 <p>I ended up pulling directly from the database and using a where statement.</p> <pre><code>return _db.Items .Where(a =&gt; a.ItemPayments.Any(b =&gt; b.ItemPaymentSplits.Any(c =&gt; c.YearSetupId == yearSetupId))) .GroupBy(a =&gt; yearSetupId) </code></pre>