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Have I really divulged all this? To a fucking girl I barely know?
“I’ve not told anyone about what happened,” I say. “Even my brothers have heard only the bare minimum. I don’t let anyone know anything about my past.”
“Are you telling me all this because you trust me?” Ava asks.
I glare.
“I find it hard to trust anyone,” I whisper. “You have to trust no one in my profession.”
“Answer my question, Damon,” she replies. “Do you trust me or not?”
God, she looks beautiful in the moonlight.
“Yes,” I say. “I trust you. And I don’t know why. I don’t even know why I said all that just then.”
Ava leans back in her chair and continues to stare at me.
“Have you ever got satisfaction from killing?” she asks.
“A big question, Ava. Do you really want to hear my answer?”
“I want you to be honest,” she says softly.
“Yes,” I reply. “And no.”
“I saw something in your eyes tonight in that park,” she whispers. “A coldness. You looked at Luke and... I don’t know what you had behind your eyes. It was beyond anything I’d ever seen before. Have you killed men with your bare hands and that knife?”
I nod slowly. “I was going to deal with Luke the same way I dealt with the men who conspired to kill my godfather.”
“Until I stepped in?” she asks.
“Until you stepped in, yes.”
“What would you do if you ever found the man who did it? The man who killed your godfather?”
“He’s probably dead by now,” I reply. “And not by my hand. That’s probably why I haven’t found him. Either that or he went into hiding. Found a simple life and kept away from the business for years and years.”
“What would you do if you found out he was still alive?” Ava asks.
She’s really digging in deep tonight.
And, for some reason, I want to answer every single one of her questions.
“Well, then. If I were to find him, he wouldn’t be alive much longer. I am a man of my word, and I’ve promised myself I would enact my revenge come hell or high water.”
“Oh.”
“You did something to me tonight in the park,” I confess to the girl, my voice trembling. “You...stoppedme. No one has ever had that power before. I am not a good man, Ava. I’ve committed countless wrongs, things that I can’t honestly say I regret. They were undeniably terrible, and I have become a truly bad man. But you, Ava, you’ve become the one shining beacon in my life, the single source of light amid this abyss of darkness. Without you, I am utterly adrift.”
“You’re adrift?”
I look at Ava so that she totally knows my intentions.
“Come closer,” I say. “Lean closer.”
“Why, Damon?” she asks.
“I have an overwhelming urge to kiss you right now, Ava Matson.”
