Page 113 of Revenge (Corrupt Empire 3)

Chapter Twenty Two

Aiden

I held Ed by the scruff of his neck as we waited outside the large townhouse. Avery knew this place. She’d been here before. The place where Rick had his men take her. It was just one of Robert Bassington’s residences in the city. He had two in Mayfair alone. Fucking rich prick. He was going down with the rest of them. I’d fucking well make sure of it.

Ed’s hands were bound behind him, but he didn’t struggle. I think he’d accepted his fate. He didn’t try to talk to Avery or apologise to her for what he’d done. He’d just stared at her with remorse in his expression. I didn’t think he ever intended to kill her. Avery was right. Ed wasn’t a killer. He might have run the girls for Chuck since he was eighteen, but he hadn’t crossed the line into the darkness that we had.

I hadn’t lied to Avery. I didn’t want to be that man any longer. The one who killed. Being with her changed me. Gave me something to hold onto. Something to live for after so many years feeling nothing but hate. The violence I’d grown up with had shaped me in so many ways.

Avery taught me there were other ways to make people pay. She was pure. She was my salvation. And I loved her for it.

I looked over at her. She was tense next to me, her expression dark. I knew she remembered what she’d had to go through in this house. How she’d witnessed so much abuse. I couldn’t help but think about how she’d sobbed on my shoulder when she’d come home. How she’d needed me to take her pain away in the only way we knew how. How having her gone had broken something so deep inside me, it’d taken weeks for me to admit how much it had affected me.

In so many ways, seeing Avery in pain and torment had hurt me so much worse than having my mother ripped away from me. My love for my wife was all-encompassing. This beautiful raven haired twenty one year old girl beside me was my entire world. And I was hers. We’d never let each other go.

For a long time, I’d struggled to come to terms with the fact that I loved her more than I’d ever loved anyone. That she was the air I breathed into my lungs. The sun that burnt my skin. The rain which washed away everything. The earth upon which I laid my head.

I could never be the angel my mother really needed to save her, but I could be Avery’s. I was Avery’s. Her avenging angel. And whilst tonight we would enact our final battle and lay to rest my demons, the only person I was doing this for now was Avery.

My mother was gone. I’d accepted that. I couldn’t change it. It had been almost twenty two years and it was time I let go. The last piece of the puzzle was who’d killed her. I hoped that was the only thing I needed to put this behind me.

The door opened, revealing a bald headed man who Avery and I had both seen on the footage from her house. The man who’d taken her. Kurt.

“Good evening,” he said, stepping back.

I shoved Ed forward. Kurt had taken my fucking wife and helped Rick put cameras in her house. I held back from punching his fucking face in.

“I’ll take him,” Kurt continued.

“Good. Little fuck is getting on my fucking nerves.”

Kurt took Ed’s arm, handing him off to another man that stood in the hallway with him. I took Avery’s hand as Kurt indicated with his head that we should follow him.

“Wait, what are you going to do with me?” Ed asked.

“We’re under strict instructions to keep you under surveillance until Mr and Mrs Lockhart have finished speaking to my employer,” Kurt said. “Then they’ll decide what happens to you.”

Ed’s face went white as a sheet. I’d already told him we were making sure he got sent to prison for his part in the Daniels’ dirty business.

“You’re not going to hurt me, are you?”

Kurt looked at him like he was a fucking idiot.

“No.”

Kurt walked off down a long corridor. Avery and I followed. Her hand tightened in mine. We were both concerned about what Rick might tell us, but we had no choice. It was time for the truth to come out.

The room Kurt brought us into looked like a salon straight out of the fucking 1700s. Gilded furniture with floral patterned fabric covering the cushioned seats. Ornate wallpaper and paintings lined the walls. Avery was looking around with a confused expression, but I was staring at Rick seated in a highbacked armchair by the fire. He was wearing a three piece navy suit with brown brogues. He looked like a jumped up fuck yet again. I mean he had a fucking necktie and a handkerchief in his pocket.

Avery and I, by contrast, were in jeans and trainers with matching leather jackets on. We looked so out of place in this room but I didn’t care. We’d gone home to change whilst John had kept an eye on Ed in the car for us. I had to drop the bike back home anyway.

Kurt took our coats from us and indicated we should sit down on one of the uncomfortable looking sofas near Rick. I took Avery over to one of them and sat with her, feeling like I was about to have high fucking tea in some posh rich fuck’s house.

Kurt shut the door behind him, leaving the three of us alone.

“Scotch?” Rick asked, indicating the decanter on the side table next to him.

“No thanks.”

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