Ava
By the time we reach the mansion, I’m shaking through my skin and can barely keep the trembling in my bones at bay.
He’s back.
My father, the man who’d sold me not once but twice and ran away, was back. And he’d been at the hospital, watching me.
A violent shudder rocked through me, nausea churning in the pit of my stomach.
Did he know I was going to be there? How long has he been back? How long has he been following me? And why hadn’t I noticed until now? How long…
“Your hands are shaking” The words drag me from my spiralling thoughts, and I blink, realizing the car is no longer moving.
“Huh?”
“Your hands,” She nods towards the fist still clenched around my sweater in a death vice, “They’re shaking”
Her brows pinch together, “Are you cold?”
Cold? No. Shocked? Definitely. But with everything that’s going on with Kat, I can’t tell her what’s really happening. At least not until I’m sure myself. So I lie.
“Yes,” I nod, then tug the sleeve of my sweater down to add to my dramatics, “A bit.”
Kat looks anything but convinced, but she doesn’t push. Which I’m grateful for.
She reaches over and takes my closed fist in hers, rubbing the back of my knuckles in a slow comforting gesture that leaves me grateful for her presence.
She steps out of the car, and I force myself to follow after her, pushing open the car door and stepping onto the driveway.
Inside, I spot Nikolai and Ivan near the stairs. They both seem so wrapped up in whatever they’re talking about that they barely notice Kat and I making an entrance.
“We’re back” Kat announces at the same time I shut the door behind me. The soft click breaks through whatever conversation they were engaged in and the two men turn their attention to us.
Ivan’s cool mask breaks into a smile as he sees his wife and he mumbles something in Russian before going to stand beside her. He mumbles something in Russian and I can visibly see Kat’s shoulders tense only briefly before relaxing.
I wonder what they’re talking about.
When I finally drag my gaze away from the pair, I find my husband still by the stairs, a slight tilt in his lips with his gaze trained solely on me.
There’s something about the way Nikolai looks at me when I step into a room that usually has my stomach in knots. His gaze alone has the ability to knock the air straight from my lungs and while most days I revel in his attention even when I know I shouldn’t, today I want nothing of it. Why you might ask? Well, it’s simple. I’m a terrible liar, not the best at keeping secrets either. I’m afraid that if Nikolai looks long enough, he’ll find out that I’m hiding something from him, and I can’t have that.
A featherlight touch grazes my skin and I look up to find Nikolai’s looming figure towering over me, his fingers barely inches away from my cheek.
Somehow, in the midst of my panic, I hadn’t noticed that Kat and Ivan were no longer by my side or that Nikolai had now moved from his position by the stairs and was now standing directly in front of me.
His dark green gaze roams over my face, studying me. He’s changed clothes since we left and was now in a different shirt than earlier. I wonder what happened to the old one.
“I’m sorry” He apologizes, “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says, his voice lower than usual, almost cautious. His fingers, rough and calloused, hover near my cheek for only a second longer before he pulls it back to himself as if he’s resisting the urge to touch me.
He apologises so easily to me that it catches me off guard sometimes.
“It’s fine,” I say, not bothering to move away from him even though I know I should. Kat and Ivan are already heading inside, and from the looks of it, I’m guessing Kat needs a more private place to tell Ivan about her pregnancy. She tosses me a nervous look from over her shoulder, and I nod, a silent reminder that I’ll be fine and that she should do what she needs to and I’ll be here if she needs me.
When they disappear inside, it’s just Nikolai and I standing in the middle of the living room. His eyes are still so intense as they watch me that I have to remind myself to breathe.
“What?”
“Ava,” he murmurs, his voice quieter now, almost gentle. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m fine, I just…” I rack my brain for a suitable excuse but all of them seem to be hiding in the corner right beside all my newly acquired secrets.
“You just what?”
“I just need to lie down”
His gaze dips to my hands, still faintly trembling, and when his eyes meet mine again, they are unreadable.
“Did something happen at the hospital?” He sounds worried and a part of me knows I should probably tell him, but the other part, the part that knows what will happen if I do, keeps my lips pressed together.
l shake my head, “No. Nothing happened.”
“Then why are you shaking?”
“I’m not.”
The words are sharp, precise, designed for him to leave me alone. But he doesn’t and goes ahead to do the exact opposite. He takes my hand in his and my gaze drops to where we’re touching, subtly admiring the way his big hands swallow mine.
“You are.”
My throat tightens.
How does he do that? How does he always know when something is wrong with me, and why is he looking at me like he’s ready to fix it for me?
It makes my heart confused.
My feelings for Nikolai are only growing stronger, and his acting like this does little to stop it.
I hate it and yet I don’t.
“Ava.” His voice is soft, a small warning designed to ease the truth out of me.
I swallow hard, willing my heart to slow. “I’m just tired, Nikolai.”
His thumb brushes over my knuckles, a featherlight touch that sends shivers racing up my spine. His gaze flickers over my face, searching, dissecting, and I can’t help but feel that he can see right through me.
I pull my hand back before he can say anything else. “I need to go upstairs.”
He doesn’t try to stop me and for that little favour, I’m grateful.
When I’m in our room and I’m sure that he didn’t follow me upstairs, I shut the door and let out a long, slow sigh pass through my lips as the events of the day come crashing down on me with full force and without mercy.
Kat was pregnant. Good.
Kat was scared about being pregnant. Expected but not terrible.
My father was back. Bad.
I am keeping it a secret from my husband who wants to murder him. Terrible. Actually, scratch that, it’s more than terrible.
It is the worst thing to happen to me since my favourite TV character got killed off.
I drag a hand down my face, pressing my fingers into my temples as if that would somehow ease the pounding already drumming.
Everything was a mess.
And I wasn’t sure how or if I could fix it. There was no fixing this. My father was back, watching me. Following me. And I hadn’t even noticed.
I sink onto the bed and throw myself back against it, staring at the ceiling.
I hated keeping secrets.
How long has my father been lurking in the shadows, just beyond my reach?
I try not to let the question turn grate me but I can’t help it.
He’s been gone for months now; he could’ve stayed gone and as far away from Nikolai as possible, so why then was he back? And why was he at the hospital?
I don’t think he saw me, and even if he did, I don’t think he expected me to see him.
That brief moment, his face just beyond the fence. Though I hadn’t seen him in a while, there was no mistaking it, no mistaking him; I was sure that man was my father.
I close my eyes, inhaling deeply. I need to think. Need to decide what to do next. Telling Nikolai would be a catastrophic mistake. I’ve been married to him long enough that his patience doesn’t extend to his enemies. If he knew that my father was back, he’d kill him. No questions asked. And no questions answered either.
And I can’t let that happen.
I need to know. For my sanity and for me to be able to move on, I need to know if everything everyone has told me about the man I call my father is true. I need to know why he did this to me. The real reason.
I need answers.
And the only person who can give them to me is the man I should hate more than anyone else in the world, and yet I can’t bring myself to do so completely because, at the end of the day, he was still my father.
And some sick, maybe even masochistic part of me who clearly enjoyed torturing herself couldn’t bring myself to hate him. Not completely.
I needed to talk to him. But how?
My father didn’t keep friends, he kept associates, but none of them would be willing to hide him, knowing that Nikolai was after him.
There’s only one other person I can talk to about this, but he’s made his intentions clear on his stance on talking to me with the number of times I’ve been sent to voice mail.
Which means that If my father was back, truly back, he had no one. No source of income, no place to stay, nothing. He was alone and probably homeless, too, which would explain why he looked the way he looked when I saw him.
But that wouldn’t make any sense.
My father was a lot of things but he wasn’t stupid.
He knows that Nikolai is looking for him, so he knows how unwise it’ll be for him to roam around the city of Chicago without protection-especially since the Morettis aren’t known for their forgiveness either. If he’s here, he isn’t alone. Someone is helping him stay hidden, at least until he’s ready to be found.
But who?
Who would be crazy enough to go against Nikolai?