Page 31 of My Merciless Don

“Damn, I love her confidence. Where the hell did you meet her?”

I chortled in remembrance. “Well, see, I had this niece. She came to stay with us for a while and joined the local school. I was dropping her at school one day when this hurricane of a woman came storming up to my car to tell me that I was in the wrong lane. And who did I think I was, yada yada…” I paused, then laughed, shaking my head. “I didn’t know what she was so angry about then either. Anyway, turned out that Sadie, my niece, had taken it upon herself to sit on the floor of the back seat in search of something she’d dropped and so it looked like I was in the school lane without a kid to drop off. Big misunderstanding.”

“Was she embarrassed?”

“A little. She apparently also felt guilty so she offered to buy me a coffee and a donut.”

“I’m sensing a theme.” Audry said.

I nodded fondly, “Yeah, breakfast was our thing. Anyway, I thought we were just playing. A little flirting, enjoying the conversation, basking in her sunshine, soon she’d realize who I was and that would be that.”

“But it wasn’t.” Audry said.

I shook my head. “No. It wasn’t.” I pursed my lips, my heart beating too hard. “She just accepted everything about me.”

We were quiet for a while.

Audry let out a huge sigh. “And then she died…”

I shook my head, anger jolting through me. “No. She didn’t die. She was killed. Yegorov and I, we had our issues and things could get ugly from time to time. But we kept it professional. Our rivalry was confined to business. He brought that rivalry into my home. Maybe he meant to kill me, but he ended up killing my future. I intend to make him pay.”

She nodded, her face grim. “I can help you with that.”

“So you said.”

“I meant it.”

“Good.” I looked one more time at Amy’s grave and shook my head. “It’s so strange, being here with you, and her. Seeing her face on you has been… a trip.”

I nodded. “I kinda got that when you called her name while you were fucking me.”

I closed my eyes. There it was. The elephant in the room. “Yeah, about that…”

She raised a hand. “No need to explain.” She looked down at the picture. “I get it.”

“Oh, you get it? Could you explain it to me, because sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

Audry laughed bleakly. “Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe you are. Maybe we both are. Like for real, what the fuck?”

That made me laugh. “Yeah, what the fuck? Can someone explain? God?”

She sighed. “Look we can totally just put what happened behind us, finish up with our business and go our separate ways. If that's what you want, I'll respect it. I want to say that Amy was lucky to have found you, but it really sounds like you were the lucky one and I feel regret that I will never get to meet her.”

“She really was truly awesome. And as for this situation,” I said pointing from her to me, “I guess we'll figure it out as we go along. But I agree with you that we should put what happened behind us. If I really think about it, the resemblance between you and her is very shallow. Your personalities are totally different, so I guess I just need to get it together.”

“Yeah, I mean I definitely don't cook, and thus I don't hum while I'm cooking. Also catch me dead directing traffic in a school zone.”

I grinned, “Hey, don't knock it till you've tried it. My girl used to love to volunteer for shit. It used to drive me crazy at the time, but…” my brows drew together as a lump choked me.

“But now you’d give anything to watch her volunteering.” Audry finished for me.

I nodded slowly. “Yeah.” I rasped.

She reached out and squeezed my hand before dropping it like it burned her. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

AUDRY

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