He Won’t Let Me Go

Chapter 3: I’ll ruin You

For months, I had watched Ivy Bellamy from a distance. Not because I cared …. at least, that’s what I told myself. I knew her routines, her coffee shop, her habit of arguing with people who were wrong, of stepping into situations that had nothing to do with her.

She was no longer the freckled girl who stole my bicycle. Twenty-five now, red hair, striking green eyes, a beauty that turned heads. I hated noticing. Hated how easily she reminded me of the girl I’d lost eighteen years ago.

Then one afternoon, she kicked a biker off his motorcycle for nearly hitting an old woman, and I nearly laughed out loud in the car.

“You almost hit her,” Ivy said. “Do you even see people, or just obstacles?”

“Move, lady.”

“Apologize to her.”

He revved the engine, tire grazing her shoes. “Get out of my way.”

“Try it.”

She kicked the bike, toppling it, the man stumbling backward cursing.

“Are you insane?!”

“Funny, I was about to say the same about almost running over a seventy-year-old woman. Apologize, or I’m reporting your plate.”

He muttered under his breath but apologized before speeding off.

I sat behind the windshield, unable to look away. “Still reckless,” I muttered …. and for a second I wasn’t watching a grown woman, I was seven again, watching her push me off my bicycle. She’d laughed until she couldn’t breathe. I smiled before I could stop myself. Then the building came back to me, the way it always did. The dust. The darkness. My mother’s voice. The weight crushing my body. Ivy promising she would come back, and never returning. The smile disappeared as quickly as it came.

What am I doing, I thought, watching her walk the old woman safely across the street, laughing gently at something the woman said to her. I should have hated her in that moment. I told myself I did hate her. I had spent eighteen years hating her, spent eighteen years waking from nightmares with my mother’s voice still ringing in my ears, sometimes feeling as though I could still feel the rubble pressing against my chest. I had spent years trying to understand why she had left me there. And now she was standing in the street, smiling at a stranger as if she had never destroyed my life.

My jaw tightened. She didn’t deserve my sympathy. She deserved exactly what I had spent the last year preparing for her.

I hadn’t simply found Victor Bellamy’s debt …. I had created it, piece by piece, over twelve patient months. I turned his biggest supplier against him with a better contract, planted an anonymous report that spooked three investors into withdrawing, then dangled a doomed overseas construction deal that swallowed what money he had left. When his clients started leaving for competitors, I made sure they did. When banks grew cold, I was behind that too. Every property he mortgaged or sold, I was already there …. buying the debt, buying the land, chasing off the last buyer at the final hour.

He never knew he was fighting me. He thought it was the economy, bad luck, disloyal partners. I made every disaster look unrelated to the last. I hadn’t destroyed him overnight …. I had made him destroy himself, and that mattered to me. I wanted him desperate enough to accept my offer without question. Now, finally, he was.

My phone vibrated.

“Mr. Cross.”

“Bellamy’s latest statement came through. They’ll lose the house if the creditors aren’t paid this month.”

“And the company?”

“Finished within weeks.”

“Good.” A pause. “What else.”

“His daughter’s started working outside the company. A department store.”

I looked at the photograph on my desk. Ivy, mid-laugh, unaware. I already knew …. knew she’d begged Victor for a position at her mother’s company, knew he’d refused her every time, knew she had no idea why.

I wondered what she’d do when she learned the empire her mother built was collapsing. I didn’t know. I only knew she wouldn’t have a choice much longer. I was ready to collect.

The following afternoon, I went to the Bellamy residence myself. Victor was waiting in his study, tie loose, face pale, dark circles under his eyes. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“You did this,” he said the moment I stepped inside.

“Did what, exactly?”

“My company. The suppliers, the investors, the loans …. it was you.”

“You should be careful throwing accusations you can’t prove.”

“I don’t need proof. I know what you are.”

“Of course you do.” I walked toward his desk. “But you haven’t answered the important question. How much is Bellamy Holdings actually worth to you?”

“Everything.”

“No,” I said, leaning against the desk. “Everything is what you had. I’m asking what you’re willing to sacrifice to keep what’s left.”

I placed a folder in front of him. “Your debts can disappear by morning.”

His hands shook as he opened it. “What do you want?”

“You already know.”

“My daughter.”

“You give me Ivy’s hand, and every debt disappears.”

“She’s not a bargaining chip.”

“Then let the creditors take the house next week.”

“You bastard.”

“Probably,” I agreed.

He slammed the folder shut. “You think she’ll agree?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because you’re going to convince her.”

That was when footsteps sounded in the hallway. Ivy appeared, glancing between us, suspicion sharpening her eyes.

Victor stood too fast. “Ivy.”

“This is Mr. Cross.”

She looked at me without a flicker of recognition. Nothing. Eighteen years, gone from her eyes as if they’d never existed. Something twisted in my chest …. then I remembered the rubble, my mother’s death, her voice promising she’d come back. The hatred returned.

“Mr. Cross can save this family, Ivy.”

“You are going to marry him.”

She looked between us, expression hardening. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“Ivy, just listen….”

“No.”

“Please….”

“I said no.”

She turned to me fully, and for a second I saw the girl from eighteen years ago …. defiant, furious.

I extended my hand. “Miss Bellamy.”

“I’m not marrying you.”

“That’s not really your decision to make.”

“Excuse me?”

She stared at my hand, then at my face, searching for something she didn’t find. She didn’t know me. That hurt more than I expected.

Her eyes dropped to the coffee cup beside her. Before I could react, she threw it in my face.