Ava
The words hit me like a slap, the coldness of them slicing through the tense atmosphere between us. For a moment, I can’t breathe, can’t think. I just stare at him, my father, who has never once been anything close to the man I needed him to be.
“Money?” I repeat, the incredulity dripping from my voice. “You… need money?”
That’s why he came back? Because he needed money? Not because of anything else.
I already knew his reason for coming back had to be something big but this… this felt extremely underwhelming and yet not entirely surprising.
“While I was gone,” He begins, running his fingers through his greying strands. “I made some bad decisions. Found my way into some debts.” His words are hurried as if he’s trying to make them sound more reasonable. “Look, I’m not asking for much, just enough to get me out of this mess.”
I blink at him “And how much exactly is enough?”
He hesitates, “Thirty grand”
Thirty Fucking grand?
“I know this might sound bad…”
“Might?”
“Some really bad people are after me and if I don’t get the thirty grand to them by Monday…”
My eyes nearly pop out of their socket. “Monday?” I nearly scream, attracting the gaze of a blue-eyed man from across our table. I don’t care enough to offer him an apology because the anger pulsing in my veins outweighs my need for social etiquette.
That was barely three days away.
“Yes, Monday. If I don’t get the money to them by Monday I’ll be a dead man.”
“Better late than Never”
A muscle ticks in his jaw and then he flicks a finger over his nose.
“How the hell did you even blow through thirty grand in only two months?”
He looks away, scratching the back of his neck with the same finger he used to flick his nose, as if trying to gather his thoughts, or perhaps, trying to avoid admitting the depths of his failure altogether.
“I… I made some investments,” he starts slowly, “Things didn’t pan out the way I thought they would. Bad luck, I guess. You know how these things go.”
“No, I don’t. I really, really don’t”
“Ava-”
“Bad luck?” I scoff, narrowing my eyes at him. “You’ve been making bad decisions your entire life, and now you’re asking me to fix them for you. Again!”
I can’t believe I thought that something good would come out of meeting with him.
I can’t believe I thought that this man had changed.
I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been.
“Ava, if you would just listen…”
“No.” I say, my voice firm, “I’m done listening to you. You left me. You sold me. You destroyed everything for your own selfish interest, and now you’re asking me for money?” My voice cracks under the sheer incredulousness of his request, raw and bitter, and I almost want to laugh, but the tears are threatening to spill, and I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
“Are you even sorry for everything you’ve put me through?”
He opens his mouth, then snaps it shut and looks away. And just like that, every hope I had -every stupid, fragile hope that maybe there was something I wasn’t seeing, something I was missing-crumbles into dust.
“Of course, I am” he starts to say, wanting to remedy the situation, but the words are as genuine as a counterfeit bill-hollow, flimsy, and too easy to see through.
I wasn’t missing anything because there was nothing to miss. My father’s feelings regarding everything that had happened so far were as open as a book.
He wasn’t sorry. He never has been.
I lean back against my chair, watching him intently. Growing up, I learned to master every look that came across his face. The way his smile lines would deepen when he was happy. The way his eyes would flicker with excitement whenever he just closed a deal. I didn’t know it then, but while I was looking at him, he had never, not once, looked at me in return.
And today was no different.
I could count how many times we’d made eye contact today, and even now, he stares at his folded hands on the table instead of at me.
“I don’t have thirty grand.”
He lifts his chin, “Your husband does.”
The audacity of his words stuns me near to death.
He says it like it’s nothing. Like it’s a reasonable request. Like the man, I was forced to marry because of him now somehow owes him money.
“I’m sure if you’d just ask him he’d give it to you.”
I don’t know what surprised me more. The fact that he thought that I would ask Nikolai for thirty grand or the fact that he genuinely believed that Nikolai would give him the money and I’d give him.
“You think I’m going to walk up to the man you sold me to and ask him for money to save your pathetic ass?”
“You married rich, Ava. Don’t pretend it hasn’t benefited you.” his gaze drops to the diamond on my ring finger, the one Nikolai had gotten me right before we left for Russia and the one I hadn’t taken off since and I almost felt the need to hide it away from his preying gaze but I don’t.
Why should I hide my ring?
It was mine and there was no way I was going to let it leave my sight.
I blink, slowly. “It doesn’t matter if I married rich. His money isn’t mine. It’s his and even if I somehow managed to ask my husband for the money you needed, Do you have any idea what would happen to you if he found out that you’re the one I gave it to?”
“I’m quite aware of how your husband feels about you.”
“But I don’t think you are. He hates you. He thinks you killed his brother and he will stop at nothing to return the favour.”
“I only started that fire because I had no choice.”
His words startle even him.
I freeze. My entire body tensed.
And just like that, without even trying to, I’d gotten my father to confess to his crimes.
The heat of my own stupidity slowly creeps up my neck. How could I have been so foolish? Nikolai warned me, but I chose denial-even when the truth was staring me dead in the face.
Hurt and disappointment twist my gut and I swallow hard as the realization hits me with the full force of a tidal wave. He was guilty and I had been making excuses for him.
Time and time again. I had lied to myself and tried to give everyone else the benefit of the doubt. I had clung to the hope that maybe, just maybe, my father wasn’t the monster everyone else had made him out to be.
But he was and I’d been so blind.
“Nikolai was right”, I say, looking straight at him. “You’re a fixer, aren’t you?” The accusation causes his face to harden.
“Don’t call me that.”
“But that’s what you are,”, I say, my voice low, trembling with emotion. “You killed people for Nikolai’s father and for others too.” Hurt turns to rage, and my disappointment to disgust. “How many people have you killed? How many lives have you ruined?”
His jaw tightens, and his fingers curl into fists on the table, but he doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t even flinch.
“You have no idea the situation I was in,” he says finally, voice cold and defensive. “You have no idea what it’s like to have no choice. To do what you have to do to survive. So yes, I killed, but I only did so because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to give you half the life you’ve lived.”
Is being serious right now?
“Half the life I’ve lived?” I repeat, shaking my head. “Do you even hear yourself? What part of my life are you taking credit for? Is it the part where you were barely there during my childhood? Or the part where you sold me like property to a man whose brother you murdered? Do you even realise the life your actions ruined?”
Because of him. Because of his greed. Kira no longer had a father or a mother. Because of him Nikolai no longer had a brother.
Because of him, I was now the daughter of a murderer.
“I don’t care about the lives you think I ruined. I did what I had to do, and I would do so again if I had to if it meant protecting you and your brother.”
“No. You don’t get to blame us for your poor decisions.” I push my chair back, legs scraping harshly against the polished floor, echoing louder than I expect-but I don’t care. My hands are trembling, my entire body heating not from fear, but from the rage boiling just beneath the surface.
“I’m done” I announce, “I’m done with you. I’m done with whatever this is. I thought that if I came here and talked to you, then maybe some of my questions would be answered, but now, seeing you take no responsibility for everything that happened, I’m filled with nothing but regret. “You made those choices. You. Not me. Not Aaron. You did. So stop acting like you were some kind of hero in your own twisted little story. You didn’t protect us, you didn’t protect me -you sacrificed us, you sacrificed me to save yourself”
His expression hardens, and for a brief second, I let myself wonder what he was thinking before shutting the thought out. It didn’t matter anyway. It was already too late.
I turn around to sling my bag over my shoulder but a hand on my wrist stops me before my fingers can brush the strap.
“What are you doing?” I struggle to release my hand from his grasp but he only tightens his grip.
His eyes are wild now-desperate. “Ava, please. Just listen-”
“No!” I yank at my wrist, the pain sharp now. “Let go of me!”
But he doesn’t. His fingers dig deeper like he’s afraid that if he lets go, I’ll vanish. A few eyes are on us but none of them try to intervene, maybe out of fear or the fact that they don’t think I’m in enough danger to try and stop this.
And then it happens.
The sharp, unmistakable click of a safety being released slices through the heavy air.
“Let. Her. Go.”
My father freezes and so do I.
That voice. I knew that voice.
My father’s grip loosens a bit and I seize the opportunity, ripping my hand out of his grasp. I whip around and sure enough, he’s here.
Nikolai is standing just inches away from my father and I, eyes dark and a gun pointed directly at my father’s forehead.
Shit.