Page 61 of Break Me
Nineteen
I seeher by the car, leaning against the passenger side, her head buried in her hands. It’s the reaction I expected, but it doesn’t make this feeling any better. And the feeling…it isn’t regret. I’m not sorry for Thames. For what I did to him. I’m not even sorry for the time I spent in prison; I deserved it. More, actually. But Thames deserves exactly what he’s got, too, and I can’t really feel any remorse for that.
At least now most of my skeletons are out of the closet. If Ava walks away, well, I can’t blame her. But I showed her more than I’ve ever shown any woman I’ve been with.
I walk across the lot, unlock the door.
Ava picks her head up, eyes locked on mine for a second, and then she yanks open the door and hops in, slamming it shut behind her.
I hate when people slam my car doors. But I’m glad she’s got this reaction. It means she’ll probably run the fuck away from me when we get back to the States. And that’s exactly what she needs to do…run.
I get in the driver’s side, start the car, and she doesn’t say anything as we pull out, back onto the desolate road the assisted living facility is situated on. After I beat the shit out of Thames and ran over his head with my car, the one we’re in right now, this seemed like the best place to put him.
I pay for it myself. He doesn’t have family, and he sure as hell doesn’t have friends. Bianca doesn’t even know he’s here. I like it that way. I don’t pay for this place out of the goodness of my heart. I do it as a reminder to myself, of what I’m capable of. As a reminder, too, to anyone who threatens that and what I do. I have no qualms about showing anyone who wants to fuck with me and my work what I would do to them.
“Who was he?” Ava finally asks me, a few miles down the road. Her voice doesn’t shake, but she doesn’t look at me when she asks the question.
I’ve got one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on the center console.
“I don’t know,” I answer her. I mean, it’s not technically a lie. I had never heard of Thames Gunthrey before I went knocking on his door to find Bianca that night that changed my entire life. That obliterated any sense of family I had painstakingly gained over the years of living with my adoptive parents down the street from Caden. That fucking shattered my heart.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” she snaps at me, and I sense her turn to stare at me. I can feel her anger, too. It’s nearly a palpable thing in this car. I knew that pulling out the feeding tube would get to her, twist her heart, make her hate me.
I knew it, and that’s why I did it.
This thing between us, whatever it is…it’s gotta be nothing. Because sooner or later, Rolland will die at my hands, and then I’ll come back here and leave Riley to finish school and she’ll come here, too, and I’ll have no need to go to North Carolina ever again in my entire life.
And Ava Culwen is the goddamn mayor’s daughter. She has a future, even if she took a detour failing a semester. In the grand scheme of things, that’s a blip on her life. She’ll find a good job, make more money than even her father did, she’ll find a good man who will hold her when she cries over her mom, gone too soon. She’ll do everything right in life.
I never will.
I never have.
I won’t fuck up her future for a chance that she might be in mine.
I shrug. “I mean I don’t know,” I answer her.
“Did you really…” I hear her swallow as she struggles to get her thoughts together. “Did you really…run over him?” she asks on a whisper.
I turn back toward the city, wondering when Riley and Caden will be done fucking in their new house, because I know Riley will want it, whatever it is. She just wants to be by Caden’s side. She doesn’t give a shit about anything else.
I nod. “Yes,” I answer Ava.
I hear her sharp intake of breath but don’t dare look at her. I want her to know who I am, but I don’t really want to see what reaction she has to that. To the sick fuck that is me.
“But…why?” she gasps out as we head back into the city.
I don’t answer her for a moment, wondering if she really wants to know. Wondering if what I tell her will make any sense at all in her mind. I dodge in and out of morning traffic, guessing she probably doesn’t want to eat now. I heard her stomach growl and felt bad about Bianca interrupting our brunch, but I’m sure her appetite is long gone. I’m sure I’ve got worse things to feel bad about right now.
“Why, Benji?” she demands, her voice rising. I glance at her and watch as she punches the side of the door. “Why did you do that? What does he have to do with that…that woman that was all over you?” She shakes her head, runs a hand over her face. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I huff a laugh at that. “So many things, Ava.” I shake my head as I pull into a parking garage. “So many things.”
I put the car in Park and turn to look at her.
“How you feeling?” I ask conversationally. “You happy you got to know me?” I smile at her and it feels wrong on my face. “Glad you saw that?”
She twists in her seat but doesn’t undo her seatbelt. I see the strap dig in between her breasts, pressing against her sweater.
