Ivy’s POV
John Rodney.
I hadn't seen him in years, but I could never forget that face. The greasy, stringy hair, the hollowed-out cheeks, the nervous twitch of his lips—he was another ghost from my nightmares, standing right in front of me in handcuffs.
I couldn't breathe.
The room shrank around me, the past crashing over me like a wave, dragging me back to a time I had fought so hard to forget.
The café.
The smell of roasted coffee beans and caramelized sugar had once been comforting—a small piece of normalcy I had clung to.
I once loved working at that café, pouring lattes and wiping down counters, believing that with every shift, I was proving something.
Proving to my father and uncle that adopting me wasn’t a mistake. Proving that I wasn’t just some broken girl, a dis
