Page 78 of Break Me
Twenty-Three
I didn’t callFelix for this. He normally orchestrates clean ups, but this was straightforward. Rolland Virani stalked Riley down here, held her mother at gunpoint, and threatened to kill all of us.
Even I didn’t need to sway the cops on that regard.
Although I told them I stabbed him. And as for all the blood afterward, and his other injuries…well, he was a stubborn motherfucker. Or so I said.
“I need to go home,” Ava says across from me. We’re in my condo, Caden and Riley and her mother in hers. Rolland knocked her out much the same way he did Riley, but she’s okay. Probably grateful she missed everything that went down. Another parenting bullet she got to dodge, even if it was bigger than most.
Tess missed it all, too, only because I locked her in the bathroom of my own condo before I came to Riley’s. She knows what happened, although she doesn’t know everything. She saw me covered in blood, saw Ava’s pale face. The cops took her statement, about Rolland going to her apartment.
Tess went home shortly afterward.
It’s nearly midnight, and I know I should take Ava home.
The Xanax is still working in my system. It’s calmed my racing heart, let me hook my arms around the couch, appear to be relaxed. But it hasn’t done shit for my mind.
Not yet.
“Is your mom okay?” I ask Ava. She’s got her knees pulled up to her chest, that crop top still on so I can see the curves of her waist. Her hair is pulled over one shoulder, exposing her neck.
She isn’t looking at me.
I took a shower and cleaned up while she waited here.
We haven’t spoken much, since Rolland died. Was murdered. Whatever.
Ava shrugs, her eyes on the coffee table. “She’s dying,” she mumbles. “She’s never going to be okay again.”
Fair enough. My heart breaks a little at those words, for her. For what she’s going through. What she’s avoiding. What’s still to come. But she watched me fuck Rolland up in all the ways I’d wanted to since I first found out what he did to Riley. How compassionate can I really be? How empathetic can she really believe I am?
And why the fuck does it matter?
She saw what I did. She saw Thames, too. She knows I went to prison. For Bianca.
Something I don’t regret, but I wish I could explain it to her.
As it is, she doesn’t seem like she really wants to know, and I can’t fault her for that. Now that Rolland is dead, I can go home anyway. Riley doesn’t need me here. I can see her anytime I want, and she’ll be done with school in the coming year and back up in Ontario soon enough. There’s nothing between me and Ava, and it’s not because I don’t want there to be.
It just doesn’t make sense for either of us.
And while I might make my living doing things that don’t make legal sense, at least even those things make business sense. Me and Ava…we don’t make any kind of sense.
I take a deep breath and then stand to my feet. Ava’s beautiful blue eyes follow my gaze.
“Let’s go,” I say, turning from her before I say something I’ll regret. That she’ll regret. “I’ll take you home.”
I walk out, grab my keys, and wait by the door. A few minutes later, she follows.
* * *
We don’t speakon the drive to her house, not until I ask her if I should turn down her driveway or let her walk up to her house. I don’t mean it to be rude, and even though she doesn’t know it, I’d walk with her.
I just don’t want her to get in trouble.
But she shakes her head. “Dad will be asleep,” she says.
I’m not so sure. The love of his life is dying. My heart twists as I think of what would have happened if Rolland had hurt Ava. I couldn’t even look at her in that spare bedroom. If I had, I wouldn’t have been able to think clearly.
