Page 37 of Shamelessly Loyal

But I wasn’t waiting patiently. Even standing in the warehouse with Kellan, Jasper, and Vaughn to go over what we knew about everything, I barely heard a word they said. My attention was firmly divided between the danger my sister had faced, my part in it, and the danger faced by the woman currently locked in my room.

Each day bled into the next. The agitation around all of us ramped higher with every hour. They were back in Braxton Harbor, but she wasn’t back here… yet.

Liam messaged they would be here todayifshe was up for it.

If.

Keeping a tight-fisted grip on my temper had become a violent necessity. Mayhem had been more circumspect about the news. She’s somewhere safe, she’d said. If she’s safe, then we can wait.

While she wasn’t wrong, I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to see Ivynow.I needed to know she was all right. In the meanwhile, the guys discussed where we were on some of the missing trucks.

Only half-listening, my attention went to the external door rolling upward. The SUV pulling in had all of our attention. I could make out Freddie in the passenger seat with Liam behind the wheel. The engine cut off as the door rolled closed behind them.

The silence in the warehouse expanded like a rapidly filling balloon. The front doors opened, letting Freddie and Liam out. They left the SUV and crossed toward us.

I barely registered the exchange between the guys as I kept my gaze fixed on the dark-tinted windows of the SUV’s backseat.

I straightened as the back door opened. Ivy slid out slowly, her every movement almost ginger, as if she were hurting. Rome was right behind her. I wasn’t the only one laser-focused in their direction.

The relief cutting through the tension let me take the first truly deep breath since she disappeared.

“Son of a bitch,” Jasper swore before he strode away from us to scoop her up. Dropping my chin, I schooled my facial expressions. I needed to check all my own emotions at the door. The way she folded around him, and Jasper around her, told me a lot more about my baby sister’s relationship with the guy who became my first best friend. The one I’d known the longest beyond Doc.

When Ivy had first disappeared while I was in prison, I’d been furious. Worse still, when I discoveredthey, my best friends, my gang, had taken her. Taken her, and at least two of them had seduced her.

I wanted her as far from this life as I could get her. Or I had… now?

I sighed as she trembled against Jasper, whispering the words “I’m sorry,” over and over again. The desperation and loneliness in those words crushed me. Only when Jasper lifted his head from kissing her did Vaughn swoop in. He picked her right up and cradled her.

She seemed too small, too fragile next to his bulk, yet there was something electric about how she clung to him and he to her.

“Welcome home, Dove.” His soft words carried then she was reaching for Kellan, and he took her right from Vaughn. Their kiss made me turn my head. I found Liam staring at me, pure defiance in his expression.

Like the others, he was ready to fight me. They all were. No more sending her away. No more taking them from her or her from them. The time to keep that distance had long since passed.

Kellan stroking the tears away from her face just crushed what was left of my heart. Sending her away had done exactly what I’d never wanted to do… it had hurt her.

The flash of panic across her face slashed deep grooves through my soul. Panic and mistrust. I’d cut her away from the people she cared about and who clearly cared about her.

I’d become the bad guy in her story.

Self-loathing crawled through me. With unsteady steps, she turned toward me and then, step by step, walked to me until only a couple of feet separated us.

“I’m back,” she said. The lost notes in her voice threatened to gut me. “Don’t make me go. Please.”

I hated every choice I’d ever made that pushed her to this. “Come here, Ivy.” I closed the distance between us even as she launched herself at me. I wrapped her up in my arms. My baby sister Ivy. For the rest of the world, she could be Emersyn Sharpe. But to me? She would always be Ivy. Always. “You don’t have to go anywhere. I promise.”

Always.

“You did good, Freddie,” Jasper said as we headed for the clubhouse doors. I had Ivy tucked under my arm and she leaned into me, seeming for the first time to not be in a hurry to escape.

“I didgreat,” Freddie corrected, thumping his chest. “Great.”

“We know,” Kellan said, almost patiently, and he glanced at me.

“You only think you know,” Freddie said with a near flourish and winked at Ivy.

“Maybe, but Idoknow,” Ivy said, meaning every single word. “You were my hero.”