Page 18 of Revenge

Her brows pinched together, “I’m sure it was just a mild sedative, to calm your nerves, perhaps?” My mother was still as clueless as ever.

Calm my nerves indeed; when I got my hands on him.

What? What will you do? The guy is twice your size and has security men coming out of his arse.

A dart of panic shot into my chest as I pushed myself against the headboard and swept a look around the room. The altercation with Kai in Anton’s kitchen came thundering back into my brain like wild horses. As did my reaction to seeing blood. Yes, I had fainted initially but Kai being Kai had used that to his advantage and topped me up with something extra to keep me out of it; the underhand bastard.

“Shit,” I hissed, slightly relieved that my ex-stepbrother was nowhere to be seen.

“Please don’t swear Ava. It’s so unladylike,” Suki said with a disapproving look.

“Where is he and why areyouhere? Youdivorcedhis father before his death remember?” Those words left my mouth like gunfire. My patience was already wearing thin.

“It’s complicated,” Mum said with a shrug of her dainty shoulders. It always was when it came to my mother and herrelationships.

“Try me,” I huffed. It felt like I had spent a lifetime protecting this scatty woman. She was like spun glass, delicate and so breakable. My mother was the main reason I had sent my stepfather to prison. Somewhere he couldn’t hurteitherof us ever again. I felt a perverse sense of satisfaction knowing that he had died whilst incarcerated, or so I had read. My friend Anton had sent me an image of the newspaper article.

I had been surprised that his death hadn’t made it into the main tabloids; probably because he had been old news. Gerard’s crown as head of the West London syndicate of the Irish mafia had been taken away when they’d locked the doors and thrown away the key.

And I was responsible for that—with my friend Anton’s help. It was one of my finer moments. Anton also hated the Kinlan family due to what Gerard had done to his mother. She had been one of Gerard’s mistresses back in the day and he had treated her like shit.

My mother’s pretty face was drawn with worry as she settled her hands into her lap. She hadn’t aged and still looked like a little doll, small and blonde; she was my opposite in colouring, and for a thirty-five-year-old woman, she wasstunninglypretty. I had been told I got my looks from my father aka the Sperm Donor, an Italian douche who abandoned us both when I was five. I didn’t remember him, why would I? Mum had me when she was sixteen which suggested I hadn’t been planned either; hence dear old daddy pissing off when he couldn’t cope.

My motherneverspoke about him and I never asked. He could rot in hell for all I cared. If he’d stuck around, my mother wouldneverhave ended up with all the shitheads she’d married. And certainly, she wouldn’t have fallen for an old letch like Gerard Kinlan.

“Mum?” I prompted.

Suki still hadn’t explained herself as she was too busy pouring water from a jug on the bedside table into a glass.

I took it from her as she handed it over, concern still etched into her features. “Suki?” I said, trying to shake her out of her daze. My mother wasn’t the brightest button in the tin. She could be borderline stupid at times but she was kind and sweet. She was myonlyweakness.

Suki eyed me critically as I watched her over the rim of the glass, “You’ve lost weight Ava and you’re ever so pale. Shall I call Dr Farmer back in?” I couldn’t help the pig snort that rattled my nose at that one. Dr Farmer was a personal physician to the Kinlan family, and I hadnevertrusted him. When my mother had been married to Gerard,hewas the one who had prescribed her all sorts of crap. It hadn’t been long into her marriage to Gerard that she’d started to resemble a zombie.

I noted she said, ‘Shall I call Dr Famerback in’and I glanced down at the area where I was wounded.

There beneath the damaged top I wore was a bandage, neatly covering the slash in my skin. It was clean thank goodness. I couldn’t stomach blood and had amajorphobia about it after seeing a man gunned down in front of me when I was younger. What can I say, I’d spent most of my life married to the mob with my mother.

It was only then that I fully realised what she married into. Something my mother still wasn’t fully aware of. Either that or she did what most mafia wives did; turned and looked the other way.

“Where am I?” I repeated, ignoring her comment about my weight loss. I’d been training for months and knew I was in peak physical shape. “And most importantly what are you doing here? I thought you were staying with Uncle Graham,” My words seemed to pry her from her semi-comatose state and she smiled.

“Not anymore, I live here now.”

“And where is here?” I rasped, dragging a hand down my face. I knew I would be in Kinlan territory, but I needed to hear her say that.

Suki’s face screwed up at the harsh language I used. She was so sensitive and I felt the bite of remorse as she confirmed, “This is Kai’s house. Well, one of them.”

“And where is Kai?” I almost snarled, making to shove from the bed but Suki stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

“Please calm down sweetie, you’ll open your cut again,” she said, glancing worriedly at the closed door. “He’s in his study. I know you two haven’t seen eye to eye over the last few years, but it won’t do you any good to upset him.”

I placed the glass back on the bedside table before I did something reckless, like throwing water over my mother. She needed to wake up. We didn’t belong there.

Suki noticed my expression and shook her head, attempting to reason with me.

“Kai has been good to me, Ava. Since they took Gerard away, he’s looked after me. I was lost and had nowhere to go. Even Graham turned his back on me.”

I inwardly seethed that my mother’s brother hadn’t been there to help her when Gerard went down.

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