Page 86 of Fearless

Had it been any other Dog, Maggie could have counted the days before the thrill wore off and the guy dumped Ava on her ass. No muss, no fuss, just a few bitter exchanges and he wouldn’t take one backward glance toward his flavor of the week. With any other Dog, Ava would have been a notch in the belt; bragging rights: I fucked the boss’s daughter.

But that wasn’t Mercy. Mercy and Ava together – too hot, too close, too beloved, too much of a no-brainer…wrapped up in a scandalous package. Ghost would flip. Aidan would flip. Maggie could imagine the gossip, same as when she’d been Ava’s age: Jailbait, pedophile, sick as fuck.

But all that was suspicion, until dessert time rolled around.

Maggie had made white chocolate, dark chocolate, and marble cheesecakes for the dinner, and everyone waited to be served…everyone but Mercy. Where had he been? Maggie wondered. She hadn’t seen him for at least a half hour. Ava neither, now that she thought about it. It was a big house, a big party; easy to get lost.

But Mercy and Ava stood together over the marble cheesecake at the kitchen counter, Mercy’s tall frame almost curled around her as he looked over her shoulder, smiled at whatever she’d said. His hand, for just a second, was at her hip, too low for casual.

He pulled it away and turned as Maggie stopped in the threshold, his eyes coming straight to her face, the mask not fast enough in coming down. Naked fear strobed in their black depths before he could catch hold of it.

Don’t say anything. Don’t take her from me. Don’t you dare. I will fight all of them. Oh, God, it’s all going to blow up, isn’t it?

Then his face blanked over and he looked away from her, hand going in his pocket, attention going back to whatever Ava was saying to him over her shoulder.

Maggie saw the little things: the clothes not quite straight, the high color in their faces, the windswept look to Ava’s hair.

The air shimmered around them, neon with possibility, the chemistry of them this hot, sticky amalgam of complementary metals.

Mercy had crossed the line.

Ava had either followed him, or invited him to come across it to her.

Maggie felt the lump well up in her throat, the sting of tears at the backs of her eyes.

It was so perfect, and it was so disastrous.

And they’d be sliced to bits before it was all over.

Nineteen

Five Years Ago

The next morning, Ghost sent Mercy, RJ, Walsh and Rottie off on a run. He announced at the breakfast table that they’d left before the sun was up; he’d called them all and seen to it.

Ava felt the bottoms drop out of her feet. A swift, painful sense of having been cheated. She had almost a week left of suspension! Already she’d been planning her afternoons, thinking about her stolen time with Mercy.

“How long will they be gone?” she asked, and hoped it sounded casual.

Maggie glanced at her from her spot by the stove, her poker face evidencing nothing.

Ava wanted to squirm in her chair, and not just because she was sore from last night.

“At least a week,” Ghost said from behind the morning paper. “Maybe longer.”

She bit her lip and tried to keep her disappointment from showing. Her first instinct was to call Mercy. Fire off a text. She wanted to set the clock back, to at least have a chance to tell him goodbye.

She stared glumly at her Rice Krispies and told herself a week wasn’t that bad of a wait.

Maggie watched a moment too long before she turned back to the eggs.

Ava had been raised a club daughter. She didn’t bother Mercy while he was away; instead, she threw herself into work at Green Hills, into her school work, into her tutoring sessions with Carter. Whatever his intentions had been the night he’d invited her to Hamilton House, he seemed firmly rooted in the friendzone now and didn’t give the impression he wanted out of it. Leah was unsure, at first – “No one that cute is worth a shit,” she said to Ava – but by the end of the week, the three of them were sharing Stella’s takeout over English notes at one of the clubhouse picnic tables.

One afternoon, Carter chewed dill pickle slices and eyed the two of them across the table, his face coloring self-consciously. “Don’t you guys” – he cleared his throat – “I dunno, doesn’t it bother you the way Ainsley and her friends talk about you?”

Ava shrugged. “I care that everyone else cares. That they give her that much credit. But people have talked shit about me and my whole family forever. It’s just…I think they must be really bored and unhappy with their own lives.”

He blinked. He’d never thought of it that way.

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