| |
“So, you’re tellin’ me that those two men are after Aviana?” Alarick asks, leaning against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Yep.” I nod. “I thought there might have been more, I knew about the two of them but figured they were workin’ for someone or maybe more people knew but I’m startin’ to think they’re the only two that know about what Aviana is sittin’ on and they’ve worked out she’s still alive and are goin’ to try again.”
“Can you be sure there is no one else?”
“At this point, no, but I’m fairly certain there isn’t. I’m goin’ to do some more diggin’, see if I can find out more. I want to get my hands on those two fuckers, it’s the only way we’ll get our answers.”
“You know they gotta go, yeah?” Alarick growls.
“I know. I’ll take care of it.”
“Work out a way to get hold of them; we got so much shit we’re tryin’ to deal with, we don’t need this too. You owe it to her to finish this for her, so make her safe and put this shit to bed.”
I nod. “On it, boss.”
“She know about all of this now?”
“Yeah, she knows.”
“How’d she take it?”
“Not the greatest, she’s pretty fuckin’ confused, but she’ll come around. I told her we’d have her back, that we’d trust her if she let us in. I’m hopin’ she’s done that now and will stop tryin’ to run. I want to keep her safe, regardless of the past.”
“You tell her that?” Alarick questions.
I glare at him. “Of course I fuckin’ told her that.”
“No, Cohen, I mean have you looked her in the fuckin’ eye and told her you want to keep her safe, and then tell her why ...”
“What do you mean why?”
“You know exactly what I mean. You never told her how you felt back then, and you haven’t fuckin’ told her now. Don’t make the same mistakes over and over again. Tell her all of the truth, not just your part of it.”
I grit my teeth and turn, walking out of his room.
I’m done with this fucking conversation.
I get back to the motel room where I left Aviana with Briella and Merleigh. The three of them are sitting on the bed when I walk in, watching something on the television and talking amongst themselves. All their eyes move to me when I enter the room, and I glance at Bohdi in the corner, sitting on the same chair I had pushed over to the door to stop Aviana escaping. He’s off in a silent world, not saying anything, just staring at the wall.
That man scares me sometimes, the depths of his soul are terrifying.
He goes off into this world where you can’t get him back until he’s ready.
I wonder where the fuck he goes?
He jerks when I slam the door and his eyes move to mine. He stands quickly and walks over. “All good?”
“Yeah, brother, thanks for filling in.”
“You can stay, if you want,” Merleigh says to him when he walks to the door.
“I don’t want,” he murmurs. “But if you want to take a walk with me, I wouldn’t say no.”
She smiles and stands, pulling on her shoes and then disappearing out the door with him. The two of them have formed a friendship, maybe more, it’s hard to tell because neither of them say a great deal. I wonder if he’s told her about his past and why he’s so fucking vacant all the time.
Maybe she’ll do him some good.
“Avi told me everything,” Briella says, turning the television down. “Those men aren’t going to get her, are they, Cohen?”
I shake my head. “Not if I have any say in the matter.”
“They seem pretty determined,” she goes on.
“Yeah, well, I’m more fuckin’ determined.”
Aviana looks to me and her eyes soften, just a touch. I hope with time, they’ll get as soft as they were when we were friends. Back when she was a fun-loving, high-spirited girl I couldn’t get enough of.
I want her back, so fucking bad.
“Do you know their names?” I ask her, hoping maybe she’s had time to jog her memory a little.
She shakes her head. “No, I don’t recall. I do remember my father talking to my brothers about a man he was having issues with. I don’t know if it’s one of those men or not, but his name was Xander. I heard that name come up a few times, so maybe it’s worth looking into.”
I heard that name, too.
Heard it on the tapes when they were talking. Heard it mentioned more than once after that. Guarantee whoever Xander is, he knows about Aviana and he’s trying to get his hands on her. Only one way to finish this problem, and that’s to get rid of him once and for all, so she can move on with her life.
“I want to take a walk,” Avi says, standing. “Can someone come with me? I need fresh air.”
“I’ll come,” I say, meeting her eyes. “Can’t go out there alone.”
She nods and gives Briella a weak smile before we both leave the room.
We walk in silence for a few minutes, and even though I’m standing way too close to her, she doesn’t say anything. I’m not risking anything happening to her. While I don’t think they’d kill her, because that won’t get them what they want, I do think they’d do some serious damage to get her. I point down a quieter street and tell her we should go down there to be safe.
She nods, and we walk until we find a small park with an old, rusty slide and a rickety swing. As suspected, Aviana walks right over to that swing and sits on it, closing her eyes and launching off, making the entire swing set creak. It doesn’t bother her at all, though. She swings her worries away, a small smile on her face. I sit on the other swing and watch her for a moment, so carefree.
She finally slows down and looks to me. “It’s bothering me a lot.”
“What is?” I ask, holding her gaze.
“That my father was planning on doing something so awful to me. I know he didn’t particularly like me, but I never thought he’d hurt me. It’s a shitty feeling when you suddenly realize that even your own family doesn’t give a shit about you.”
“They didn’t fuckin’ deserve you,” I tell her. “You’re a thousand times the person they were ...”
“Am I?” she laughs bitterly. “I was planning on taking this entire club down. I wanted to hurt you all. I wanted to see you suffer. How does that make me any better than them?”
“Because you didn’t do it,” I say, shocked at her plan.
Though I had a suspicion she was up to something.
“So?” she mutters, kicking the sand with her shoe. “I wanted to. God, I wanted to so badly it was all I could think about. Hell, part of me still does, just to get the bitter feeling out of my chest. Like if I hurt you all, then I won’t feel so much pain myself.”
“It won’t help, but you already know that. Deep down, you know that or you would have done somethin’ by now. What I did to you, what the club did, you have a right to be hurt about that but you don’t really want to hurt us, if you did you would have done it by now. You’re just lookin’ for a way to make yourself feel less pain, and you think that’s how you’re goin’ to do that.”
“Since when did you become a therapist?” she asks, her lips twitching.
I grunt. “Since I had to deal with all the shit this club throws around. We’re all fucked up, Avi, it’s how we control it that counts.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“We’ll find the men that want you and we’ll get them out of the picture. You’ll be able to go and live the free life you fuckin’ deserve and you’ll be able to do it with a fuck load of money and choices. If I can give you anything for what I did, I’ll give you that. I’ll make sure you’re safe. I’ll make sure you’re free.”
She stares over at me, small fingers curling around the chains of the swing. Her hair blows over her face, but she doesn’t reach up to move it, she just looks at me with those intense eyes. “You could get hurt going after them.”
“Chance I’m willing to take.”
“You’d do that, for me?”
I grin at her, because she’s asked me that very same question once before, and I answered her then the same way I’ll answer her now. “I’d do fuckin’ anything for you.”
She smiles, the first true smile she’s given me since she came back. “Well, I should hope so.”
There she is.
A glimmer of the girl we lost.
One way or another, I’m going to get her back.
I’m going to get Aviana back.