REAPER'S KISS(11)

There was nothing I could say to Dad. I brought him coffee and toast in the bathroom. I grabbed a washcloth and wiped up his face the best I could.

“Sit, Ava,” he said to me.

I grabbed a kitchen chair and sat outside the bathroom.

“What are you going to do?” he asked me.

“I don’t know, Dad,” I said. “I wish you would stop keeping secrets from me.”

“All I’ve ever done is protect you,” he said. “I’ll keep doing that. Even if I have to let you go. You need to go to the outlaws. Trust them. Let Jace take you in. Tell him everything you know. I don’t care.”

“Tell what I know? I don’t know anything.”

“That’s fine. Let them dig. Let them do what they need to do.”

“And if that means they hurt you?” I asked.

Dad leaned forward, hanging over the toilet.

I couldn’t watch.

I stood up and left. I left the apartment and went down to the store. I went to the back room where everything had gone down. I saw the blood stains on the concrete and didn’t know whose blood it was.

It made me shiver.

I walked to the front of the store and stood there. That’s when I broke down into tears again. My mother used to be in the store, whistling, working, loving it. There was music playing all the time. It was clean and inviting. She worked long hours and never complained once.

I didn’t know where in the store she was murdered. Sometimes I felt like it was better not to know. Then again, to me, the entire store was the murder scene.

A door squeaked from behind me.

Dad was there, a little more cleaned up. He was in fresh clothes and had splashed a lot of aftershave on his face. He walked with a limp toward me.

“You better get moving,” he said.

“Why?”

“You know…”

“Not about Jace. About Mom. The store. The truth.”

Dad shook his head. “Ava, the truth doesn’t always set someone free. Sometimes, the truth is a prison. A terrible prison. Understand me?”

“No, I don’t.”

I took a step and Dad reached for me. “Please tell me you don’t hate me.” He reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and took out a piece of paper. He forced me to take it.

“I don’t think I could ever hate you. You’re my father. I just don’t understand any of this. I’m let down. I’m hurt. This isn’t the life I asked.”

Dad nodded.

He reached into his back pocket and took out a flask.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“The demons are loud,” he whispered as he threw the flask back.

That was all I could handle.

I left the store with a lump in my throat and fresh tears in my eyes. I got into my car and stuck the key in the ignition and had a sudden sense of fear. That the car was going to explode. I looked in the mirror and saw Dad standing at the store, holding the door open.

Everything was wrong.

I shut my eyes and started the car.

It didn’t blow up.

I drove away, unfolding the piece of paper he gave me. It had an address scribbled with his bad handwriting.

What choice did I have?

I had to go to the address. I felt safe nowhere else… but in the arms of a stranger. An outlaw stranger. A man with a bad past and a dark present.

Far from the fairy tale dream I once had about a man saving me, taking care of me, and giving me a life that was nothing but happiness. I was on the other side of that equation. I was with the bad guys.

With the bad guys to be safe?

I parked my car and climbed out. The house looked too normal to be owned by an outlaw. That’s when I feared my father had set me up yet again. Maybe I was being given up to Uncle Frank.

Uncle Frank. The things he wanted to do. The things he would do.

I hesitated but then I saw the motorcycle in the driveway. The second I saw it my heart started to race. I touched my chest and collected myself. I had no idea what to do when Jace answered the door. What to say. How to play this off.

I was suddenly a pawn in a game that I didn’t know a thing about.

If Jace was my only hope at staying alive then I’d do whatever it would take to stay alive.

I walked to the door and knocked.

There was no answer.

I made a fist and pounded.

I waited.

Still no answer.

From the corner of my eye I saw a car turn on the street. It was a long, black car. Super sleek. The windows nice and dark. It was going way too slow. My heart started to race even faster.

The car kept coming.

Slower… and slower…

It almost came to a complete stop. I slammed my hand on the door, over and over. I grabbed the handle and tried to open the door but it was locked. Panic set in.

The window on the car started to go down.

That’s when the door opened.

I lunged forward, throwing my hands to whoever answered the door.

I looked back and saw the car quickly speed away.

I regained my senses and looked forward. Staring at a tattooed and muscular chest, my hands shaking.

I looked up and my eyes locked to Jace’s.

“Well,” he said in a tired voice, “good f*cking morning to me…”