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I want to believe her, but there’s something in my gut screaming that it isn’t true. That there is no clear reason why Killian had felt that it was necessary to insert himself into my life and completely rip it all apart other than power and money. All’s fair where the mob is concerned, I guess.
“I’m sure your brother or father have done some things similar, haven’t they?” she continues. “Maybe worse. Who knows? It isn’t like they would’ve told you about it.”
I shake my head. “Neither of them has done the things that Killian has done, Ava.”
“I’m sure you believe that, but I would argue that you have never seen the full picture before. Kidnapping, murdering, torture, it’s all part of how we mafia run our shit. Something that, might I remind you, you wanted to be a part of not too long ago.”
I want to argue with her and tell her that she’s wrong. Then again, how much of that was me telling her that she saw things differently than me? How much was it me convincing myself in order to protect my own worldview?
Sure, I knew that being involved in my father’s business would lead me down some dark roads, but had I ever anticipated that they were roads that looked similar to this one.
I don’t know anymore.
“It must be easy for you.” I look down at my arm, pulling the ice pack away from my injury. “For all of those things you mentioned to come so naturally to you. You must make a good underboss with that kind of attitude.”
“I know,” is all Ava chimes back with.
I sit back slowly and test putting weight on my arm by pressing it against the table, happily surprised when it doesn’t hurt as badly as it had when I’d first hobbled in here. I tuck the ice pack back over my arm though, not wanting the swelling to come back now that I’d moved it around.
“If I promise to leave and never come back to Chicago, to get lost somewhere in Europe and never contract my family again… would Killian let me leave?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
I want to groan in frustration.
Ava crosses her arms. “We know you’re still loyal to your family. So those empty words of you never contacting them again are kind of bullshit. Plus, even if that were true and you did leave your family behind, Killian has taken a liking to you. So, you wouldn’t get very far before he found you and dragged you back.”
I feel my shoulders slump. Was I loyal to my family at this point? I’m not so sure. I want to be.
She keeps saying that Killian has taken a liking to me or that Killian’s fondness of me would lead me right back to him, but how true can that actually be? Perhaps Ava only thinks she knows how Killian works and is blowing small details out of proportion.
The door to Ava’s lab opens just then, ‘The Dark Prince’ himself stepping into the room as if we’d summoned him by simply speaking his name.
I feel dread pool into my stomach the moment he lays his eyes on me. His attention immediately zeroes in on the ice pack that I have resting against my arm.
“What happened?”
His tone isn’t upset, just demanding, a little confused. I hold my breath, not really knowing what to say to not dig my own grave deeper than it already is.
Ava turns to look at him over her shoulder. “Her cat tried to escape. Jumped over the fence. Nella tried to go after him and fell.”
My eyes dart back and forth between the cousins, both of them having some kind of unreadable battle going on that only they could see. Finally, Killian’s face breaks out into a smile, a chuckle leaving his lips that dissolves the tension in the room immediately.
His attention zeroes in on me again.
“You really tried running in broad daylight?” His footsteps are slow, purposeful, as he crosses the room to get to me. “I suppose that means I need a bigger patrol unit guarding the outside of the house from now on.”
Damn it.
He crouches next to my chair, putting a hand on my ice pack and removing it. Long fingers prod gently at the area, while dark eyes watch the change in my expression.
“You could’ve broken something.”
His words are uncharacteristically soft, matching the way his fingers dance along my bruised arm. He flattens his palm and rubs the area gently, almost like a massage, and it feels better than having an ice pack on it.
“I had to try,” is what I manage to mumble back after a long pause.
This is the first time we’ve spoken since the knife incident. It feels weird speaking so casually after I’d spat such vile things at him the last time we spoke. I’m surprised that he hadn’t taken any of it to heart—if he has, he’s being a champ about getting over it.
