AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Never fucking again, I promise as I lift my fist, rapping on the door.
She must have been waiting for me because, the second the echo dies, I hear her sweet murmur come through the door.
“Who is it?”
Ava…
“It’s me.”
Over the pulse in my skull, I hear the scrape of the lock, the turn of the knob, a soft gasp as she pulls in the door, and then—
My heart breaks. No. That’s not right. The stone inside of my chest has been nothing but fault lines that splintered and spread from the moment I had to turn my back on this woman. Having her look up at me with hope on her face and tears glistening her eyes, it fuckingshatters.
“Link. You came.”
Of course I did.
“Are you going to let me in?”
Her gaze darts over my shoulder, looking at the quiet road. After a moment, she sighs, then nods. “Uh, yeah. Of course. Please.”
Ava backs away, leaving me enough room to maneuver my bulk through her doorway.
It stinks in here. Of blood and death and shit, with a hint of fear and the acrid stink of vomit. It wouldn’t take someone in my line of business to know something bad went down in here, even without the corpse in the middle of her living room.
Jesus Christ. All I got out of Ava was that she used the gun I bought her to shoot an intruder in her house, and that while she swore it was self-defense—not that I would’ve cared regardless—I’m beginning to think it was a little more than that.
Vividly aware of her quickened breaths behind me, I force myself to look away from her for the moment. She called me for help. She didn’t call me because she finally,finallyrealized that she’s the one that got away, or that I’ve spent fifteen years waiting for the goddamn phone I’ve carried around with me to ring. So she called me Link on the phone before. It’s not Link she needs—it’s Devil, and I know how to be him far better than the type of man who can take this beautiful, distraught creature and calm her down.
Tugging my suit jacket around me, I allow my gaze to flicker over the room. I’ve only seen it from outside the window—though I’ve been working with Tanner to find a way to get cameras in here like I had in her last important—but it has Ava’s stamp on ever bit of it. From the cozy furniture to the oak coffee table in the middle of the room, the TV mounted on the wall, and the lush carpet covered in blood and brains, it’s hers, and I’m viscerally angry that the blood and brains and dead bastard cooling on the floor has ruined it for her.
He’s on his back, half his face blown away. There’s a towel next to him, spread out on the carpet, but he’s like the ugliest fucking fixture in the middle of the room.
I’ve seen my share of DBs. Been responsible for most of them, too. A little blood and guts does nothing to affect me, but when Ava moves just enough that she’s not only in my line of sight, but standing beneath the light, my whole body goes tight.
Her hair is mussed. She never leaves this house with a single strand out of place, and even when she’s spending the day in, she prides herself on her hair. Her t-shirt is hanging off one shoulder. Her tiny shorts are twisted.
I look at her face. Deceptively innocent, but still the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever known—whether at twenty, or thirty-five—I know every inch of her intimately. From the freckle over her lip to the way her right eyelashes are a shade darker than her left, IknowAva.
And my Ava doesn’t have red marks dotting her cheeks like that. Four of them, one on her left cheek, three on the other, someone squeezed her face hard enough to leave an imprint behind. By morning, they’ll be bruises, but the red stands out to me now.
An intruder, huh? What exactly did he break into her house to do? Pretty single woman who attracts the worst sort of darkness in a man… whose clothing is disheveled, and who had to pull a trigger to get him to stop?
Almost as reflex, I slip my hand beneath my suit jacket, patting the Sig in my holster, making sure I still have it at the ready.
She killed him, but if she hadn’t? I would have.
And I would have drawn it out a lot longer than a single merciful bullet to the face.
Something must have passed over mine because Ava draws a few steps away from me, even more frightened than before.
I don’t want her to regret calling me. Pulling the expressionless mask I’m known for onto my features, I move past her, getting a better look at the man she killed.
My gaze is drawn to the tattoo winking up at me.
\Fuck!
How did I miss it before?
