Page 139 of Tempt Me (Dark Odyssey 4)

We’re sitting by the river that flows through the grounds. I haven’t been out here in months, but I thought today would be good for both Ava and me to go out for a walk and talk.

It’s good for my rage.

I’ve been trying… trying not to lose my head.

The beast inside me went mad with a thirst for blood when she told me what was done to her. As she spoke yesterday and I processed what she was saying, I had a hard time convincing myself to calm the fuck down and not go out on the streets and kill every motherfucker who called themselves Bratva.

I mean it. All of them, starting with her fucking uncle. The only thing that stopped me was her.

She needed me more. She needed to know that I was with her, and I needed to support her. That’s what I’m doing now while the boys check things out and come up with a plan. The plan, which is to kill, kill, kill.Fucking kill.

They will all pay. I will see to that.

“It’s beautiful out here,” Ava says.

Ava… the name Juliette suits her. Ava does too, but I wonder if she’ll ever use her real name again.

“You like it?” I ask with a little smile, and she smiles back.

“I do. I imagine it in the winter as well. I love winter. In… Russia, it snows all the time. It’s freezing, but it… it’s nice.”

Russia.If she’s talking to me about Russia, that means I’ve helped her in some way. Last night helped.

I made love to her. I felt when she gave herself to me. I don’t know if she knew I gave myself to her too. A thing I never thought I’d be able to do again. Not ever.

“Snow’s a rare thing in Sicily. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. I’m more of a tropical person. Russia’s cold, Sicily’s hot. Cold and hot just like you and me, right?”

She nods when she pulls in a breath. I know she’s gearing up to talk to me. “My father… well, Mark. I mean Mark. I guess you know a lot about me now to know he wasn’t my real father.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“How’d you know?”

“The same way I found you. I have friends who can do a lot of different things. I could sense that something bad happened to you, Ava, but honestly, I was checking things out with your father from a few weeks back because he couldn’t remember what he did. It was then that I found out he changed his name, and that let us to you too when it came down to it.”

“He was my parents’ best friend. But he was in love with my mother. They grew up together, and she chose to marry my real father. Mark watched over us and would do anything for any of us. He was the brother my father wished he had.” She tenses up, and I know it’s hard for her to talk about. I reach across and take her hand.

“Baby, I don’t want you to go down that road again. I’m guessing the reason why your uncle wants you dead is because you know the truth. You guys didn’t die in a fire. He killed your parents.”

She nods. “Yeah. He killed my parents, but the thing is, if anyone in Russia knew the truth, he’d lose everything. My father had dealings with the president. He worked for the Russian president. That’s how it was set up. I don’t know much, but my uncle wanted the power and the wealth. He was the eldest and was furious that my grandfather wanted my father to take over leadership. Mark told me that years passed, and he was always trying to infiltrate. I didn’t know he was so evil.”

Fuck. This guy really is a nasty piece of work.

“My parents were always heavily guarded when they travelled. We went to visit my aunts in France, and our flight got cancelled. I had a ballet performance and told them I’d die if I missed it. My father found a way to get us to Moscow, but we didn’t have guards. They were supposed to meet us there, link up with us in a few days. We were at a house that belonged to my grandfather. We got there, and I did my performance, but everything changed before the sun went down. The guards never got the message, and Mark and his sons were away on business. My father’s bodyguard double-crossed him and saw it as a way to get to us. No guards, which meant we were left open to attack.”

Her hands start shaking. But she continues talking. “No one knew where we were. No one knew where we’d gone, and it was a month before Mark and his sons found me. They came and found me locked up in the basement. It was one of Dmitri’s cigars that started a fire. Mark came with men, and my uncle’s men killed them all. The fire made it difficult. We got trapped in the basement. That’s where Mark’s eldest son; Maksim, died. Between him and Sasha, they got me out after my uncle and his men left. We knew it was a lucky break, so we left the country. We knew what it meant if any of us were found. Death. So much death, all because of a ballet performance I could have missed.”

“Ava…is this the accident that stopped you from dancing?” I ask, understanding the story as it continues to piece together.

“Yes. I always wondered, what if I’d just missed that one performance? None of it would have happened. We would have stayed in France and left when the storm blew over. We would have made it back, and all I would have lost would have been a performance.”

“Ava, I’ve learned that we can’t think like that. There’s no way you could have possibly known that.” I home in on Salvatore’s words to me last week. “It seems to me that your uncle would have found a way to do whatever he had planned. No matter where you were. That was just one opportunity. That’s all it was. These things happen when you’re dealing with people like that. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I appreciate you saying that. It’s hard not to blame myself. For years, I felt I owed Mark my life. Now he’s dead.”

That’s why she offered herself to me. She sacrificed herself, putting herself right back in a similar position she was previously in.

I’m not like those men. I’m ashamed of the way I behaved most times. I hope she never thought of me like that. Like them.

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