Ivy’s pupils blew wide, despair crashing through her all at once.
I was only doing my job.
Is this really how it ends stabbed to death over a payroll dispute?
“Oh my god, the director!”
“Professor, no!”
“Someone call security!
Call an ambulance!”
The room dissolved into chaos.
Hazel threw herself at Gregory, trying to wrestle the shard from his grip.
“Your face you’re bleeding everywhere!
Someone get help, now!”
Gregory had gone completely feral, still driving the shard toward Ivy’s neck like he genuinely meant to take her down with him.
The cut across Ivy’s face ran a thumb’s length, from her forehead across her brow to the corner of her eye, blood pouring freely, turning her features unrecognizable.
The pain roared through her skull loud enough to drown everything else out, and all she had left in her was the instinct to curl protectively around her stomach.
Hazel alone couldn’t hold Gregory back; he was too strong, too far gone and no one else dared step close enough to help.
Just as the shard came down toward Ivy’s throat again, Nathaniel burst through the door.
Ivy.
Something in him nearly broke entirely, her name almost tearing out of him in front of the whole room, her face soaked in blood, that jagged porcelain edge coming at her throat again and again.
Nathaniel’s face went bloodless in an instant, something dark and violent rising behind his eyes.
Chloe grabbed for his arm as he tore across the room.
“Nathaniel, don’t, it’s dangerous!”
“Move.” He shoved her aside without slowing down, hit Gregory with the force of something unstoppable, drove a fist into him hard enough to put him on the floor, and wrenched the shard out of his hand.
Gregory fought back hard enough to slice open Nathaniel’s forearm in the struggle.
Nathaniel didn’t seem to register the pain at all; he drove a boot into Gregory’s chest a second time, radiating enough menace that the entire room froze.
Chloe wanted to intervene and lost her nerve entirely.
For one disorienting second, she thought Nathaniel might actually kill Gregory over this, over her.
He still cares this much.
Marcus arrived just in time and pulled Nathaniel back before it went any further.
“Sir check on Mrs.
Wolfe.
She needs a hospital immediately.
I’ll handle everything here.”
Something in Nathaniel snapped back into focus.
He turned and gathered Ivy into his arms, voice unsteady in a way he clearly wasn’t aware of.
“I’ve got you.
You’re going to be fine.”
He looked composed on the surface, controlled, but his face had gone paper white, and his grip on her arm was tight enough to hurt.
Something in Ivy’s chest constricted.
She could feel, unmistakably, that he was afraid for her.
Three years of marriage.
People weren’t machines they had lungs, hearts, a full range of things they felt whether they meant to or not.
Living beside someone that long didn’t leave a person entirely unmoved.
It made sense that he’d worry.
Or maybe it was just the face again.
Either way not love.
She wasn’t going to let herself believe otherwise.
Watching Nathaniel carry Wren’s face out of that room in front of everyone, Chloe’s jealousy curdled into something uglier.
Wasn’t this a public humiliation, aimed straight at her?
She drifted close to where Gregory was still pinned down and deliberately stepped on his hand.
He howled and thrashed hard enough to throw off both security guards holding him, catching Chloe across the shoulder as he did.
“Nathaniel, help!
He’s trying to kill me!” Chloe went down hard, her forehead cracking against the corner of a table, swelling instantly.
She reached toward Nathaniel, crying, desperate for his attention.
Nathaniel hesitated, a flash of irritation crossing his face.
Before he could respond, Ivy pushed herself out of his arms.
“I’m fine.
Put me down, President Wolfe.”
Something in his expression went cold and hard.
He looked at her bloodied face, pale with pain, and still she’d rather stand on her own than stay in his arms one second longer.
Was she really that unwilling to let him hold her?
Would it really cost her that much to let me carry you?
Chloe, hand pressed against her own bleeding forehead, staggered over to Gregory and kicked him twice, sharp and vicious.
“Financial fraud and assault.
You’re not walking away from either one.”
The room went silent with shock.
Wren Ivy had always been the soft-spoken one, the type to talk her way out of conflict rather than raise a hand.
No one had expected her to have this kind of edge in her at all.
Gregory bared his teeth, spitting curses, ready to lash out again.
Marcus had security haul him off immediately, then shot Chloe a sideways glance.
“Secretary Bennett, next time walk away from danger instead of toward it.
Even a child knows better than to poke at something unhinged.”
Chloe’s face cycled from white to red, and she turned to Nathaniel with an injured, pleading look.
“Nathaniel, he hated me from the start, and then he tried to frame me for everything.
He genuinely wanted to hurt me just now!”
Ivy, steadier now, shot Chloe a cold glance.
“Hazel someone shoved me from behind during the struggle, which is the only reason my face got cut this badly.
Pull the security footage and find whoever it was.”
She turned to Naomi, still visibly shaken.
“Would you take me to the hospital?”
She was pregnant, and this wound was going to need stitches.
Nathaniel coming with her wasn’t an option, not with everything she was trying to keep hidden.
A woman at her side made all of this considerably easier to manage.
Nathaniel’s expression turned openly ugly.
Still this ungrateful.
Does she think I’d force my way into the car with her?
Almost out of spite, he crossed to Chloe instead, voice deliberately gentle.
“Let’s get you to a hospital.”
Chloe lit up, hoping he might finally hold her the way he’d held Ivy but he just watched her, distant, his eyes drifting back toward Ivy the entire time, like he was waiting for some kind of surrender that never came.
“Nathaniel, I feel so dizzy we should go now, I might have a concussion.” Chloe wasn’t about to let the moment slip away, tugging him along, practically clinging to his side.
From start to finish, Ivy never once looked back at either of them, like they’d both stopped existing the second she turned away.
It set something off in Nathaniel completely, and he stormed out, footsteps loud and uneven.
Stubborn.
Reckless.
Completely indifferent to her own safety.
Who in their right mind would keep worrying about someone like that?
“Director…” The room turned toward Ivy with open sympathy, muttering plenty of unflattering things about Chloe under their breath.
Ivy didn’t engage with any of it the pain pulsing through her skull left no room for anything else.
She and Naomi headed straight for Riverside Memorial.
Naomi frowned, confused.
“Ashford General’s closer.
You need this treated fast, or it’s going to scar.”
“Riverside.
We have time.” Ivy touched her own face gently, hissed at the pain, then added, almost mocking herself, “And so what if it scars?”
Without this face the one that looks exactly like Wren’s maybe Nathaniel finally lets me go.
She thought she understood him by now: the pride, the restraint, the quiet contempt he held for anyone standing in for the real thing.
Ever since the night he’d nearly lost control with her, some part of her hadn’t stopped flinching at the memory.
She’d only glimpsed the edge of how far he could go, and it had been enough to send her running the other direction for good.
She wasn’t about to test that line again.
Not with a baby depending on her staying safe.
Half an hour later, by the time they reached Riverside Memorial, the blood on Ivy’s face had dried, half her face swollen and raw, the wound looking even worse under the harsh lighting.
The doctor moved to clean it immediately, frowning at what she found.
“This needs stitches, and it needs them now.
Let’s start with the anesthetic.”
“No.
No anesthesia.” Ivy’s voice came out barely above a whisper, but she held firm.
“Just stitch it.
I can handle it.”