Chapter 53 Alexander's Story
Chapter 53 Alexander's Story
IVY’S POV
The rain drums steady on the windows like a soft warning.
Like it knows something’s coming.
Something I’ve been trying to bury.
I sit on the edge of the bed, curled up in one of Alexander’s shirts, drenched in his scent, swimming in fabric like I’m trying to hide inside him.
He’s across the room, sitting in that leather chair like a fucking king, legs wide, whiskey untouched in his palm, eyes locked on me.
He hasn’t said a word. But I can feel him.
He's watching, he's waiting. Holding back that dangerous, possessive storm he carries in his chest.
I look at him. He's my stepfather. My… everything.
And I can’t help but wonder how we got here.
How two broken people like us found something that feels like home in each other.
“My mom would’ve hated this,” I whisper with a tight smile. “Or maybe she wouldn’t have. Maybe she saw it coming before I did.”
Alexander’s brow lifts slightly, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“She used to tell me I was too brave for my own good,” I continue. “She said I’d grow up wild and impossible to love.”
“You’re not impossible to love,” he says quietly.
My throat clenches.
“She was the strong one, you know,” I whisper, voice shaking. “Even when she was sick. Even when she was dying… she never stopped trying to protect me.”
“I know,” Alexander says, his voice low. Heavy. “She was fire.”
I look at him again, something shifting in my chest.
“You never talk about how you two met.”
He leans back, exhales slow through his nose.
Then… nods.
“She was bleeding when I found her,” he says finally, eyes fixed on the glass in his hand. “On the side of the road. Wearing a torn-up dress, limping like her body wanted to give out.”
My heart stops.
“She looked at me like I was death walking toward her,” he murmurs, a distant smile touching his lips. “Didn’t know she was right.”
“You were still a hitman,” I breathe.
He nods once. “One foot in hell. Had just finished a job. Wasn’t planning to save anyone.”
I stay quiet, letting him speak. His voice is soft but sharp, like a blade wrapped in velvet.
“She told me what he did to her. Your father,” he says, eyes flashing. “Told me how he beat her. How she stayed for you.”
His voice darkens.
“I went to his house the next morning. Put a gun to his head, made him sign the divorce papers while he pissed himself. Told him if he so much as breathed in her direction again, I’d bury him in pieces.”
A silence falls between us. The kind that wraps around your throat.
“I didn’t love her,” he says finally, and my breath catches. “But I respected her. Liked her. She was fierce as fuck, even when she was broken. And she didn’t care what I’d done. She just wanted a way out without being shamed. So I married her.”
“You never touched her,” I whisper, already knowing.
He shakes his head. “She was already sick. I tried everything, Baby Girl. Paid for every doctor, every treatment, every chance I could find. But it didn’t matter.”
His voice cracks.
“On her deathbed, she made me promise to protect you like you were mine.”
I can’t hold it in anymore.
Tears stream down my face, hot and fast. Because now I understand.
Why he’s always looked at me like that.
Why he’s always been so damn patient, and angry, and possessive all at once.
He wasn’t just keeping a promise.
He was falling. So was I.
“You didn’t just protect me,” I whisper, crawling toward him on the bed. “You ruined me for anyone else.”
He sets the glass down carefully and comes to me, kneeling at the edge of the mattress.
His hands are on me in seconds—rough, reverent.
His eyes blaze with that deadly intensity I crave.
“You were never a promise,” he growls. “You’re a fucking obsession, Baby Girl.”
He pulls me into him like he can’t stand the space between us anymore.
And in his arms, in that breathless quiet where love and ruin blur together—I let myself be held.
Not because I need saving. But because this is what he needs too.
To Be Continued...