chapter 7
1508 Words
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Ivy didn’t notice the man until it was almost too late.
She’d left The Scarlet Room after her shift, slipping into the night like she always did — coat zipped up, eyes alert, pepper spray in hand. Her feet knew the rhythm of the street. Her heart didn’t. Something felt… wrong.
Too quiet. Too still.
She kept walking.
She turned the corner onto 43rd, cutting through the alley like usual — a shortcut she’d taken a hundred times before.
But this time, there were footsteps behind her.
Fast. Intentional.
She spun, ready — but two men were already blocking the entrance to the alley behind her. Another two stepped out from a side passage up ahead.
Trapped.
Panic surged, but she didn’t freeze. Ivy Gold had learned how to survive. She gripped the pepper spray tighter and backed toward the wall, calculating.
“Evening, sweetheart,” one of the men said, voice syrupy and slick. “Where’s your shadow tonight? That bulletproof bastard you’ve been walking with?”
She didn’t answer.
He stepped closer. “Ciro says hello.”
The name turned her blood to ice.
She raised her hand and sprayed — a direct hit to the man’s eyes. He screamed, staggering back. But another lunged. She ducked, kicked hard, connected with a kneecap. She moved — fast, fast — adrenaline crashing like waves.
But she wasn’t fast enough.
A hand grabbed her from behind, dragging her back by the hair.
She screamed. Fought. Bit.
“Stupid girl—”
The rest of his sentence was swallowed by a gunshot.
The man dropped.
Another shot rang out — precise, clean, silencing the second attacker.
And then the third.
The last man turned to run, but a shadow moved faster — slammed him into the wall with such force that bone cracked. He crumpled without a sound.
Leon stood over him, gun in one hand, murder in his eyes.
His breathing was ragged. His coat was streaked with blood.
And when he looked at Ivy, it wasn’t rage in his face.
It was terror.
He crossed to her in seconds. “Are you hurt?”
She was shaking. Couldn’t speak. Could barely nod.
He didn’t ask permission.
He just lifted her — one arm under her knees, one around her back — and carried her out of the alley like she weighed nothing.
She didn’t stop him.
She couldn’t.
Her throat was raw. Her mind blurry.
She buried her face in his shoulder and hated that it felt like safety.
---
Leon didn’t take her to a hospital.
He took her home.
Not hers.
His.
A fortress disguised as a penthouse. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Reinforced steel doors. Walls that didn’t talk. A place built to protect men like him from the consequences of their own violence.
He laid her gently on the black leather couch, then moved through the room like a storm barely held back — locking doors, checking monitors, barking orders into his phone.
“I want their bodies gone. I want names. I want to know how they got that close,” he snapped. “And if anyone breathes Ciro’s name in my city without my permission, you put them in the f*****g ground.”
He hung up.
Silence.
Then he turned back to her.
She hadn’t moved. Her hands were clenched into fists on her lap, eyes staring at the floor like she could burn a hole through it.
Leon crouched in front of her, his voice softer now. “Ivy.”
No answer.
He touched her wrist gently.
She flinched.
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t pull away.
“They won’t touch you again,” he said.
She looked up at him then, eyes bright with fury.
“And if they do?” Her voice cracked. “What, Leon? You’ll kill them? Keep killing until there’s no one left to come after me?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
She pushed him back. “That’s not normal.”
“I’m not normal.”
“You think that’s comforting?”
“I think it’s true.”
He stood. Pacing now. Breathing sharp.
“They were going to take you,” he said, voice thick. “You don’t understand what Ciro does to people. What he did to me. To anyone who mattered.”
“I don’t matter,” she snapped.
He stopped pacing.
She felt the weight of his stare before she looked at him again.
“You matter to me,” he said, quiet. “And that’s enough to make you a target.”
“I didn’t ask for that.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t ask for you.”
“I know,” he repeated. “But you have me anyway.”
That silence returned — heavy, choking, full of things neither of them wanted to admit.
Ivy stood up too fast and nearly stumbled. Leon reached for her instinctively, but she pulled away.
“I need air.”
He followed her out to the balcony. The night was colder now, crueler. The city below blinked like a million eyes watching their every move.
She leaned against the railing, arms crossed, shoulders hunched.
Leon stood beside her, silent.
Finally, she spoke.
“What did he mean?” she asked. “Ciro. When he said I was your weakness.”
Leon didn’t answer.
She turned to face him fully. “Why me, Leon?”
He met her eyes — and this time, he didn’t look away.
“Because you don’t need me.”
“What?”
“Everyone else in my life either feared me or needed me. They wanted what I could give them — power, protection, money. But you… you looked at me like I was nothing. Like I didn’t scare you. Like you saw the monster and still told him to leave.”
She stared at him.
“I don’t fall for softness,” he said. “I fall for steel. And you? You’re forged from fire.”
“I’m not something for you to own,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said. “But I still want you.”
Silence again.
The wind bit at her cheeks. She wanted to scream. To cry. To collapse. But she wouldn’t give him that. Wouldn’t give anyone that.
So instead, she whispered, “What now?”
Leon turned to her fully. “Now you stay here.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not staying in your fortress while you go out there and make more enemies on my behalf.”
“You’re not safe out there, Ivy.”
“I’m not safe anywhere.”
“I can keep you safe here.”
She took a step toward him. “You don’t get to make that decision for me.”
“I already did.”
His voice was hoarse now. Raw.
“Do you think I sleep at night knowing someone might be watching you? Do you think I can go on pretending you’re just another girl I crossed paths with when all I see in my head is you bleeding in some alley because of me?”
Her voice dropped. “Why do you care?”
And he answered without thinking.
“Because I think if I lose you… I’ll lose whatever’s left of the man I used to be.”
That shut her up.
He turned and walked away, unable to bear the silence after that.
Ivy stayed on the balcony, hands gripping the railing until her knuckles whitened.
Because that confession — that terrifying, broken confession — had felt real.
And that scared her more than Ciro.
More than guns.
More than blood.
---
Later, she wandered into his bedroom. Not to sleep. Just to feel something that wasn’t fear.
The room was dark, cold, clean. The walls were gunmetal gray, the sheets jet black, the air heavy with the scent of him — smoke, danger, something darker beneath.
She found a book on the nightstand. The Count of Monte Cristo.
Not what she expected.
She flipped through it and found a note scribbled on the last page:
“Revenge is not always a fire. Sometimes it’s the silence left after.”
She didn’t know if it was his handwriting.
Didn’t want to.
She curled up on the leather chair by the window and stared out at the skyline.
She should leave.
She should run.
But she didn’t.
Because a part of her — the part she tried to kill years ago — was whispering that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t alone anymore.
---
Leon stood on the rooftop.
His fists were bloodied from the wall he’d punched.
Marco joined him.
“She’s stable?” Marco asked.
Leon nodded. “Shaken. But alive.”
“And you?”
Leon didn’t answer.
Marco stepped closer. “He won’t stop, you know. Ciro. Not until he takes her. Or kills her. Or breaks you.”
Leon looked out at the city, his voice hollow.
“Then I’ll burn the world first.”
---
- Writer
