Page 29 of Revenge

He narrowed his eyes, “I also remember you mentioned something that day at the vault when you kindly put that bullet in my side.”

I arched an eyebrow, “Do you expect me to apologise?” Shooting Kai was one thing I did regret. It was an accident; I had only meant to fire a warning shot.

My actions that day put a price on my head and I had been running ever since. Plus, I’d hurt him and I wouldneverforget the look of disbelief and pain in his eyes when I ran.

Kai tugged his tie off and dropped it on the table before undoing the button on his collar. “Don’t you think that youshouldapologise?” I hated when he answered a question with a question but that was part of the mafia’s MO.

“No, as you said. I was under threat. I protected myself.” I watched as he slid another button out of its hole. “Should I expect a striptease?” I added with a smirk, motioning towards what he was doing.

His lip curled and he dropped his hand to the table, “Wishful thinking?”

My spine stiffened, “Absolutely not. I’m not attracted to cold-blooded killers or people that threaten me,” I hissed with forced revolt. I was such a liar.

There was a strangled silence before he stated, “You wereneverunder any threat; not from me anyway.”

Crossing my arms, I watched him across the space, “Really? I beg to differ.”

Kai scratched his jaw, “Do you see me as the type of man to harm a woman?”

I released a derisive snort, “Why not? Like father like son.”

He didn’t like that, Kai’s body tensed up. He cleared his throat, before glancing at the door where I’d entered the room. Mr Ashtray had suddenly appeared there.

“You can leave us, Hamish?” Kai called.

As his man left us, Kai muttered, “It doesn’t need to be like this Ava. We were friends once.”

I noticed he didn’t ask me to embellish my comment further about his scumbag father.

Kai was right, we were friends once but as I stared across at him, I realised there was no trace of the man I once knew.

The young man who had at first welcomed both my mother and me into this life.

And then the day my mother married Kai’s father it all went to shit. He changed and Suki and I became enemy number one. He pushed me away and Ihatedhim for that.

I raked my fingers through my hair, suddenly needing something to do with my hands. “Well, you must have a better memory than me because all I remember about you is that you were a horrible brute and treated both me and my mother like crap.” I was lying of course but his latter treatment of me had washed away all the good stuff. Judgement must have been pouring off me in waves.

I could see from his expression that he didn’t like that and a muscle started ticking in his jaw.

Kai’s face forced a wave of dread to power through me. I was usually so good and honed in the survival skills department but seeing him again seemed to have blown that out of the water. Why was I so automatically drawn to that desire to aggravate him?

Because you don’t want to get close to him again.

As I sat before him, it was hard to imagine that there was a time when I believed this man controlled the beating of my heart. I watched him warily from beneath my lashes, checking out his perfectly styled hair. There was no sign of the errant boyish locks which used to fall over his forehead or that cheeky smile he used to show me.

Kai sat in his perfectly tailored suit without a hair out of place. He was so pristine and tightly controlled in his expensive clothes. But beneath them I knew lay a monster; one who wanted to swallow me whole for what I had done.

He was his father’s son and the apple rarely fell far from the tree.

However, I knew I needed to tread carefully even though he’d said he was no threat to me.

Hating that feeling of weakness as it washed over me, I asked that million-dollar question, “So, you say I wasneverunderanythreat? Is that still the case?”

“Physically, yes,” he replied in a bland, almost disappointed tone.

“So not physically but you’re still going tothreatenme in another way?” I volleyed back, nervous knots ripping through my belly.

I could see Kai weighing up my words as a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, “It depends on what you consider as threatening I suppose.”

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