Page 113 of Revenge

Kai’s hand touched mine against his face as he said, “You don’t belong at the bottom, Ava. You belong in the stars.”

“Then join me there. Together. You said it yourself you wanted to go straight, had tried to do that years ago.”

“Maybe things have gone far too deep to achieve that now.”

“You’re wrong. I believe in you.”

“Why?” Kai whispered, the lines on his face highlighted his inner suffering.

“Because I love you,” the words surged out of my mouth.

His breath hitched his expression tortured and he removed my hand but held on to it, “And that’s why I am letting you go, Ava. I’m freeing you from this life. I’ve already arranged for money to be transferred into an account I had set up for you when you signed the contract. Your passport is on the table, underneath it is that contract. I want you to tear it up. I release you from your promise. I can’t do this anymore. You don’t belong with me. There is also an envelope there with your new bank card. You will never have to worry about money ever again.”

Kai was abandoning me again and after everything I had just said to him. It felt like my heart was in his fist and he was squeezing the life from me.

“So, you’re paying me off?”

“It isn’t like that. I’m giving you what is owed. My family did yours a disservice, it’s only right.”

“Why do I need my passport?”

I knew he found it difficult but his mask slid slowly back into place, “I have arranged for my plane to fly you home, back to Milan, it leaves tomorrow morning just after half past ten.” There was no slur in his words, even though he must have drunk most of the whisky bottle on the table. He was cold and serious. So, he thought I viewed my home as Milan now.

The thought of being sent away was like a punch to the stomach, “You’re sending me away?”

Kai nodded, his jaw ticking, “I’m sending you home.”

I pushed at his chest with my fist but he didn’t even flinch, “And I don’t have any say in that?”

He groaned and started to pace, agitation in every angle of his body, “Don’t make this harder than it already is, Ava. As soon as the plane lands in Italy, a car will meet you and take you to your apartment.”

My apartment? Painedlancedthrough me. He’s lying, he must be.

“I am giving you what you wanted,” Kai said, pulling on a strand of my hair.

Moving back, needing space for what was to come, I asked, “And what is that?”

A silence stretched and a gong entered the space as the grandfather clock in the corner chimed to say it was midnight.

“Your freedom. Total independence.”

He stopped pacing as I said, “From who? That mafia?” My head was itching and my mind raced with mixed feelings; Kai was giving me my freedom.

“No, from me.”

I folded my arms over my body, “What if I don’t want that anymore?”

Kai stepped towards me with a harsh expression, “Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought. You need to leave.”

Tears threatened to spill but I couldn’t let him see them, “You want me to leave?”

Kai looked at the ceiling, frustration rolling off him in waves, “I didn’t say Iwantyou to leave, I said Ineedyou to. But for what it’s worth, you may view them as the same thing. You leave tomorrow, it’s over, Ava.”

I turned on him like a spitting cat, so desperate to slap his face, “Nothing is over Kai; you can’t just turn it off. Iknowyou care about me?”

Kai rolled his shoulders and started tugging at his hair, hard.

He then dropped his hands and spun toward me, “What do you want me to say? Yes, I do. I dofuckingcare,toomuch and that’swhyyou need to walk away andneverlook back. I am the thing nightmares are made of, my father’s son, a savage.”

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