CHAPTER 220: SHE’S COMING WITH ME

At the door, Luca’s men stepped in front of her. "She doesn’t go down—"

"She’s coming with me," Winn said without stopping. The guards moved aside instantly. Ivy followed because she had no other choice and because fear pinned her feet to his shadow.

"Mr. Kane!" Luca called, stepping out of the shadows. He wore his usual immaculate suit, rings glinting. His smile was charming, deadly, snake-like. "I have your package ready downstairs."

Package.

Package.

Ivy’s vision blurred.

"Winn... will you talk to me? What’s going on?" she demanded.

Luca’s eyes flicked to her with amused recognition. "Ah. Beyonce. Long time."

"You said you found just one of them." Winn went straight to business. This was a different Winn.

"Yes." Luca replied. "His partner seems to have another job he is handling out of town." The mob boss gave a little shrug. "Don’t worry. We will find him soon. Come with me."

He led them down a stark corridor lit by long strips of LED lights. The walls were thick steel, soundproofed.

They stopped at a thick metal door. Luca turned the handle, the lock clanging.

Inside was a bare room—concrete floor, a single industrial bulb hanging from the ceiling, and at the center, a man tied to a reinforced chair.

His body was slumped, breathing ragged, fists swollen from the rope cutting into them. A black hood covered his head. Around him stood four of Luca’s men—mountainous walls of muscle, their knuckles bloody.

Ivy recoiled, a small gasp escaping her lips before she could stop it.

Winn immediately reached for her hand.

"All I need is confirmation," Winn said tightly. "And then you can leave. Immediately."

Ivy glanced at him, confused, heart beating too fast.

Confirm what?

Why here?

Why Luca?

Winn gave a quick signal with two fingers. Luca nodded to his men.

The hood was pulled off.

The man’s head snapped back, sweat and blood streaked across his face. One of his eyes was swollen shut, his lips split. He blinked rapidly in the sudden light. Ivy stared—really stared—and then everything inside her froze.

Recognition hit her.

Her lungs collapsed. Her stomach twisted violently. Her fingers trembled in Winn’s grip.

It was him.

It was one of her attackers.

The man who had held her down.

The man who had laughed.

The man whose face she had tried for so long to scrub out of her memory.

Her vision blurred, nausea surging.

Had Winn... had he gone to Luca for help?

Her heart slammed painfully against her ribs. She had only just told him the full details. She had never described the faces. She had never—

But Winn had known. And the only way was that Evans told him. And he had gone to Luca, of all people.

Winn stepped closer to her, his body a shield even now, but his eyes stayed locked on the man in the chair.

"Was he the one who touched you?" Winn asked.

Ivy felt her throat close.

The room spun.

Her knees softened. Winn caught her elbow, steadying her.

"Was. It. Him?" Winn repeated.

"No, but he was there." Ivy answered, breath shuddering out of her.

"You can go. Wait by the car."

"What are you going to do?" Ivy breathed, stepping toward him despite everything in her instincts screaming danger.

"Go!" Winn’s eyes narrowed dangerously on his prey, pupils blown wide. His entire focus was locked on the man tied to the chair, the man whose blood was already drying on the concrete floor. "You recognise her, don’t you?"

The man with the battered, bloodied face lifted his head slowly, trembling. He nodded weakly, fear trembling in every broken line of his body.

Winn crouched down, eye-level with him. "Tell me who sent you," he said, each word slow, "and I will make your death easy."

Ivy slapped a hand over her mouth. Panic shot through her.

"I don’t know," the man cried. Tears mixed with the blood staining his face. "Peter told me he got a job and he needed a partner, that’s all I know. I swear. Please, don’t kill me. I’m begging you."

Winn smiled.

A smile with no soul behind it.

He turned to Luca without a word.

The mob boss pulled out a gun and handed it to Winn.

Ivy’s eyes widened so sharply it hurt. "Winn! No! You cannot do this!"

The gun in his hand gleamed under the white light, and Winn’s fingers wrapped around it.

"I told you to leave," Winn warned.

A warning.

A plea.

A threat.

All at once.

"This isn’t you! Winn! Winn!"

She stepped forward without thinking—toward him, toward the gun, toward the danger—but the guard moved faster, blocking her path, a massive wall of muscle.

"You either leave, Ivy," Winn said, finally turning his eyes to her—dark, hollow, deadly—"or you watch."

The room seemed to tilt.

Her pulse roared in her ears.

Ivy felt the walls closing in around her. She looked at the man tied to the chair.

Then her gaze returned to Winn—the man she loved, the man who made her feel safe, the man who was now moments away from crossing a line he could never come back from.

"Winn... please."

The gun hovered in his hand.

The room held its breath.

The captured man shut his eyes and began to whisper his final prayers—soft, broken words in a language Ivy didn’t recognize.

Winn cocked the gun with a steady, chilling click.

He aimed it directly at the man’s head.

He tuned out Ivy’s cries—her desperate, shaking voice calling his name. Every part of him zeroed in on one thing: his rage.

It was the rage of a man who had held Ivy while she trembled in nightmares, the rage of a father who had lost a child before he even knew he had one, the rage of a man who had failed to protect the only woman he had ever loved.

Winn pulled the trigger.

The sound cracked through the room like lightning tearing open a sky.

(this is to 400 power stones. Thank you guys)