Ava just got back from seeing Mark.
I haven’t been able to get all that stuff about Mark out of my head since I spoke to Gibbs.
I wondered if she knows what the secrets are, and what hers are too.
This isn’t anything to do with me. Digging around like this is the last thing I should be doing.
But if I’m honest, this part—the extra looking around I told Gibbs to do—is mostly because of her. I want to make sure she’s safe.
I guess too I want to make sure I cover all bases and make sure Mark didn’t have some hidden agenda.
There are so many fucking possibilities. With all the shit that can happen to people like me and my family, I’m surprised I haven’t gone crazy with paranoia, believing everyone is against me.
Ava’s sitting across from me at the dinner table. She looks pretty in her little navy summer dress. The chefs have just brought out the food, and once again, they’ve done a great job.
I wanted to take her to The Dark Odyssey again tonight, but it doesn’t feel like the night I wanted it to be with her. We’ll go tomorrow.
This news of Mark hasn’t changed what I want to do to her.
I’ll also be dropping in to see Mark tomorrow. The best way to get answers is to hear it from the horse’s mouth. I think I’m entitled to know something since it was me he stole from.
Feeling my gaze on her, she looks my way after the chef pours her a drink and leaves.
“Hey,” she says. “What? You’re looking at me.”
“I’m just thinking. Your father okay?” I ask, and the light leaves her eyes. It’s replaced with caution.
“He’s okay. He’ll be going to counselling starting Monday,” she answers.
I narrow my eyes at her and give her a curious stare. “Ava… what did your father do for work before he worked for me?” The question throws her.
She just stares at me and blinks. “He worked at the supermarket.”
That’s what it says on record. My files say he worked there for over fifteen years, as does the reference, but I think that’s a lie.
“Why? What’s happened? Has something more happened?”
“No… it’s nothing. I’m just curious.” I won’t tell her about it. This is where I’m drawing the line to exclude her. She would have been eighteen when Mark started working for me. Maybe she didn’t know.
Marguerite brings Timothy in. He’s fussing. He’s had his last tooth come in this week, and he’s been miserable.
“I’m sorry to disturb you guys,” Marguerite says. “I think I’m going to stay over tonight. I do not have the heart to leave with him so upset.”
God, it’s times like this when I’m grateful for her. I’m tense and wound up, and not knowing what to do with him would make me feel worse.
“Are you sure, Marguerite?” I ask.
“Yes. I’m just going to get my room ready.”
“I’ll take him for a few minutes.” I reach for him, and she hands him to me.
“I’ll be back down in five minutes,” she says and saunters away.
Ava watches me with Timothy. I’ve liked how she looks at us. I know she wants to know what happened to Sorcha. It’s understandable that she’d have questions after the incident with the room upstairs and the video.
I think it was obvious that Sorcha died.
Timothy rests his head on my chest and starts mumbling.
“You’re so good with him,” she states.
“Am I?”
“You are.” The question is in her voice. Curiosity over what happened to my child’s mother. I’m grateful that she hasn’t asked me yet. “You definitely do a good job.”
At that compliment, Timothy lifts his head and looks at her. The little tyke starts reaching for her and cries.
Instinct makes her reach back, but then she stops. She looks to me though.
“Vincent, I know you have a thing about me touching your child, but I swear to God I won’t hurt him.”
“It’s not that.” It was never that. “You’re… the first woman I’ve been with since …” God, I can’t say it. “Outside family and the people who work for us, you’d be the first to hold him.”
“Well, maybe that’s no bad thing seeing as how he seems to like me. It’s going to be hard to be around a seriously cute baby for the next couple of weeks and not hold him.”
She stands up and makes her way over to us, and when she stretches out her hands, I hand Timothy over to her. It feels like a big deal for me. So does watching her hold him. I’m having a hard enough time as it is separating what I feel for this doll, and this just made it worse.
Instantly, he stops crying and takes a lock of her hair.
“You’re a little pumpkin belly,” Ava coos, fussing over him, and the little devil starts giggling then laughing when she tickles his tummy.
“Jesus, he’s actually smiling.”
“He is so cute,” she bubbles.
Marguerite comes back and seems happy to see Ava holding Timothy. She gives me a look of awe and nods her head.
“That’s the first I’ve seen him smile all week,” Marguerite says.
“Well, I hope he continues to smile.” Ava hands Timothy to her, and I feel genuine relief when he doesn’t start crying.
“Wonderful. Well, it’s bedtime. Good night, all,” Marguerite says.
“Good night,” I reply while Ava smiles wide.
She returns to her chair and looks to me. “See, he was fine.”
Maybe… but I’m not.
I rest my elbow on the table and look at her.
“I know you want to ask, so just ask.”
“What?”
“You want to know what happened to her. My wife.” I make it sound like I’m okay with her asking, but if I were, she would have had the story by now.
“I would never want to pry like that. I know I pried enough that night.”
“Why’d you go up there?”
A dimness appears in her eyes that catches my attention. “I wanted… I wanted to see if there was something nicer about you. Something or some part of you that might not think of me as a whore.”
I don’t think I could possibly feel worse. My shoulders slump. “Ava, you’re not a whore.”
“No? Wasn’t it you I gave myself to? I knew what I was doing when I made the offer. I must have.” Her hands start to shake.
“I never thought of you as a whore. That day I got mad, I got worked up like that because I don’t want anybody to see that side of me,” I confess.
She stares at me for a long time, and I wonder what she’s thinking.
“What happened to her, Vincent?”
I glance down at the table and pull in a deep breath. “She… was killed. The same man who killed my eldest brother killed her too.”
Her full lips part as sorrow washes over her face. “Oh, Vincent…” she breathes. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay… um, she was killed, and I wasn’t there to save her. I’ve felt guilt over that, but maybe saving her would have been me leaving her alone in the first place. She was the good girl and shouldn’t have been with a criminal like me. Getting married to the mob signed her death certificate. I did.” It’s coming out now, all that I feel and have felt.
She stands up and comes over to me.
Her beautiful eyes holds mine, and she lowers to sit in my lap, touching my jaw.
“No, you didn’t. It’s not your fault.”
Her telling me that, just like her words that day about the ballerinas, reaches somewhere inside me that wants to believe that. It wants to believe that it wasn’t my fault so I can move on.
Selfishness works its way through me, making me want to cling to her words and believe them.
I look at her now and think of the question I teased her with at The Dark Odyssey.
Why does she like me? She does, and I like her too.
It’s that fascination over how she makes me feel. I forget everything when she touches me.
As she lowers her mouth to my lips, it feels like we’re those people we talked about in the fantasy again, like I really could be that guy. The guy I pretended to be the other day when I went to the coffeehouse.
I slip my hand behind her head, angling her face so I can deepen the kiss and taste her desire for me.
I’m glad the door is closed because I’m taking her right here.
I get up with her and bunch her top so tightly her breasts squeeze together.
“I want you now. Take your clothes off.” I can’t hold back the need coursing through me.
She takes her clothes off layer by layer until she’s naked before me, naked and perfect.
“Is this what you want?”
“You know I do.” I’ve never spoken with such desire for her, never allowed her to see me and see how much I want her.
I indulge myself by reaching to cup her pussy. She’s wet and ready to be fucked. I like sliding my fingers into her. I like pulling down that wall she placed up so she wouldn’t feel for me.
“You’re wet,” I say, pulling out of her to lick of her juices coating my fingers.
“Yes.” That’s the first time she’s admitted that.
I turn her around and bend her over the table. While I watch her submit to me and obey me, I think of how I feel. Her body isn’t enough anymore.
I look at her and want everything.
But… she leaves in two weeks, and I know when she walks through that door, that will be it.
That will be all.
I don’t know what scares the shit out of me more: the fact that she found a way into my cold dead heart, or the fact that I’ve gone past wanting her.
***
Mark knows to be wary of me.
I give him credit for it.
I walk into his apartment when he opens the door, and like I own the place, I invite myself into his living room, where I want to talk to him, and sit down.
There’re bottles of alcohol on the table. I look from them to him and arch my brows.
“I’m cleaning out the cupboards, getting rid of shit,” he explains. “Those were the ones I hid so Ava wouldn’t see them when she came around.”
I admit that I’m amazed he’s so upfront with me. Maybe it’s his tactic to soften my heart over the money.
I’m not exactly here about that though.
“I need to talk to you, Mark,” I begin, and he nods.
He takes a seat across from me. He looks better than he did the last time we saw each other. His face has filled out a lot more, and it doesn’t have that sullen look. What’s the same is the caution in his eyes and demeanor.
“Of course. I expected your visit. I… don’t remember anything more than I told you last time, Vincent.” He shakes his head, and I bite down hard on my back teeth.
I’d preempted this shit. That’s why I got Gibbs. I should be somewhat calmer that Gibbs didn’t find more than he did in terms of anything that could put the family or business at risk. What grates me is that it feels like Mark hasn’t paid for his wrongdoings. That’s what I don’t like.
He hasn’t paid. Ava did. Even if I want her, there will always be the fact that she was a payment for a debt.
He gives me an uneasy look when I don’t answer, so I decide to move on to the actual thing I’m here for.
“You know what’s amazing, Mark?” I begin.
“What?”
“That you did all you did and managed to hide yourself so well. It’s amazing how you could also manage to hack a personal securities account you shouldn’t know about, which means you would have had to get into my personal securities file to get access to it. The thing is, the only person who knows the password to all that is me. You gonna tell me that’s not amazing?”
The fucker looks like he’s been caught in the trap he set for himself.
“I …” he attempts and stops.
The look he gives me tells all. Fucker. This motherfucker is a hundred percent hiding something, and the look of him now, like he’s ready to shit his pants, heightens my curiosity.
“You what? I’ll tell you what, you certainly have some type of special skills there that could have made you hirable in a lot of places.”
“I didn’t mean to, Vincent. I don’t remember. I don’t remember doing any of it. Just what I told you.”
I look him over and realize he’s telling the truth about not remembering. What I figured is this: the shit made him so high that remnants of a former lifestyle, or something he’d learned, came out to play, and not any old remnants either.
“I’m curious how a guy like you could do all that, yet when I hired you, you’d supposedly worked at a supermarket stacking shelves for a bulk of your life. I took pity on you and gave you a job, got you trained too, but looks like you didn’t need it. Or maybe you picked up a few tricks on the way to screw me over.”
“No, Vincent. No.” He shakes his head.
“No?”
“No, I swear it, on my girl’s life, I swear it. She’s all I have, and I’d do anything for her. Please believe me when I tell you I didn’t set out to screw with you. I messed up and fucked up. I don’t even remember doing any of that stuff.” He shakes his head rigorously, as if it will make me believe him more. “I didn’t know what the hell I was doing at the time. I just needed money.”
There’s so much shit on the table on this guy, he should be fish food, yet he lives and breathes before me. Christian’s right. Ava has done a number on me, worked some whammy to call the hounds off her old man. I’m looking at him now, and once again, the thought of her is holding me back.
I hope this is it, that there’s nothing more. Mark was an actual threat to the family that should have been eliminated. It’s conflicting for me when I think of her.
I feel for her. I do, but… what happens when duty has to take over? What do I do about the conflict in my heart?
I want to poke and prod. He knows I have more questions. I want to know who he really is. Gibbs’ words are playing in my mind. It’s unsettling. I hate feeling distrust in any kind of form. I hate it.
“Mark, you better pray there’s nothing more. I hope for your sake there’s nothing more to find,” I say.
His hands tremble, and I almost feel bad for him. It must be some fucked-up shit when you do all he did and can’t remember any of it. Fucking hell.
“Please, don’t take it out on Ava.” His eyes plead with me.
“I won’t.” Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. “She’s paid for enough, don’t you think?”
I rise to my feet as a tear slides down his cheek.
I leave him. There’s nothing more to talk about.
This ends here. I won’t come back again.
We’re done, unless if I find something that will bring me back here.
I left him alive. It’s mercy and compassion.
Even if I don’t feel it.