Chapter 4 - The Night the Gunshot Sang

The hunting party had been Ivy’s idea.

Julian loved symbolism—rituals that made him feel primal and powerful—so she framed it that way. A night in the Sonoma vineyards. Antique shotguns. Good whiskey. Important men pretending they still knew how to survive without assistants and stock portfolios.

He’d loved it immediately.

“Like Hemingway,” Julian had said, already pouring himself a drink. “Only with better wine.”

Ivy smiled and kissed his cheek, already planning the rest of the board.

By sunset, the estate buzzed with curated masculinity. Twenty men in tailored jackets and expensive boots roamed the vineyard paths, laughing too loudly, guns slung over shoulders like props. The air smelled of crushed grapes and gun oil. Floodlights illuminated the rows just enough to feel dangerous.

Julian was drunk by the time the first shot rang out—wild, celebratory, fired into the dark to mark the beginning of the hunt. Applause followed. Someone whooped.

Ivy stood on the terrace and watched them scatter into the vines.

She waited exactly seven minutes.

Then she went upstairs.

The burner phone was hidden where Julian would never think to look—taped inside the false bottom of her lingerie drawer, beneath silk and lace he’d bought to admire but never learned to remove gently.

She checked the screen once before typing.

North vineyard. Hood of the Aston. Now.

No punctuation. No emotion.

She didn’t need either.

Ivy slipped out through the side entrance, heels abandoned halfway down the drive. The gravel was cold beneath her bare feet, sharp enough to keep her present as she crossed into the dark.

Sebastian was already there.

The Aston Martin sat half-hidden between two rows of vines, engine still warm, hood reflecting the moonlight in dull silver. He leaned against it, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled, expression carved into something lethal and unreadable.

They didn’t speak.

They never did anymore.

He pushed her back against the hood the moment she reached him, hands sure, urgent, as if he’d been holding himself still by force. Her dress was rucked up in seconds, his belt undone with a practiced snap. The metal was still warm when she wrapped her legs around him.

This wasn’t tenderness.

This was necessity.

He took her hard and fast, the car rocking slightly beneath them, the scent of oil and earth filling her lungs. Ivy bit his shoulder to keep quiet, the sounds in her throat turning feral as the pleasure built too quickly, too recklessly.

Somewhere in the vineyard, another gunshot cracked the air.

They froze.

Sebastian stilled inside her, breath sharp against her ear. Ivy’s heart slammed so hard she thought it might give them away.

A shout followed—laughter, drunken and careless.

“False alarm,” Sebastian murmured. His voice was calm, steady, infuriatingly controlled.

He moved again, slower now, deeper, forcing her to feel every inch of him, every second of the risk. Ivy’s nails dug into the hood, the cold metal grounding her as her body betrayed her completely.

Another shot rang out.

Closer.

Julian’s voice carried on the wind—slurred, irritated. “Ivy? Ivy, where the fuck are you?”

Sebastian’s hand came up over her mouth without warning, firm but not cruel. His eyes locked on hers, dark and alive with something dangerous.

He didn’t stop moving.

If anything, he went deeper, more deliberate, each thrust punishing, claiming. Ivy shook against him, tears streaking back into her hair as she bit down on his palm to stay quiet, the pressure building until she shattered around him, silent and violent and humiliating.

She hated him for it.

She loved him for it.

The third gunshot was different.

Sharper. Final.

Silence fell like a blade.

Sebastian pulled out immediately, tucking himself away, already moving. He reached into the Aston’s glove compartment and came up with his own gun, eyes scanning the dark.

“Stay behind me,” he said.

They ran toward the sound.

Ivy didn’t remember her feet touching the ground. She didn’t remember the cold. She remembered only the way the vineyard seemed to close in around them, the floodlights throwing long, warped shadows across the rows.

They found Julian fifty yards in.

He lay on his back between the vines, one arm flung out, the antique shotgun fallen beside him. Blood bloomed dark and wet across his chest, soaking into the dirt, into the grapes crushed beneath his weight.

His eyes were open.

Staring at nothing.

For a single, endless second, Ivy couldn’t breathe.

Sebastian crouched, fingers at Julian’s neck, already knowing. He checked anyway—professional, detached. When he looked up, his face was pale but controlled.

“Single gunshot,” he said quietly. “Close range.”

Ivy dropped to her knees.

The scream tore out of her before she could stop it—raw, animal, convincing. She clawed at Julian’s shirt, smearing herself with his blood, sobbing so hard her body folded in on itself.

Sebastian stepped back, becoming a shadow, a witness.

Men came running then. Shouts. Panic. Someone retched. Someone else dropped their gun.

“It was an accident,” a voice said immediately. “He must’ve tripped.”

“Yes,” another agreed too quickly. “Drunk. Stupid. Happens all the time.”

Flashlights bobbed. Phones came out.

Ivy screamed again, letting herself collapse fully into the performance. Every sound, every movement calculated and instinctive all at once.

Inside her head, one thought looped, cold and merciless.

We didn’t pull the trigger.

Sebastian met her eyes across Julian’s body.

In his gaze, she saw the other half of the truth.

But we might as well have.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

The vineyard filled with light.

And somewhere beneath the noise, beneath the blood and the ruin, something irreversible settled into place.

The night Julian Blackwood died, the war was already waiting.