13
RUPERT
Ivy’s head bowed, and she maintained an attitude of frozen stillness as she stepped into my office. Her slender white neck was emphasized by the bold color of her new uniform, which made her look more delicate and ethereal than ever.
In this life, she’d proven herself anything but fragile.
A man who used to run with me as a spook now owned his own private investigation firm. I had him perform a full background check on Ivy and her relatives. Come to find out, she was removed from her home by child protective services (CPS) at age fourteen due to neglect.
But the atrocities didn’t stop there.
Her mother was more than negligent. She was a narcissist who abused her daughter to the point of no relief. Locking her in a room for days with no food and hardly any water. Throwing a
