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They died in a fire in Russia, but they’re here in the States under fake names?
And Marks’ not her father.
I blink several times trying to process everything and think back to the night I first met Ava. I think of the way she sacrificed herself for Mark.
My stomach churns. The secrets are spilling before my feet, and I’m seeing the truth unfold itself. What will it reveal?
Ava acted like someone who’d been through shit. Like someone who’d been abused, and I don’t want to say that out loud because if I do, it will make my worries real.
“Thank you, Gibbs,” I tell him.
“I think that might be all, Boss. The rest is on you. But if I can do anything else, let me know,” he offers.
I nod my appreciation, and he leaves us.
I turn my attention to Salvatore. “What am I doing, Salvatore? What am I digging for? She leaves in a few days, and then I won’t see her again. We all go back to our lives, and it will be like we never met.”
He gives me a long stare. “You love her.”
I open my mouth to protest, but I find I can’t. The last time we spoke about Ava, he told me I liked her. Now it’s gone to love. He’s jumped from A to Z, and I can’t protest and tell him he’s wrong.
I stand up and walk over to the long French windows.
“Vincent… it’s okay to love her.”
“No,” I answer, turning back to face him. “I can’t. I can’t go down that road with anybody. I know I can’t even use the excuse of it being too soon after Sorcha anymore because it’s not. That’s bullshit, and I won’t sell it to you. I just can’t love anyone like that ever again. Our lives are dangerous.”
“What about me? You telling me I can’t love my wife, or the other guys can’t love their dolls?” he asks.
“It’s different.”
“How?” he barks, raising his voice. He looks furious with me, and he has every right to be.
“You never lost your babygirl, Salvatore.” He’ll know what I mean. The same way Sorcha and I met as children, he met Mimi the same. In fact, they’ve known each other longer. She met him when she was four. She was always his. “You didn’t have to hold her cold dead body in your arms and accept there was nothing you could do to bring her back. You didn’t have to do that. None of you have gone through that, and I don’t want you to. I can’t bring someone else into my world and have the same thing happen. I can’t do it. And not to Ava.”
He gets up and walks over to me. “Brother… I hear you. I hear you loud and clear, but you can’t tell me it’s right to end it just like that. You’re digging because you want to know what happened to her, and you got a piece of the puzzle. People who move like that carry secrets. Deep, dark ones. I won’t tell you what to do. Only your heart can do that. Just know that I’m here for you when you need me.”
My phone buzzes in my back pocket, and I reach for it. It’s Pierbo.
“Yes,” I say into the phone.
“Boss, I… I lost Ava.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ava
I can’t believe I made it this far.
Good. I can do this.
I can.
So far, it’s been fine. Although I’ve just been on the subway.
Nothing would have happened to me there. I would have been ahead of the game, and no one would have been able to track me down. If they were tracking, they would have come to a dead end because I threw my phone away when I entered the subway station.
That doesn’t mean people won’t be able to find me.
