Page 57 of White Rabbit

“Ava?” I ask, with a hitch in my voice.

“The reason you are a free man my friend. She stole the evidence we needed from her father’s personal files.” He wags his eyebrows and laughs as he folds his arms. “She holds a grudge since he got her fired from this place. And she’s scary when she wants to be.”

“She was fired?”

“You didn’t think she’d just leave you, did you?” Julian says with a teasing smile. This man missed nothing and knew everything. It’s why he was as formidable as he was charming.

Ava had betrayed her own father for me.

She’d chosen me once again.

Chapter Twenty-Six

AVA

Cato had told me to just wait. To be patient. Hadn’t I spent all of my life waiting? What were a few more days, weeks, months? I could do it. I would do it—for him.

While I waited, I didn't know what to do with myself. There was no way I was going to reach out to Tiffany, and I wasn’t ready to talk to Orla yet. There was still so much hurt there, trust that had splintered, and I didn’t know if I’d ever get past it.

That’s how I’d found myself back at SixTen, drinking coffee and eating cake with a mafia queen. After two days of moping, Rosie had invited me over for a baking session, which comprised of getting baked with Cato and making chocolate brownies.

We laughed until we cried, and not just because we were high.

We laughed because Rosie was wearing a chocolate smeared T-shirt that said ‘Baking—because murder is wrong’ while she recounted a story about a Cartel member who tried to attack her in her own diner a few weeks ago. She’d cut his nose off for the impertinence of it.

We laughed because Cato talked about trying to expand Nicco’s horizons, which led to them being caught semi-naked in the confessional booth of The Family church. Nicco’s mama had prayed extra hard for them that day.

We laughed because Julian told me about the time Rosie throat-punched Creed over a croissant. And how Eli had then tried to shave her head in retaliation.

We laughed, because otherwise I’d cry.

This was the real WunderLnd, The Family I was now part of, but that didn’t mean I can forget my actual family.

Sleep was a thing of the past, as my conflicted feelings would hit me in waves. Laying in the dark, I’d remember something good from my childhood or a time where I thought I was happy and the guilt would weigh on me. It was like a heaviness in the pit of my stomach, threatening to bring me to my knees.

They were my blood. My brother and father. The people who were supposed to love and protect me, but instead they’d crushed me. Without my mother to protect me, they’d worn me down. Family dinners just made me feel sick and tired of being on the outside looking in, especially when everything started collapsing. But they were still my family.

Creed might want to kill them.

That’s how they dealt with things, and I needed to work through how I felt about that. Do I just stay silent and keep out of it? Should I plead for leniency? Do I ask to be kept in the dark and pretend that I’m ignorant of their fates?

It was getting too much, and I had no idea what was in store. Cato texted me daily, checking in and reminding me I just needed to hold out a little longer. Julian promised me that Eli would be released soon, but soon is such a vague concept.

That’s what had driven me to go for a run this morning, another one of Cato’s texts triggering my need to scream and pound my frustration out on the trail along the docks. Running until my chest hurt and my legs ached, I’d finally found my way back to my apartment.

The florist who rents the ground floor from me, Lyra, comes out to greet me as I go past the front door.

“Morning, Ava.” She smiles warmly. A young boy with golden cherub curls and large mossy green eyes peeks out from behind her flowy shirt shyly. “Jesse saw you leave for your run and wanted to give you this.”

She nudges the five-year-old forward, and he hands me a bunch of daisies, mixed with white chrysanthemums and gypsophila, tied up with a yellow ribbon.

“Thank you, they’re beautiful.” Holding them to my chest, I inhale the summery scent. When was the last time someone bought me flowers? Waving to them as I round the building to my door, I say, “Have a nice day both.”

Letting myself into my apartment, I kick off my trainers and head straight for my kitchen cabinets to dig out a vase for my pretty flowers. Placing them on my windowsill, it isn’t until I catch something in the reflection of my microwave that I realize there’s someone sitting on my couch.

Spinning on my heel, I almost scream until my brain registers the man sitting there, smirking with his legs spread and his arms draped over the back of my sofa like he owns the place.

“Jesus Christ! You almost gave me a heart attack…” I half-shriek, placing a hand over my chest, feeling the galloping beat beneath my palm. “How did you even get in here? No…don’t tell me.”

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