Gio took me to the hospital.
That was where everyone was.
Yesterday I was taken to the hospital along with Marcus who had a few broken ribs.
I was physically okay, but he had to stay in.
Claudius took me back to his place and I slept and slept, drained from all that had happened to me.
I couldn’t believe I’d made it out alive.
When I woke up earlier I found Gio downstairs keeping watch, just in case.
The nurse directed us to a private room where Marcus was staying. I saw Luc and Dante first. Then Amelia. She was sitting on the edge of the bed with a bowl of soup, trying to feed Marcus.
He looked awful with all the bruises on his face.
“Pet, I swear to God I’ll throw the damn soup through the window. I hate soup,” Marcus complained, shaking his head.
“Marcus, I’m not leaving until you eat the soup.”
“Lucian, your wife is driving me crazy.”
“Pa, just drink it.” That was Claudius.
I saw him now as Gio and I stepped inside.
All eyes turned to us, but I couldn’t look away from Claudius. I thought Marcus looked bad, but Claudius’ face looked far worse than yesterday. Today there was hardly an area of his face that didn’t have a bruise or swelling.
“Are you okay, pet?” Marcus asked me, drawing my attention back to him.
I nodded. “Are you? I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
He reached his hand to me, and I took it. “I’ve had worse. I kind of needed some action. Things were too quiet.”
“They were.” I tried to play along, but it was hard.
I looked to Claudius when Marcus released my hand, and he came over to me.
“We’ll be back,” he told everyone and slipped his arm around me, ushering me back outside.
We stopped in the corridor near the turn to go to the cardiothoracic department.
We stopped and looked at each other. I had so much I wanted to say to him. I just didn’t know where to begin. How to begin.
And… I noticed he seemed to be having the same problem. To me that meant one thing. It meant he must have been on the same damn train of thought he’d been on this whole time, and I’d be damn well damned if I was going to live like this for another ten years. I could see it. It would be me trying to get over him the way I had for the last ten years. Me growing into my forties trying to search for the completion I felt with him and not finding it.
It would be me spending every minute of every day thinking about him. The same way I had for the last ten years.
When I looked at him, I saw past the bruises, and the person who stood before me was the guy he used to be. Again I saw him, the guy who’d tried to get my attention ten years ago by asking me to make him a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich. The guy he was before he got the cross tattooed on his cheek.
“You look terrible,” I said and pursed my lips together.
“Yeah. I know.”
“Worse than yesterday, and you looked bad then. If there were a patch on your cheek that wasn’t beaten, I would slap you too.” I placed my hands on my hips.
He closed his eyes, opened them again, and leaned his head to the side, allowing his dark locks to drift over his shoulder.
“Why, Ava? Why do you want to slap me?”
“I don’t know how you could ask me that, as if you wouldn’t deserve it. First, you left me with Gio, you should have woken me so I could be here like everyone else. Then there were the last few days. You didn’t answer any of my calls and left me with your brother, and now… look at you. You’re standing in front of me probably trying to figure out how to cut me loose, while I’m here loving you so damn much.”
His expression softened, and I hoped to God that what I saw in his eyes was a spark and not something I imagined.
“I’m not leaving,” I added. “I won’t leave you alone. You can tell me whatever you want, but I will follow you around forever if I must until you see that we’re supposed to be together. I’m going to be selfish, and for once I’m going to care about me. I won’t leave you alone, Claudius. In my head, I’m still that person waiting for you. I’m still waiting for you to do something. Whatever that is. Something more than looking at me like I’m crazy, and—”
He stopped my rant with a kiss. He reached for me, slipping his hand behind my head, and captured my mouth with his. A force comparable to an electrical charge washed over me and shook me from the inside out.
“Marry me,” he whispered against my lips. At least that’s what I thought he said.
Right now, I could have been imagining all sorts of things, especially after that kiss.
“What?” I asked nervously.
He smoothed his hands over my cheek, then stepped back and reached into his pocket for the little blue velvet pouch he’d showed me weeks ago. The one that contained my engagement ring.
As if I weren’t shocked enough, he went and shocked me further by dropping to both knees and reaching for my hand.
“Ava De Luca, my Angel Doll.” Claudius looked up at me with the deepest conviction and love I’d ever seen. “Sorry isn’t a strong enough word to express all I feel for what I put you and your family through. I don’t know when I’ll stop feeling this way, but I can’t live without you. I tried so hard, but I can’t do it. I’m selfish, and I should leave you alone, but I can’t. I can’t live without you. So, please… just be mine. Marry me and be my wife. Please, marry me. I promise to love you more than I always have and protect you. Just say yes.”
All I could do was stare, but I wouldn’t waste time staring for longer than I should, shaken by the shock of his words.
“Yes.” I nodded.
“Yes?” he asked as if my answer should be a surprise to him.
“Absolutely yes.”
I’d never seen him look so nervous. His hands even shook as he took out the ring and slipped it on my finger. It felt like it had always belonged there.
He stood up and kissed me again.
When we pulled apart, we both saw Luc and Amelia standing at the end of the corridor. Luc had his arm around Amelia, and she rested against his chest beaming at us. They both were.
They didn’t say anything. They just smiled, then they turned and walked in the opposite direction.
“Let’s go home, Doll.” Claudius took my hands and ran his finger over my ring.
I leaned into him and smiled. “Yes.”
Home.
Home for me had always felt like the place I was whenever I was with him.
It was a good place to live.
Claudius My body still felt broken.
The sting of the truth still felt like venomous poison working itself into my soul.
I was still trying to get to grips on all that happened. All of it.
Jude, Alex, everyone and everything.
I wished I could have taken the time to savor the excitement a normal guy would feel after getting engaged to the woman of his dreams.
I wished I could, but confliction still filled me from the rawness of everything.
I tried to push it aside when I was around Ava. I did it too when everyone was congratulating us, and I guess I did when I took a moment to acknowledge that I was finally happy. I had my angel. I lived to see her again, and I got the girl.
We had a second chance to do what we wanted to do, and she wanted to be with me. That was a door I’d never expected to open again.
However the confliction was still there, and I was sure everyone could feel it in their own way. They knew Jude, and those Like Ava who’d just met him understood how I must have felt.
I’d left her about an hour ago, and I went to the park across from the garage. I just needed to think about what I was going to do next.
I sat on the hill now looking over the city lights against the night sky. Jude was at the forefront of my mind. The depth of his level of treachery spanned over the last eight years. Right back to Henry.
His greed caused me so much pain. His greed caused me to carry the guilt of Marissa’s death. No, I would never stop blaming myself for what happened to her. It was just knowing the truth didn’t exactly help either.
It didn’t have to be that way. He didn’t need to involve her.
The man was an opportunist who had wormed his way into every bad situation that had affected our lives and made it a hundred times worse. Working for Joe Manello.
Then there was Alex.
No one had seen, nor heard from him. We didn’t know where he went or if we’d see him again.
A week had passed since the incident took place. A week of us searching for him, and scouring the place for Joe, Barabbas, or anyone else that had been part of the crew.
We’d come up with nothing. I had Cora check everywhere before she went back to LA. Joe, Barabbas and company had become ghosts again. Disappearing and going off grid like nothing ever happened.
Footsteps sounded behind me, and I turned on instinct, ready to whip out my gun, but stilled when I saw Alex.
He stood paces away and held my gaze for a few seconds then came over and lowered next to me. I faced him, looking at the sullen expression on his face. He looked awful. Unkempt and emotionally battered.
“I’m sorry.” I spoke first. Really I wanted to say thanks for saving me, but that felt wrong.
“I suspected him, Claudius. For a while. Right back to Henry. It was the way he and his family were taken. The timing and everything. Someone who knew him had to have known all those details. Same with Marissa. Only a few people knew about the safe house. The dead giveaway for me was him taking Ava. Goliath didn’t know Marissa had a twin, and he for damn certain wouldn’t have known where to find her, unless if someone told him. I just didn’t want to believe it was true. That it was Jude. He was my brother. Close, like you and Luc, but clearly, that was just in my mind.”
“I didn’t want to believe it either.” I offered. “Even at the last second, before I shot him.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t say something sooner. Maybe things could be different. Maybe not. Maybe this was how it was supposed to be. A person working both sides like that can never survive.”
“What do you want to do?” I was well aware that I no longer had The Four anymore.
“I don’t know.”
“You saved me and you saved my father. I couldn’t have done what you did.”
“We all saw that,” said a voice from behind us.
It was Dante. Gio was with him.
Alex smirked. “Did you now?”
“Yes, and you win hands down. None of us can do what you did.” Gio nodded with a lopsided grin.
“We came to find you, boss,” Dante explained. “Ava told us you went out.”
“It’s a bonus you’re here,” Gio said to Alex.
A still silence drifted between us.
“What now. What happens now?” Dante asked, shuffling his weight. “It all feels weird.”
It did feel weird.
“Maybe if we stick together, the weirdness will go,” Alex suggested. We all looked at him. “But next time, if I give any of you cause to not trust me, you have to ask me.” He looked at Dante when he said that.
“Yeah, message received,” Dante answered.
“Me too,” I added.
“And me.” Gio nodded.
“I’m not Jude. I’m sorry for his betrayal. It’s going to take me awhile to get past it, and to… grieve. But you trust me.”
I felt worse.
“It’s on me,” I told him.
He shook his head. “No, no more of that, Claudius. It’s over. It’s as simple as that. If I’m staying, then I want to move forward and be the badass guys we set out to be. Leave the past in the past.”
It was advice I’d take too. I needed to. Leaving the past behind was something I had to do if only for Ava’s sake. There wasn’t a damn thing I wouldn’t do for her.
Not a damn thing. Finally, she was mine, and I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of my life with her.
“Leave the past in the past,” I reiterated.
“Agreed. And The Four still ride?” Dante asked. He looked at each of us. “There’s four of us. We could still be The Four. We just have our leader in the mix.”
I looked at them all and nodded.
“Yes. I like that.” The Four did still ride.
I’d always been a part of the crew.