meetings?" "Moved. I said moved." "Why?" "Because y

What is this marriage becoming? Kade stared at the message longer than he meant to, the screen dimming twice before he touched it again. He typed, Nothing has changed. Deleted it before the cursor finished blinking. Typed, I don't know what you want me to say. Deleted that too. Tried a line about the contract, something reasonable and safe, and deleted that one before he'd even finished the sentence. He put the phone face down on the desk harder than the message deserved and stared at it like it might apologize for putting him in this position in the first place. Nothing has changed would have been the easy answer. Separate rooms. Separate lives. A contract neither of them had broken. He could have sent it and gone back to the papers in front of him. But it would have been a lie, and not about the parts he could point to on paper. He thought of her crossing his study to return a watch she hadn't needed to keep. Her hand under his on the desk. Why did you move. Because you're here

Kade had read the same paragraph four times and still couldn't tell what it said.The documents were spread across the desk exactly where he'd left them at midnight, the laptop open to a contract that needed his signature before nine, and none of it had moved in the last twenty minutes because his attention kept sliding somewhere else entirely. The green dress. The way she'd stood by the window in it, waiting for his verdict like it mattered more than she wanted it to. The catch in her breath when his fingers grazed her collarbone. The way she'd tried to cover it and hadn't quite managed.He'd sent that message on purpose. Don't change. He'd known exactly what he was doing when he typed it, and that was the part that bothered him now, not the wanting, but the fact that he'd acted on it without a second thought.He was becoming too interested in her reactions. That was the problem. Nothing more complicated than that.A knock interrupted him, sharp and familiar, and he assumed Marcus ha

"Ivy, don't leave the penthouse.""Why?" Her hand was still curled around his watch, forgotten on the counter a minute ago and now completely beside the point."Because I need you to do exactly what I say." A pause, and when he spoke again his voice had leveled out just slightly, though not all the way. "Security's handling something outside. You're safest where you are.""What happened?""Nothing that concerns. Stay inside. I'll explain when I'm back.""That's not reassuring.""It wasn't meant to be reassuring. It was meant to be clear.""Kade, wait."The line was already dead. She set the phone down slowly, the watch still sitting in her other palm.She checked the lock on the front door once, which was pointless since no one was coming up. She sat down. She got back up. She didn't touch the coffee she'd made herself an hour ago, which had gone cold in the cup.He was gone for two hours. When the door finally opened, Ivy was curled on the couch pretending to read, and she looked up

The coffee maker sputtered through its last cycle, and the toaster popped loudly behind her. The knife made a soft, steady rhythm against the cutting board. Ivy sliced through the last ripe strawberry and slid the pieces into the bowl, humming under her breath, when the floor creaked behind her. She turned. Kade stood in the kitchen doorway, dressed for the day, sleeves already rolled to his forearms, watching her with the kind of stillness that made her wonder how long he'd been there. "You cook this early?" he asked. "Some people actually eat breakfast, you know." she said, turning back to the counter and cracking another egg against the rim of the bowl. "I wasn't aware you had opinions before coffee." "I have opinions about everything. Coffee just makes me polite about them." "Noted. I'll brace myself for the honest version later." "You won't survive it." That earned the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth. He crossed the kitchen and leaned against the counter beside