Page 23 of The Afterthought

I leave my new friend in my torture shed and walk to the front of the garage. Briefly, I wave goodbye to a few of the guys before deciding to head into town. I'm sure Knox will be sending someone over to pick up the snake I left behind and take him back to the Cobras. It will be interesting to see if they retaliate against us because of this.

A hot coffee sounds pretty good right about now, and there's only one coffee place in town. I could make it at home, but I'm just really not up for the effort; plus, I think Kai used the last of the milk with his damn cereal addiction.

I park and make my way to the coffee shop, but what I see inside stops me dead in my tracks. Ava is having coffee with Alec. My ex-girlfriend is having fucking coffee with the leader of the Cobras.

Rage consumes me. My blood boils, and it takes everything in me to not rush inside and beat the shit out of him for going anywhere near her. When I see them laughing and smiling, I tighten my fists at my sides. Alec glances out of the coffee shop window and spots me. A sly grin crosses his face. He knows exactly what he's doing and who he's fucking messing with. He wants me to retaliate, but I can't. Knox would kill me if I escalated things over a piece of ass.

She isn't mine; I remind myself. I hate the way she makes me feel. It's more than infuriating not to be in control of your own emotions. Everything was fine without her here, but now that she's back, I have this insane desire to make her mine again.

She stands up from the table and looks upset. He reaches out to grip her wrist, and immediately, I'm subconsciously walking across the street toward the shop. Nobody puts their hands on what's mine. Fuck what I’ve been trying to convince myself. Regardless of whether or not we are together, Avalynn Blake is mine. She has always been mine.

I freeze when she rips her arm from his grasp. Good girl. She starts walking away from him toward the door, but she stops and turns back to him. He reaches into his suit jacket and hands her a business card. I know exactly what he's up to. This fucker is going to offer her a job at Temptations. It will be over my dead body that I allow her to work for him.

They walk out of the coffee shop, and she finally sees me. The two of them stop, and she takes a small step away from him. That's right. You know you're mine even if you don't want to admit it. Fuck. I told myself I wouldn't think like this, but seeing her with him, of all people, makes my skin itch.

"Ava. Come here," I grit out while locking eyes with Alec.

"No. Fuck off, Greyson. I have nothing to say to you." She steps closer to Alec to try and prove a point to me. I close the distance between them and reach out to her, but she moves away before I make contact.

"Did you not understand me telling you to fuck off? Let me spell it out for you. I don't want to see you, talk to you, or be around you. Go away." She tries to wave me off, and anger flashes through me.

"Is there a problem here?" Alec asks.

This piece of shit has the nerve to open his mouth. If it were up to me, I would wrap my fingers around his throat and watch as he takes his last breath. I have to think about my crew, though. I can't kill the leader of the Cobras. Not right now, at least.

"There's no problem. I'm going home." She walks away from us and gets in her car.

I turn to Alec, who has a stupid fucking grin on his face. "Stay the fuck away from her," I grit out.

"Yeah? I don't think I'm going to. She's quite the spitfire. We had a nice little rendezvous in Massachusetts before she came back to town."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Pure rage pulses through me. It's taking everything in me right now not to retaliate.

"You should ask her about it," he says before he laughs and walks away.

You can bet your ass I'm going to ask her about it. I march back to my car, rip the door open, and slam the car in drive. My mind is focused on one thing and one thing only, getting to Ava's house and finding out what the fuck he was talking about.

Chapter 12

Avalynn

I’m completely annoyed as I drive back to my house. Who the fuck does he think he is? One minute, he's telling me to get out of his town; the next, he's trying to tell me what to do. I'm not about to let any man tell me what to do. I've spent too many years on my own to let one man from my past take over my future.

I park in my usual spot across the street from my house and head back inside. There are still a few hours before Chloe comes home from school, and I want to go through some more of my mom's things. I've been putting it off for way too long now.

A few minutes after I'm inside, I'm startled by a loud pounding on my door. For a moment, I let terror flood my body. I don't have any weapons in here to defend myself. My gun is in the glove box of my car. Knives. I grab a knife from the silverware drawer in my kitchen and point it toward the door. I'm not about to let someone scare me.

"AVALYNN BLAKE. OPEN. THE. DOOR. I know you're home."

"Greyson?" I call out.

"Let me in this fucking house, now, or I'll kick the door in," he says while continuing his assault on my door. "One way or another, I'm coming into this house."

"You're fucking insane." I keep the knife in hand and walk to the door, flipping the lock free and stepping back.

He steps inside, anger written all over his face, but he just closes the door and stands there. He doesn't make any effort to walk toward me or say anything. He's just huffing and puffing like a raging bull.

"If this is about the coffee shop, I'm going to stop you right now. You lost the right to have a say in my life seven years ago."

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