Chapter 25—Ava

“These sheets smell of jasmine and freesia,” Gigi bubbled. She carried a stack of pink and purple bedsheets with little flowers embroidered against the silk. Her face brightened as she looked at me. On a different day, I might have looked more cheerful. Especially since those were my favorite colors and the pattern had that boho chic edge I loved.

I was at Luc and Amelia’s place. Claudius had brought me here very early this morning.

Amelia offered a supportive smile.

The two had come to check on me, probably because I’d been up here in this room all day.

I hadn’t eaten much either. In actual fact, I’d barely eaten anything at all. A nibble at a bread roll here and there was not a meal. I should know. I was a chef.

“Thank you.” I got up from the chair at the window and attempted at pleasantry.

Gigi put the sheets down on the bed. “I’m gonna make cookies. Chocolate chip with the gooey center, and we can watch a chick flick fest while the guys are busy.”

“That sounds great. Thanks.” I was really trying. Trying to hold it together and act like I was fine when inside I was worried sick about Claudius.

He hadn’t called me all day, and when I’d called him, his phone had gone to his voicemail. Nice.

While Gigi bounced away with a skip in her step, Amelia moved over to the bed and sat on the edge. I walked around and sat too, twisting so I could face her.

“Gigi’s always like that,” Amelia stated, bringing her graceful hands together.

You could tell from her every movement that she was a dancer. Apart from the fact that she was incredibly beautiful, she reminded me of one of those ballerina figurines on a jewelry box.

I’d taken an instant liking to her weeks ago when we first met, and I liked her even more for brushing aside the embarrassing first meeting we had.

All the time we’d talked that day, she and Luc fascinated me. It was the fact that Luc got married to a woman like her, had a son, and did something he was good at.

The difference in Luc was evident. It was also clear that the reason for that difference was the woman who sat before me.

“Cheerful?” I offered, realizing I was just staring and thinking.

“Yeah, it’s her way. I hate it sometimes, but really, you need people like that to keep the balance, or you will go crazy. For sure.” She chuckled, and her light brown eyes sparkled.

“My best friend, Kelly, is like that.” Kelly wasn’t as eccentric as Gigi, but she had her moments. The minute I got here this morning, Gigi had presented me with a pouch of protection crystals that she said she’d blessed personally. It was all much to Claudius’ irritation.

Kelly would have made food. She’d make cookies, a little like Gigi was doing now.

“How are you holding up, Ava?” Amelia asked.

I was glad she didn’t ask me if I was okay.

I shook my head because I didn’t know what to say.

“Well, from here you look like you’re about to implode. I’m all ears if you want to talk.”

Talk.

Boy, did I ever want to talk, but I didn’t know what I wanted to say, or if I could say what I did think of saying to her.

The attack at the restaurant had been awful. Awful enough to make me head for the hills.

A third was coming. I didn’t know what it was, but it was coming.

I was safe here, supposedly, but I kind of questioned that.

Luc was tending to his bonsai trees in the green house with his friends, Amelia was a ballet teacher, and then there was Gigi. A witch.

If I’d told Kelly all that when she’d called to check on me earlier, I was pretty certain she’d tell me I’d be safer with her grandmother, who was a nurse in WWII.

But if Claudius thought I’d be safe here with his family, I trusted him.

Claudius…

God. I just wished I knew where he was and what he was doing.

Why won’t he speak to me?

“He’ll leave me when this is over. I think. I think Claudius will leave me.” Must have been my heart taking over my mind again because I didn’t even register what I’d said until it was too late.

“Did he say that?” Amelia looked me over with concern.

“Pretty much. He thinks it’s not safe for me to be around him.” What he’d said last night pretty much summed up what would happen next. Plus, he didn’t need to say much. I knew him. I knew what he thought. I knew what his actions would be.

“What will you do if that happens?”

It was an odd question, but I liked the tact she showed.

“I don’t know,” I replied with an edge to my voice.

“What do you want to do?”

I wanted to do what I always wanted to do, and that was to be with him. “Sometimes what we want isn’t the right thing.”

I could have been killed yesterday. Or at the very least taken. I could have been taken again and used as some… I don’t even know. Something, anything to make an example out of me.

“That’s very true. But often people confuse it. They confuse it with right and wrong and never look at the middle ground in between. That slight give where there are possibilities. Possibilities and opportunities that could be molded into something else. Something you wouldn’t see if you simply thought of what you wanted as right or wrong.”

I was listening. She definitely got my attention.

“How? How do you get that middle ground when everything just feels like a disaster waiting to happen?”

“You look at what you want outside of what’s happening to you. Take it apart.”

I didn’t exactly think our situations were similar, but there were some similarities. Claudius had given me some background on Amelia. He didn’t go into much depth, but he told me that she was Raphael Rossi’s daughter.

So, sure, I had questions, maybe too personal to ask.

“When you met Luc, did you know about his past?” There, I’d said it and was surprised that she laughed.

“Ava, when I met Luc, he was a mobster,” she informed me, grabbing my attention further. She sighed, but she was still smiling. “I guess maybe he was the kind of guy I absolutely did not want to end up with because, as you must know, Raphael Rossi, the old boss, was my father. I was a cop, and Luc was a mobster.”

Okay… now I was shocked to the core.

Amelia used to be a cop.

Claudius did not tell me that part, probably because he hated cops. I knew that much. It was a pretty big thing to leave out though. That his sister-in-law used to be one.

That was the first shock, but as I looked at her, I couldn’t help but really look at her. I was never one to judge or anything like that, but she didn’t look like cop material at all. We were practically the same size. Petite. And she was really dainty like.

She laughed again. “You’re looking at me like I’m nuts.”

“No, I’m just shocked.” I caught myself before my foot could continue living in my mouth. “I mean surprised.”

“It’s a very long story, which I’m sure I’ll tell you soon.”

Despair tugged at my heart as everything that had happened flicked through my mind like one of those flick books. Actually, it all felt just like that, and now I was at the end seeing the full picture.

“I have a long story too.” I nodded. “Did Luc… did he change for you?”

“At first, that was what he wanted to do, and of course, that blew me away. Completely. But then I realized very quickly that if he changed for me, he wouldn’t be the same guy. That change wouldn’t be real. There would be some part of him that would miss his old life, and the risk there was that eventually, he could blame me for taking it away from him. I didn’t want that because to me, it wouldn’t be fair.”

That made a lot of sense. It did, and she was right. It was like trying to look a certain way to please someone else. That wouldn’t be being true to yourself at all.

“So, what happened?”

“He changed for himself first.” She lifted her shoulders slightly.

“What if he hadn’t changed?” That was the important question for me. “What if your life was waiting for him every day wondering if he was dead or alive, or if he was going around killing people?” Now, I was spilling my heart.

“Luc was never like that, and neither is Claudius. It’s important you understand that. I know there are some really bad crime families, but don’t expect mindless killing from either of those guys.”

In my mind’s eye, I kept seeing Claudius shooting those guys. The first guy who’d held a gun to me. He would have taken me away. The other guys had fired shots at Claudius. Did I expect him to just stand there and be shot? Or wait to be killed? That was stupid.

Amelia straightened and continued. “Luc and Claudius aren’t the same, but they’re both the best guys I know. Luc promised me once that he’d always do the right thing. He promised me that he would do that. Doing the right thing may seem wrong in other people’s eyes, but it’s having the ability to make a judgment call when you need to. So, in answer to your question, if Luc hadn’t changed, if he were still in the business, yes, I would still be with him. That’s me. There was… no one else for me. I chose him.”

“Thank you. Thanks for sharing that with me.”

“Anytime. I guess we’re similar in some sort of way. So, if I can help, let me know.”

“I wonder if it would always be like this?”

“I don’t think it’s the case of it being always like this, but when there’s trouble, it’s big. My father was a mafia boss, and for seventeen years, I knew nothing about the business. He kept my mother and me out of the picture. My mom, of course, knew what my father did for a living and mostly, they made it work. I’m certain there would have been things happening behind the scene, but it’s unpredictable. I can’t sugarcoat that. Even now, for me, I have to accept that while Luc may not be involved anymore, trouble will sometimes come knocking on our door.”

“Like me.” I chuckled and pressed my lips together.

“No.” The corners of her lips arched. “Not like you. I mean like whatever’s going on. So, hey, I’m not completely out of the woods, but I knew I wouldn’t be. It’s not okay, but I deal with whatever I have to. But that’s life in general.”

Talking helped.

The tension that had taken up residence in my forehead seemed to loosen. However, I was still there on square one.

Talking led me right back to where I’d been. With that question on my mind.

What do I want?

Claudius was right. His motives were completely correct and equal to that of someone who was showing their love for me.

Me being here was protection. Him out there sorting out whatever it was to sort out was protection too. Then what if he did sort it all out and left me? Then I’d have a somewhat normal life. Time would pass. Another seven years. Another ten maybe, and maybe time would lessen the sting of love.

It didn’t before though. In ten years, I’d loved exactly one person. One man.

He said loving him would get me killed.

Being without him, though, felt like the same thing.

So, what did I choose?

Claudius “This is fucking torture,” Dante said under his breath.

I agreed, but I didn’t say anything. We’d gotten to Four Peaks Quarry over an hour ago so we could be ready for six. It was six thirty now. That meeting should have taken place half an hour ago.

I just hoped our visit wasn’t for nothing.

I hated stakeouts, and the worst kind of stakeouts were the types when you had too much shit on your mind.

Gio had the audacity to nudge me in my shoulder. I whirled around to face him, snarling.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“You thought we were the rats.” He glared at me.

I could tell he’d had it on his mind. Dante too.

“I don’t want to talk about that.” I frowned and looked away, focusing back on the damn area we were watching. The cabins below us surrounded a lake. In the winter, it would freeze over and have that Christmas card vibe with people ice skating and playing in the snow.

“We go way back, Claudius,” Gio continued. “It was us three before Alex and Jude joined. We were boys before you labelled us The Four.”

I looked back to him and Dante. Dante was on that same old bike he’d had customized a million times. It was one similar to mine.

Gio was more old school and loved something more versatile. Same skill set though. They were both as crazy as I was.

“I hate it,” I said, baring my teeth. I couldn’t help the edge that had taken over my existence. There was just too much for one person to deal with. This morning, though, it had become evident that either Alex and/or Jude were fucking working against me.

Fuck.

“What?” Gio shrugged. “Boss, there’re many things you hate. I have a list somewhere. Not on me.”

Dante chuckled. “He hates Mondays because he thinks it’s a Marxist concept, and he hates blue M&M’s because they’re pointless.”

“Stop making fun out of me.” I pointed at them both.

“Or you’ll kill us?” Gio taunted, knowing I wouldn’t. “Come on, tell us what’s the part of the shit that’s going on that you hate. The part about Alex and Jude? Or is it the girl? The girl you’ve been cautious with for the last seven years?”

“You don’t know what happened.” It was stupid of me to state the obvious. Of course, they didn’t know what happened.

“So, enlighten me.”

Dante and Gio had come onto the scenes just before Ava and I had broken up, and they’d never met her until after I was married to Marissa.

They never saw how I was when I was with Ava.

Alex and Jude had joined the business a few months later, so again got me in the height of my short-lived marriage to Marissa.

I’d never confessed this to anyone, but all four guys helped me in one way or another to cope with losing Ava, then Henry, and yes, even Marissa. Although at that point, I wasn’t sure if one of them had betrayed me. For years, I’d wanted to believe that it couldn’t be that. It was in my nature to be suspicious of everyone, but for them, friends, I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to believe that somehow, Goliath had found out where Marissa was because he was who he was. Every time, though, my gut told me it wasn’t that.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped.

“You know I got the feeling once, a long time back when we weren’t quite friends yet.” Gio gave me an arrogant smile.

“What feeling was that?”

“About Ava. It was the way you looked at her. You were with her before Marissa, weren’t you?”

I just stared at him. Maybe it wasn’t that hard to figure out. “It’s not important.”

“Why not? We’re up here watching day turn to night. Might as well talk, right?”

“I’m breaking things off with her after this.”

“Why?” Dante asked, narrowing his eyes. “She looks like a girl you could keep. Why in the fuck would you do that? And what would you do? Go back to bar whores?”

They wouldn’t understand. What had happened to me didn’t happen to them. I would never be disrespectful and say their losses weren’t like mine. What I meant was, what happened to me was different because I’d caused it.

That was the big difference. No one could excuse that oh-so-important fact. Sure, Joe Manello got me mixed up with a bastard like Goliath, but I got me in that mess.

When he’d offered me that job, I should have declined it. It was that simple.

“She doesn’t belong in our world. It’s danger in every sense of the word. I had no business bringing her into the darkness again.”

Dante stood up and squared off with me. “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

“I’m not Luc, Dante. I’m a mobster. That’s me. Sure, I would do anything for her, but if you’re going to tell me to be Luc, then I wouldn’t be me.”

“Jesus Christ, what the hell?” Dante smirked. “I wasn’t going to say that. Luc’s a real badass, but you two are different to each other. That’s not the issue here. Has it ever crossed your mind that she must have known what she was getting herself into went she hooked up with you?”

I didn’t want to think about that. My mind was made up. It was just as I’d said to Ava. If you love someone, you have to know when to let them go.

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“She might not think so,” Gio added. “She saw the darkness our world could have more than once and didn’t run from you.”

Fucking Gio and his wisdom. There. That was one thing I’d never factored in. It still didn’t matter though.

He laughed when I frowned. “Asshole.”

“And you’re a fucktard, boss. Also, while we’re name-calling and being jerks, you should have just asked us straight if we were the rats. What you goin’ to do about Alex and Jude?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking. That’s the part I hate. I don’t want to be right.”

“It’s too coincidental for you not to be right,” Dante added. “I don’t know if it’s the both of them though. That’s the part that bothers me.”

“I think it’s fucking Alex. Jude has better common sense than that. Alex is an opportunist.” Gio scowled.

“Hey,” Dante cut in before I could answer. He motioned below. “Looks like we got movement.”

I turned to see two black sedans pull up in the complex parking lot. The cars stood out against the other family-type car like station wagons and hatchback Vauxhalls that had parked around.

I held up my binoculars to get a closer look at our new arrivals.

Dante was right. Barabbas stepped out of the back of the car. The driver, his cousin Freddo, out of the front. On the left was my dear friend Joe Manello with Cousin Corey, arm bandaged up.

On the right side of the back though was someone who made my blood freeze.

Goliath.

Goliath!

I dropped the binoculars, and my hands reached down to grab my guns on instinct like I was programmed to do that. Reach for my guns and end him.

End the fucking bastard before he could draw another breath.

I charged in motion like a bull ready for action. Ready to kill.

But hands held me back. Two very strong arms held me back.

Dante and Gio.

“Don’t fucking do it, Claudius,” Dante snarled.

“Let me go,” I growled.

Gio tightened his grip on me. “Claudius, we are vastly outnumbered. Look.”

I’d been looking, but all I could see was Goliath with that smug expression on his face. Dressed in one of those hooded coats with fur around the collar and a mohawk lining the middle of his big head. Tall as fuck.

With my eyes on him and my soul telling me to end him because it had been my mission for so long, what I didn’t see was the envoy of sedans that had pulled up. Ten more cars, and out of them stepped some of the worst people I knew of.

More Antonellas, Manellos, and fuck, even a few Salvatores.

Those were people above me.

I owned Chicago, but next to them, I was a small fish flapping against an ocean of sharks.

It was them and their bodyguards. Men who looked like my Four, just more of them.

I didn’t care. I wanted Goliath.

“Claudius, they will end you before you get a bullet in his head. One of him amongst a sea of mobsters. And we just have our guns. We’re not prepared.”

“This is my chance.” I wrenched myself free and pointed my guns at them.

Both of them looked at me, with their hands down at their sides but palms up and out to show me they would never reach for their weapons against me.

“You know he’s here. We know where to find him now. Let’s do it properly.” Gio nodded. “You can’t hit him from here, and if you charge down guns blazing, you’re dead. Us too because we won’t just stand here and let them kill you.”

My shoulders slumped. I whirled around to face the scene before me. Goliath was laughing as he talked it up with Freddo.

They walked into the biggest cabin.

Goliath, the killer I’d been looking for, for the last seven years just walked into a cabin, and I allowed him to.