Marked

Adrian didn't let her see the note again after that first look. He folded it away into his jacket and gave orders instead, calling every man on the grounds inside within minutes, doubling the guard at every entrance, pulling curtains shut on windows that had stayed open since Ivy arrived.

"Tell me what it said," Ivy said, following him down the hall as he moved from room to room checking locks that were already locked. "All of it. Not the short version."

"You heard the short version already."

"I want the exact words, Adrian."

He stopped in the middle of the hallway, jaw tight, and for a moment she thought he'd refuse again. Instead he pulled the note from his jacket and handed it to her without a word.

The handwriting was neat, almost careless in how calm it looked given what it said. Voss. You've grown careless keeping a Marlow under your roof. I'll be collecting what's mine soon enough. Bring her to the old pier by the end of the week, or I'll come for her myself, and you won't like how I do it.

Ivy's stomach dropped. "What's mine. Why does he think I'm his to collect."

"Your father owed him money too. Years ago, before either of us were involved with each other." Adrian took the note back, refolding it slowly. "Halloway's convinced himself you're leverage he's entitled to, the same way I once thought you were mine to collect for Richard's debt."

"So I'm just currency. To both of you."

"Not to me. Not anymore." His voice dropped, steady despite everything happening around them. "But I understand why it looks that way from where you're standing, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise to make this easier for either of us."

Ivy crossed her arms, trying to hold herself together against the fear crawling up her spine. "How did he know exactly when to hit the gate. We were only in the yard because you decided that morning to start training early."

Something flickered across Adrian's face, a thought he clearly hadn't wanted to land yet. "That's a good question."

"You don't have an answer."

"I have a bad one." He rubbed a hand over his jaw. "Only a handful of people knew the training schedule changed this morning. Marta. Two of my senior men. Myself." His eyes met hers, grim. "Which means either Halloway got extraordinarily lucky, or someone in this house told him."

The words settled over her like cold water. "The traitor you mentioned before. The one feeding my father information."

"Maybe the same person. Maybe someone new." Adrian's expression hardened into something she hadn't seen from him before, calculation stripped of any warmth. "Either way, I can't fully trust anyone in this house right now except you, and that's not a comfortable position to run an organization from."

"Then let me help."

"Absolutely not."

"You just said you can't trust anyone but me." She stepped closer, refusing to let him retreat behind that wall he built whenever things got dangerous. "That means I'm the one person you can actually use right now. Not lock away in a room while you figure this out alone."

Adrian studied her for a long moment, something warring behind his eyes. "If Halloway gets you, Ivy, I don't get you back. Do you understand that? This isn't your father playing at danger from a distance. Halloway follows through."

"I understand it better than you think. I watched a man shoot my own father over money he couldn't pay." Her voice cracked but didn't break. "I know exactly what these men are capable of. I'm asking you to trust me with that knowledge, not keep me sheltered from it."

He exhaled slowly, some of the hardness in his face giving way to something more tired, more honest. "You scare me more than Halloway does, you know that."

"Why."

"Because Halloway I know how to fight. You, I don't know how to keep from walking straight into danger just to prove you're not fragile." He reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, the gesture gentler than anything happening around them deserved. "I've buried people I loved before. I'm not doing it again because I was too soft to say no to you."

"You don't have to bury anyone." Ivy caught his hand before he could pull it back, holding it against her cheek. "Let me stand next to you, not behind you. That's not putting me in more danger. I'm already in danger. The only question is whether I face it with you or without you."

Something in him seemed to give way at that, the last resistance folding under the weight of her words. "All right. You stay close. Every meeting, every decision about how we handle Halloway, you're in the room."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet." His hand tightened around hers. "First thing tomorrow, we find out who's been talking. I want every member of this staff questioned, starting with the ones who knew about this morning's training schedule."

"Including Marta?"

Something pained crossed his face at the name. "Including Marta. I don't want it to be her. But wanting isn't the same as knowing, and right now I don't know anything for certain except that someone under this roof is willing to get you killed to settle old scores."

They stood together in the quiet hallway, the house around them finally locking down for the night, guards doubled at every door, and Ivy felt something steady settle into place despite the fear still sitting cold in her chest. Not safety exactly. Something closer to partnership, the first time since her father handed her over that she felt like more than something to be managed.

"Whatever happens with Halloway," she said quietly, "I'm not running from this. Not from you, not from any of it."

Adrian pulled her against him, forehead resting against hers the way it had after the attack, and for a moment neither of them said anything at all, just breathing together in a house that had gone quiet and watchful around them.

A knock cut through it, quick and urgent. One of Adrian's men stood in the doorway, face grim in a way that made Ivy's stomach drop before he'd said a single word.

"Sir. You need to come see this. We found something in Marta's room."

Adrian's arm went rigid around her. He didn't move right away, and in that half second of stillness Ivy watched every piece of trust he'd built with the woman who'd welcomed her into this house that first night start to crack apart.

"Show me," he said finally, his voice flat in a way she hadn't heard since the night he'd shot her father.

Behind him, at the end of the hallway, Marta stood frozen in her own doorway, watching them come, her f

ace already breaking into something Ivy had never seen on her before.

Guilt