AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When we were stillkids with an idyllic view of the future, Ava always said she wanted to get out of Springfield. We’d have a two-story house together, white picket fence, dog in the backyard… we’d be best friends who shared a house because ten-year-old Ava couldn’t comprehend the idea that she’d be my wife one day.
Ten-year-old Lincoln? I knew. I’ve known since the pretty little girl with pigtails and an impish grin joined my kindergarten class that she was mine. At sixteen, she finally realized what I always expected, giving me her heart, her virginity, and her promise that we would never break up.
At eighteen, she was still determined to get out of Springfield, and we started talking about marriage. About a family. About that same two-story house, with a room for just the two of us, where we could leave the city life behind.
At twenty, I fucked up. I fucked up so bad that I walked out of our apartment and never went back. Ava stayed for a few months, waiting for me to return, and when Icouldn’t, I thought I’d finally done enough to lose the only woman I’d ever love. But while she moved out of the apartment, she never left Springfield.
Like me, our roots are too deep. Sometimes, I think about what I would do if she finally left. Would I sacrifice everything I’ve built over the last fifteen years and follow her, even knowing that I destroyed all we had the night I was calledDevilfor the first time?
As I pull the nondescript black car I use whenever I want to stay under the radar, I know the answer to that. I built my entire empire—from fighting for money, acting as a runner before I created the Sinners Syndicate, turning Jimmy’s into the Devil’s Playground—in the delusional hope that, one day, I might be good enough to beg Ava for a second chance.
There isn’t a fucking thing I wouldn’t do for this woman. If staying in the shadows, spying on her from the darkness, torturing myself by watching her date unworthy fuckers while I obsessed over her from just outside of her window, it didn’t matter that I was suffering if Ava was safe.
She moved on as much as she could. While I was working over my competition, she went to college and got a respectable job as a first-grade teacher at Springfield Elementary. I traded my shitty apartment for the penthouse at Paradise Suites, and she scrimped and saved until she was able to
She still lives there today. Alone for now, since her last serious relationship ended about five years ago. She’s had a couple of flings since—and it’s taken every last bit of my resolve not to interfere—but, as far as I can tell, she’s single these days.
Especially since she just killed one of her exes.
That’s what I got out of her. In between gasps of air and half-sobs, Ava called me because she actually fired the gun I sent for her protection when she first moved into this house. Part of her fear had to do with me. Sweet, innocent thing, she actually thought I’d send her a pistol that could be traced back to Lincoln Crewes. She shot it, but what if the gun was in my name?
I couldn’t care less about that. Any serials have been removed from all guns that passes through the syndicate, but what had me speeding from the West Side of Springfield to the southern border is the realization that my Ava was in a position where she felt like she had to shoot to kill a man, ex or not.
I didn’t ask her why she did it. At the time, it didn’t matter. He was dead, Ava shot him, and he could’ve been the fucking Pope and I’d believe that she has a good reason to.
Now, as I fling open the driver’s side door, climbing out of the car before easing it shut with my palm, I’m furious that Ava was in danger—and I wasn’t there to protect her.
I know I can’t always be. I got a business to run, the syndicate I’m responsible for, and it’s not like Ava has any idea that I’ve kept tabs on her for longer than any sane man would. But that’s the thing. I’mnotsane. When it comes to Ava Monroe, I never have been.
It’s quarter to midnight. The street is empty, a few lampposts dotting the residential area. Fireflies flicker in the patches of darkness. My hands curl into fists at my side as a memory slaps me upside the head.
There was a small grassy field located in a lot between the apartment building we both lived in when we were kids and the skid row line-up with our favorite corner store, the 24-hour topless bar, liquor store, and laundromat. Ava’s mom never wanted her to go past the lot, and with a little imagination, it was the closest thing we had to a park.
In the Julys of our childhood, that was the only spot in all of downtown Springfield where you’d see the faint green glow of the bugs winking on and off. There aren’t any on the West Side, but seeing them on a muggy summer night like tonight…
I give my head a rough jerk and, stepping onto the curb, I turn right toward Ava’s house.
THREE
IT’S ME
LINCOLN
It’s the only one with a light on in the living room. Even if I didn’t know which of the quaint, ranch-style houses were hers, it would have been easy to pick it out. It seems like the rest of the neighborhood is asleep.
Good. She was terrified someone heard the gunshot, that one of her nosy neighbors would’ve called the cops, but she forgot that she still lives in Springfield. We don’t rely on the cops unless, like me, we can use them.
And if any report did come in, Burns will handle it. I’m not worried about that. Not worried about the missing cruiser, either. Of course I beat him here. My leadfoot pressed down on the gas, I beat my fastest time across town by at least ten minutes.
There are two cars in the drive. The tiny white car is Ava’s. I recognize the flashy red one, too. Her most recent lover was a smarmy mechanic named Joseph Maglione, also known as Joey. At thirty-four, a year younger than Ava and I, he lives in a place on the East End.
When I had Tanner run him, nothing popped, though I didn’t like how he was an East Ender. That’s Damien’s territory, and I kept a closer eye on their relationship than the dentist she dated and the fellow teacher I actually thought she might marry.
It didn’t last. After three months, they fizzled out, and the tightness in my chest whenever I knew Ava was involved with another man seemed to ease up a little.
Tonight? I might have yanked my tie off, tossing it in the back seat of my car despite leaving my suit jacket on in the muggy, summer heat, but I feel like I’m being fuckingsqueezed.
I missed something. That much is obvious as I cross her front yard in big steps, eager to reach her. Whatever happened tonight, I missed something and Ava was in danger.
