Page 28 of Revenge

This revelation was so welcome but I was wound too tightly to believe him. I had seen good in him once, but after the way I had screwed his father over and then put a bullet in him, could I blame him for wanting revenge? That was a big fat nope.

But he still had to explain why I was there and what he wanted from me.

“So, why chase me around Europe, if not for revenge?”

“Because you still need to pay for your actions, Ava. And I’m not talking about that day at the vault.” Kai owned a dilapidated vault on a backstreet in London. It was a place he used to take people that pissed him off, fornegotiations. That was the place I had pulled the trigger.

And there it was. He wanted to talk about Gerard.

Fuck!

“So, you want justice for what I did to Gerard?”

He washed a hand down his face as he replied, “There are two threads to this discussion. First, I want to knowwhyyou did it and then I want to know who helped you.”

Annoyance and fear snaked up my spine. Kai was still in denial about how nasty his father had been, “Youknowwhy,” I exclaimed.

There was a beat of silence as his eyes roamed over my features.

Kai didn’t push further and he rewound the discussion, “Let’s deal with things as they occurred.”

“So, I’m to atone for my sins in order? How efficient of you.”

He smiled, “I’m nothing if not efficient, Ava; as you’ll soon learn. I never leave a stone unturned. So, switching my questions around,whohelped you to collate the dossier on my father?”

A stronger jet of fear rushed through me as I thought about Anton. I forced a look of confusion across my face, “Who’s to say I didn’t do that on my own?”

Kai snorted in disbelief, “You were seventeen, a child, Ava. There’s no way you could have dug upthatmuch dirt without help. Maybe someone on the inside helped you? You and your mother hadn’t lived at the house that long, yet the detail you uncovered spanned several years.”

Anton’s perfect face flashed before my eyes again. Under no circumstances could I put him in danger.

Trying to remain calm, I replied, “Surely you knew that my mother and your father had known each other before they got together? She was married to a colleague of his for years.”

“Hardly a colleague but yes. That’s where I met Suki for the first time, at her wedding to Alasdair Wilkinson.”

I opened my mouth to reply but my tongue felt heavy. That was odd, Kai had met my mother at her wedding to Alasdair; which would mean he had been there that day. But I couldn’t remember seeing him.

I would have been seven or eight at the time and my recollection was hazy, at best. I remembered Tasha and her friends pushing me over and calling me names, but I couldn’t remember Kai. Only that one boy who had come to my rescue and had promised me that one day I would have my happy ever after. I had kept his handkerchief. It was folded neatly in the pocket of my bag. It had been a sign of hope that thereweregood people in the mafia somewhere; saviours.

“Ava?” Kai prompted, drawing me back into the room.

“We lived at the house for over two years,” I added, wondering why I suddenly felt strange; almost like I had forgotten something important.

“But you were away at school for half that time,” he pointed out, leaning forward and placing his elbows on the table. I noted how the fabric pulled taunt over his broad shoulders.

Shrugging, I turned away and started playing with the edge of the tablecloth. “What can I say? I work fast. I’m a resourceful female, and I wasn’t a child. I had your father to thank for that.” I tagged the last sentence on and without thought.

“Meaning?” Kai’s cool tone brought my head back up and I stared him straight in the face as thoughts of Gerard Kinlan’s wandering hands returned. He had already groped me in the past and then one night, after his return from a trip to Ireland; he did something horrible tomy mother. What? I may never know as Suki still refused to talk about it. She was a bury the head in the sand type.

A knot of pain bit into my stomach at the memory. I usually tried to blank out memories of those moments he would corner me but they swooped back into my brain, like the worst of nightmares.

“Ava, focus please. What do you mean?”

I shook from the daze of those awful recollections, “When we came to live with you. I had to grow up fast.”

Kai leaned back in the chair and started to remove his tie. “So, you’re sticking to that insane story you told me the night of your sixteenth birthday party.”

“Yes. I’m nothing if not consistent.”

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