Page 62 of Break Me
Her eyes are narrowed into beautiful blue slits. I was never a fan of blue eyes, but hers are something else. Especially when she’s angry, like she is now.
She slams her hand on the center console, narrowly missing mine. “Why did you do that?” she asks me. “Why did you…” She shakes her head, bites her lip. She doesn’t want to say it again.
“Why did I run over that poor man’s head?” I mock her.
She doesn’t answer, she just stares at me, waiting.
I lean my seat back and stare out at the parking garage, surprisingly not crowded for once.
“Does it matter?” I ask without looking at her.
“Just fucking tell me,” she grits out.
I sigh. “He was a shady dealer. So in that regard, I really helped clean up the streets—”
“Get to the fucking point!” she screams at me.
I still don’t look at her. I brush my thumb over my lip, close my eyes. “He was a dealer. That woman who was all over me,” I use her words, “Bianca, started using, buying from him. Bianca and I were…together. For a while. One night, I come home, and she isn’t there. I find her at this dude’s house, in his bathtub. He beat the shit out of her.” I turn my head and watch Ava. Her expression is unreadable, but she’s hanging onto every word, trying to make this make sense in her head. Trying to still make me out to be a good guy. To feel safe being in another country with me.
“So I beat the shit out of him, then I ran over him. Then,” I smile again, “I went to prison for a few years.”
That’s half the story. But the other half…well, Ava isn’t the only one who doesn’t want to think about me and Bianca.
“But…” she clenches her fists. “What does any of that…what does that have to do with Riley and Caden and sneaking into my house to watch over me?”
“It doesn’t. Not really. But in prison, I found my true calling, which turned out to be doing more things that could send me back to prison. Riley…well, her story is her story to tell. But all you need to know is someone is after her, and wants to hurt her, and I’m going to hurt them first. When I find them.”
“What does that have to do with me?” she asks, wringing her hands together. “I don’t understand what any of this has to do with me—”
“They threatened you, too,” I tell her quietly. She really doesn’t deserve to know any of this shit, but she does deserve to know that.
Her face goes pale, and she runs her tongue over her bottom lip. I look away from her, listen to her quiet breaths. In and out, in and out.
“Why?” she presses.
“Because the guy is a piece of shit, that’s why.”
She actually laughs, and it’s bitter. “And you’re, what? A hero?”
I straighten my seat and turn to gaze at her. “No, Ava,” I answer her with a smile. “Not even close.”
* * *
We pullup at Riley and Caden’s soon-to-be new home. Ava hasn’t said another word to me. I know she wants to leave, to go back home, but the lovebirds aren’t ready yet and they were dying for us to see this place, so here we are.
It’s on a cul-de-sac that reminds me of the one me and Caden grew up on, but with bigger lawns and taller, wrought iron gates.
Ava gets out of the car before I do, slamming the door again, and I cringe, but don’t say anything.
She walks up the stone steps to the massive front porch, and the door that looks like it belongs on the Vatican rather than a house. She stares at the door a moment, examining the knocker that’s shaped like a gargoyle which I assume is a Riley thing because it sure as hell is not a Caden thing. There’s no doorbell, and I’m about to call out for her to just try the door, when it swings open.
I don’t see anything at first, just a brightly lit entranceway that looks like it’s carved from stone.
And then Riley’s face peers around the door and she beams at us.
Clearly, she likes the place.
Another woman walks into view, and I see Angie, Caden’s housekeeper. Today, her short hair is aqua blue.
