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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?”
“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?
