Page 33 of Cruel Promise

I place a blanket over the mirror.

I stop by Ava’s door but don’t knock. I could just enter. I’ve done it before. But something stops me, and I continue walking.

It’s all a moot point anyway because Ava is in the kitchen. I stop at the sight of her. Her beauty is almost breathtaking. I’m sure she had men clamoring for her attention, but she was just too innocent to notice. When I looked into her and saw she attended Yale, I had some of my men do research. There’s a boy she was friends with. Jason. Lucky for him, it seemed they were only friends, or I would’ve had to kill him.

“Nikolai,” she says, no emotion in her voice for me to detect. She’s nursing a cup of …

“Tea?” I ask.

“I like it better than coffee. My mom—” She stops and doesn’t finish her sentence.

I turn my gaze away and head over to the coffee pot. Claude’s coffee is some of the best I’ve ever tasted. I’ve never been able to make it as good.

“Why are you out of your room?” I ask. Claude has already made breakfast and left. He won’t return until later to make dinner, which means Ava and I are alone. We’ve been alone together before, but that was in the bedroom. This is the kitchen in the light of the day. It makes everything feel … more on display.

I keep my back to her as she replies. “I just didn’t feel like staying in there all day.”

“Good. You have free rein of the house, you know. Except for my bedroom.” I turn to her. “Don’t go in there without my permission.”

“Why not?”

“We all have our secrets, Ava.” I watch her as I take a sip of coffee.

She stares down at the counter.

“You’re wearing your ring,” I notice, nodding toward her hand.

She runs her other hand over it. “I figured you wouldn’t want me flushing this one down the toilet either.”

“You’d be right.”

“Can we discuss my mom again? Going to?—”

“No,” I cut her off. “Not right now. I have a meeting to get to.” I take the cup with me as I head to the door, and then I pause. “But … maybe later.”

If I truly wanted Ava to like me, I would take her to her mother’s apartment so she could get closure. I would throw a funeral for her mother since I’m indirectly responsible for her death.

But if I truly allowed Ava to like me, then I would have to drop my walls. I would have to let her in.

My scar has made me a statue. Guarded and made of stone.

I’m not ready to tear the walls down—if I’ll ever be ready.

I’m not a good man, I remind myself. I wasn’t when I was younger, and I’m not now.

And nothing will ever change that; no matter how beautiful and sweet the woman may be.

“You look better in the daylight,” Dimitri says as we meet up outside in an old junkyard. His idea, not mine. I think it’s fucking ridiculous. We’re civilized men. We can meet at bars and restaurants, not places full of smelly old cars.

“And you still look like a pretty boy to me,” I remark.

He places a hand over his heart. “Ouch. You wound me, Nik.”

“Nikolai.”

“Right,” he says, snapping his fingers. “So, why did you want to meet up?”

“I want to attack The Knights before they get the chance to attack me.”

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