It’s Friday again.
Time is going and I’m getting anxious, but I’ve managed to smooth things over with Pa by inviting Dmitri and Yuri to the fundraiser. Pa liked that I did that.
It provided a cushion for the situation while I wait to hear from Gibbs. I’m anxious as fuck, but I’m still holding off doing anything or jumping to conclusions until I hear from him.
I got home early today to work on one of my old cars. While my brothers like bikes, I’m into cars, although I own several bikes as well. I felt like I needed some nonsexual distraction today.
I’ve been hard at work at changing some of the parts on the engine of my Mustang for the last two hours.
I’m so distracted I don’t see Ava walk into the garage. It’s her waving her hand at me that gets my attention.
I’m crazy and possibly blind if I can focus on a car when she’s standing there in front of me wearing those tight shorts and I didn’t see her. My cock hardens just from the sight.
She’s got the shorts, and she added a tank top that does the job intended to show off her tits.
“Baby, you didn’t go to work dressed like that, did you?” I snap, looking her over.
She raises her brows. “No, I just got back and changed. Are you going to start telling me what I can and can’t wear to work?”
“You can’t wear that. That sort of getup is for me only. Like fuck am I going to have you parading around Chicago looking like that.”
She gives me an incredulous glare, but when her eyes drop to my chest and scan my bare chest, I see the thing that makes me want her. Her own want and desire for me.
“Come here,” I demand, and she comes closer. She’s obviously out here to see me for something, but I want to be inside her. I slam down the hood of the car, pick her up, and set her on top of it.
“Vincent—” she begins, but I stop her next words with a kiss as I dive headfirst into trouble. Fuck, she tastes so damn good.
She kisses me back, but then she pulls away and slips off the hood before I can get to her.
“What the fuck?”
“Vincent… I need to talk to you,” she says with more insistence. There’s a tremor of fear in her voice that brings reality back to the forefront of my mind.
“What is it, Bellezza?”
“I got the job,” she replies, and I feel like an asshole when that terrified look reaches her eyes, the same as when I first met her.
“That’s good.”
“Yeah, but it means …” Her voice trails off.
“What?” I want her to ask me.
“I’d need to leave for Florida in two weeks and stay there for three months. That’s what it means. I wondered if maybe … maybe you could tell me when…” Her voice trails off.
“The debt will be repaid.” I say that more as a statement than a question. She nods, and I can see that fear overpowering the want she has. She’s scared I’ll take away her second love.
“I wondered if maybe you’d let me go, and I could come back after.”
I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like her. So protective of her father that she’s willing to do that to make good on the repayment.
I won’t be a monster with her. “No,” I answer, but it’s not what she thinks. The crushed look on her face gets to me though. I reach out and touch her beautiful face and lift her jaw. “Two weeks. You’ll stay with me for two more weeks, and that’s it.”
Her lips part in pure surprise, and she blows out a ragged breath. “Really? It’s two million dollars, though.”
I don’t want to think about that part, and when I think of the situation, I could allow her to go now if I’m allowing her to leave in two weeks.
Part of me can’t. The same part that was the stubborn prick that couldn’t give her an end date in the first place. I have something I want though. The stubborn side of me wants it. It wants to keep her, keep her for myself and do anything I want to her.
“I know. Two weeks, Ava. That means you are still mine until then.”
The blush that flushes down her elegant neck is a tell that she wants me too.
“Thank you.”
“I still get to do anything I want to you.”
She steps forward and presses her dainty hands to my chest. “We should go upstairs.”
“Yeah, we should.”
We go upstairs, and this time, I take her to my bed.
***
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Gibbs says.
He lowers to sit down in the chair opposite my desk.
“No worries. I appreciate your work,” I tell him. It’s late, really late, bordering midnight. Ava fell asleep long ago.
The thing about the underground is that it never sleeps, and lucky for me, Gibbs is the kind of man to make house calls at any hour. We’re in my office at home, and the only people around are the guards.
The fact he’s here is not actually that good. He’s here about Mark, not the Bratva guys. He hasn’t found anything on them yet.
Fucking Mark… I don’t want to hear more shit about him, not when I can’t wrap my head around what it is I’m feeling for his daughter.
“What have you got for me, Gibbs?”
“I found some very interesting things on this employee of yours. I’m gonna say that when it takes me a long time to find info and I don’t find everything, it means there’s something well hidden.”
Fucking hell. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I found some things, and the things I found suggest there’s more. He had the standard access to your business accounts you gave him, but he was also able to hack into your personal securities account in Italy and Switzerland.”
My damn mouth drops open. “What the fuck are you saying to me? Mark hacked?”
“He hacked but didn’t take anything. What stood out though was the way he did it. It’s only signature to a few hackers I’ve heard of. And that’s no one in this hemisphere. And in all seriousness, if they are on this side of the planet, they’re guarded and kept by the best people.”
“Fuck.”
“That’s not all, boss.”
There’s more even though he didn’t find everything? “What?”
“Mark changed his name ten years ago to what it is now. As to what it was before, I don’t know, and that’s enough to make me suspicious. There’re not a lot of things that can get a man to change his name in such a fashion. No trace of the past suggests something to definitely hide. In this case, it’s who he is. Who he truly is.”
“God, this isn’t happening.”
“It really does seem like he just lost his mind trying to get money to fund his drug habits, and he would have robbed you blind if he wanted to. By doing all that, though, he revealed himself,” Gibbs surmises.
“Shit, I always have people checked out before they work for me.”
“Vincent, I appreciate that, and I’m sure your checks are thorough, but they’re not like mine. I can keep looking if you want. This guy has secrets, mark my word. The question is whether you want to find them out or not.”
Secrets…
For some reason, Ava’s scar comes to my mind. The cigarette burn scar. I’ve tried to think it was anything other, but I know what I’m looking at is what I know it to be.
Did Mark hurt her? Was that what he meant by rough life?
No… I don’t think he would. The way he bawled his soul out when I took her is not a man who would do that. Then again, how do I know? I’ve seen this man change like the wind, and he’s sneaky too. There is nothing I should trust about him.
He could have been abusive years ago. He could have been something else to the man I’ve been seeing these last few weeks who was worried sick for his daughter.
I’ve been protective of her. That thing that changed between us pushed me this way, and I hope like hell he didn’t hurt her.
There’s something he’s hiding, and that means… she could have secrets too. She would if she lied about the cigarette burn.
I want to know what’s going on. My plate is full, but I want to know.
“Keep looking. I want you to keep looking.” I sure as fuck do because Mark isn’t who he says he is.
He wasn’t the man he led me to believe he was.
So, who is he?
Or more importantly, what was he?