Tag(s):
• Billionaire
• drama
• Survival
• Suspense
• Thriller
• Villain

Ivy Calloway spent five years in prison for killing a man who was beating his wife half to death. She doesn't regret it. But no one hires an ex-convict, so when a maid staffing agency offers her a live-in position in the coldest, most beautiful house she's ever seen, she takes it without asking questions. She should have asked questions. Her new employer is Damian Cross... a billionaire with a charming public face and a private one that makes Ivy's skin crawl. His wife, Selene, is soft-spoken, elegant, and always just a little too interested in Ivy's past. Ivy tells herself it's kindness. It isn't. Selene has been counting on a woman exactly like Ivy walking through her door... someone who's already proven she'll kill a man who hurts a woman. Then Julian Cross arrives. Damian's estranged brother, sharp-eyed and impossible to read, asking questions about the Cross family that no one wants answered. Ivy doesn't know if he's there to save her or use her too. All she knows is that every time he looks at her, she forgets to be careful. As the walls of the Cross mansion close in... a locked wing, a six-year-old girl who flinches at loud voices, a wife with a plan Ivy never agreed to... Ivy has to decide who's telling the truth before someone else's blood ends up on her hands. This time, she might not walk away.

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• Total: 65

• Chapter 1 Released

  "Calloway. You're up."
  Ivy didn't move right away. Five years of being told when to stand, when to si

• Chapter 2 The Car Is Home Now

  She didn't sleep, not really. She dozed in stretches, the way she'd learned to in her cell, where re

• Chapter 3 No One Hires A Killer

  "I'm gonna be straight with you." The manager slid her application back across the counter like it h

• Chapter 4 The Agency That Doesn't Ask

  The footsteps stopped in the doorway.
  "Selene. You didn't tell me we had company." His voice was warm

• Chapter 5 The House On The Hill

  The folder was thin. Ivy stood there a long moment, listening for footsteps, before she let herself

• Chapter 6 Meeting Selene

  She told herself it wasn't her place. She told herself twice, walking down the back stairs, and a th

• Chapter 7 The Husband's Smile

  Dinner for staff was at six, a long table in a kitchen that still smelled faintly of someone else's

• Chapter 8 First Night In The Staff Wing

  The room didn't lock from the inside.
  Ivy noticed that first, before she noticed anything else… no bo

• Chapter 9 Rules Of The House

  Ivy grabbed the cart and moved.
  She didn't run… running would have meant something, would have given

• Chapter 10 Mia In The Hallway

  "My name?" Ivy kept her voice as level as she could manage, crouched now to Mia's height, the stairw

• Chapter 11 A Voice Behind A Door

  Chapter 11: A Voice Behind a Door
  "I don't know what kind of person I am to you yet either," Ivy said

• Chapter 12 The Wrong Kind Of Quiet

  "I already told you what I saw." Ivy kept her voice low, aware of how close they still stood to the

• Chapter 13 Damian Notices Her

  "Selene… " Ivy knocked a third time, harder, her shoulder nearly against the wood.
  The shoe moved.
  Not

• Chapter 14 Selene's Questions

  Ivy didn't touch the envelope. "I'd rather not take money for something I don't understand."
  "That's

• Chapter 15 What The File Doesn't Say

  Ivy pulled her hand back, slow, careful not to make it look like a flinch even though that's exactly

• Chapter 16 A Bruise, Explained Away

  Ivy didn't sleep after that. She sat with the note in her lap until the gray light came back to the

• Chapter 17 The Locked Wing

  "No one gave me anything," Ivy said.
  The lie came out steadier than she expected, though something in

• Chapter 18 Ivy's Old Life, Uninvited

  "That's not possible." Ivy's voice came out thinner than she meant it to. "I met Renee at my apartme

• Chapter 19 Dinner With The Crosses

  Nobody moved for a long second. Then Damian stepped inside and closed the door behind him, slow, del

• Chapter 20 The Way He Watches Selene

  The table went silent except for Mia's small, oblivious humming, spoon clinking against her plate.
  Iv

• Chapter 21 A Kindness With A Price

  Selene didn't sit. She stood there, Mia's hand still gripped tight in hers, chest rising fast, caugh

• Chapter 22 Julian Cross Arrives

  "Then tell me how you found out about all of this," Ivy said. "Because you didn't just show up here

• Chapter 23 The Brother No One Mentions

  Julian was already moving before Ivy fully registered. She'd stood up too, both of them taking the b

• Chapter 24 Damian's Mask Slips

  Ivy read the message four times before she made herself put the phone down.
  *Ask Julian about the fir

• Chapter 25 Ivy and Julian, First Words

  She found him leaning against a truck by the garage, not the sleek car she expected from a Cross, so

• Chapter 26 Selene's Warning

  "Show me the messages," Julian said.
  Ivy pulled out her phone, scrolled to the text from the night be

• Chapter 27 What Happened Five Years Ago

  "I need you to slow down," Ivy said, though her own pulse was racing just as fast. "Where would he t

• Chapter 28 The Man She Killed

  "Stay down," Ivy whispered, pressing Mia lower behind the hedge. "Stay down and don't make a sound,

• Chapter 29 Why Ivy Doesn't Regret It

  He didn't run at them. That was the strange part… Damian simply stood there, still as the hedges aro

• Chapter 30 Julian Asks The Wrong Question

  Julian's truck came around the side of the house a minute later, tires cutting fast across the grass

• Chapter 31 A Night Of Raised Voices

  Nobody came. The door stayed shut, footsteps fading somewhere far off toward the study, and after a

• Chapter 32 Mia In The Closet

  "Tell me," Ivy said. "Now. All of it."
  Regina glanced once more at the empty lot, then stepped fully

• Chapter 33 Ivy Steps In

  "Where's the study?" Ivy was already on her feet. "Is that where he is?"
  "I don't know." Selene's voi

• Chapter 34 Damian's Cold Apology

  Ivy didn't let go. "I'm coming with you."
  "I wasn't asking."
  "Neither was I." She held his gaze, stead

• Chapter 35 Selene's Gratitude, Too Warm

  Ivy's hand closed around the envelope before Damian had made it two steps toward the stairs.
  "What is

• Chapter 36 A Favor Ivy Didn't Agree To

  "I need to think," Ivy said, pulling her arm free of Selene's grip, gentle but firm. "Both of you ha

• Chapter 37 Julian's Real Reason

  Ivy didn't wait to think it through. She turned back down the stairs, phone still lit in her hand, a

• Chapter 38 The First Lie Ivy Catches

  "Call your accountant," Ivy said. "Now. Before whoever's watching decides you shouldn't have the cha

• Chapter 39 Selene Says The Quiet Part

  Ivy read the message twice before she turned the phone toward Julian. "If it wasn't Selene's money,

• Chapter 40 Ivy Realizes She's Not Just Staff

  "We need to find him before he finds them," Julian said, already standing. "If he's dangerous when h

• Chapter 41 Staying Anyway

  "You should be somewhere he can't find you," Selene said, moving down the steps toward Rose despite

• Chapter 42 Damian's Public Face

  The front door opened before Ivy could ask what he meant. Rose stood in the frame, Julian just behin

• Chapter 43 The Foundation Gala

  "Who?" Selene's voice had gone sharp with dread. "Rose, if you know a name, say it."
  "I will. But not

• Chapter 44 Ivy In A Borrowed Dress

  "We need to get to Rose before Margaret does." Julian was already moving, cutting fast through the c

• Chapter 45 Julian's Eyes Across The Room

  Julian didn't move. For a long second, the ballroom noise seemed to fall away entirely, the string q

• Chapter 46 Selene's Careful Choreography

  "What instructions?" Julian's voice had gone low and dangerous, all the shock of the last five minut

• Chapter 47 A Toast To The Perfect Marriage

  "Ivy Calloway!" The man's voice cracked over the microphone feedback as security finally wrestled hi

• Chapter 48 What Ivy Overhears

  "Margaret." Ivy stared at the screen until the words blurred. "She paid a man to shout accusations a

• Chapter 49 Damian's Business Partner

  "You know who he is," Selene said, her voice barely a whisper. "You already found him."
  "I've known f

• Chapter 50 Money That Moves In The Dark

  Damian didn't head for the ballroom. He cut through a service corridor toward the venue's private lo

• Chapter 51 Julian's Investigation Begins

  Ivy stared at the message twice before she showed it to Julian, angling the screen so only he could

• Chapter 52 Ivy Covers For Mia

  They made the drive back in under fifteen minutes, Julian's truck cutting through empty streets with

• Chapter 53 A Bedtime Story

  "Go," Ivy whispered. "I promised her I'd come back. I need to keep that promise before I do anything

• Chapter 54 Selene's Locked Drawer

  Ivy eased off the bed, careful not to wake Mia, and slipped out into the hallway, phone still grippe

• Chapter 55 The Photograph Ivy Finds

  "What did she tell you?" Selene's voice shook as she stepped past Damian into the room.
  Catherine Rey

• Chapter 56 Confronting Selene

  Ivy took the document with hands that weren't entirely steady. The paper was brittle, decades old, t

• Chapter 57 A Half-Truth

  Nobody moved for a long moment. Ivy stared at the envelope in Catherine's hand, the careful, familia

• Chapter 58 Damian's Temper, Up Close

  Ivy reached the nursery wing first, lungs burning, and found the hallway outside Mia's door quiet… t

• Chapter 59 Ivy Learns To Read The House

  Damian stepped out from behind the wall before Ivy could stop him, his face a mixture of shock and d

• Chapter 60 Julian Waits Outside Her Door

  Ivy stared at the folder without taking it. "I don't want that kind of power over anyone's life."
  "I

• Chapter 61 The First Almost-Kiss

  Ivy woke past noon, the light through her curtains gone thick and gold, and for a long moment she la

• Chapter 62 Pulling Back

  Ivy stood too fast, her chair scraping loud against the floor, the almost-kiss already receding behi

• Chapter 63 Damian Suspects Something

  Ivy stared at the message until the letters blurred, her whole body gone cold.
  "Ivy?" Julian's voice

• Chapter 64 A Test Disguised As Kindness

  Ivy's hands went still on the table. "Someone else was there. That night."
  "Yes." Renee's voice barel

• Chapter 65 Ivy Passes, Barely

  Ivy stepped out of the diner into the cool night air, her pulse hammering, and found Damian already