Tragic Beauty (Beauty & The Darkness #1)(39)

I let go of the glass in my hand otherwise it’s going to shatter.

A moment later, I watch her turn to Shayne, and point a finger my way. I don’t understand, until I realize the restrooms are in the hall behind me. He grips her by the chin and whispers something in her ear, to which she jerks her head with a nod, then slides down off his lap. Now she’s walking my way. I keep my head down, feeling every hair on my body rise as she walks past me, her eyes downcast. When I’m sure she’s gone, I glance to Shayne, who’s ordering drinks from the cocktail waitress.

I slip off the seat and wait in the hall, looking down when a woman walks past me. A few minutes later, Ava walks out. It takes only a second for her eyes to come up and meet mine. She stops.

“Gavin?” Her voice is barely a whisper I can make out.

“Hey,” I say softly.

She blinks and her eyes instantly well up. That glassy gaze has me reaching for her, but she takes a step back and shakes her head. “You—you can’t—you shouldn’t be here.”

I narrow my eyes on her. “What’s wrong with your voice? Are you sick or something?”

Ava licks her lips and shakes her head.

I take a step towards her, but she backs away again. Another woman walks by and looks at us curiously. Ava pales and looks to the floor. The frustration growing, I corral her to the end of the hallway, so I can get a few minutes with her.

I have to control my temper when I see her body begin to shake, forcing me back a couple steps. “Listen, Ava,” I say, hands out to my side, trying to calm her. “I know what’s going on. Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve helped you. I could’ve—”

“No, you couldn’t,” she says, her voice straining. Why the fuck can she barely talk? I push the thought aside and try to focus.

“I could,” I say. “I could’ve paid him off, Ava. I’d have given him a blank check.”

She shakes her head again. “Not about money. About me.”

I rake a hand through my hair, not understanding why her voice is like that, and not liking her words. She begins fidgeting with her hands, and that’s when I see it. A gold band.

There’s a goddamn ring on her finger?

And then I understand the dress.

“You married him?”

She looks away, and a tear slides down her cheek.

Without thinking, I grab her wrist to see the ring up close, but she yelps like I’ve just hit her. I instantly let her go and see a thin line of red appear through the white fabric of her sleeve. She looks down at her wrist and her little mouth falls open. As gently as I can, I take her trembling hand and pull back the sleeve. I grunt when I see the broken skin and the massive black and blue bruising around her slender wrist.

“Ava?”

She does nothing but stare at her wrist while the color drains from her face and her lower lip begins to quiver. Slowly, carefully, I take her other hand and see the same thing.

What the…?

When I look up, tears are streaming down her cheeks and her beautiful, blue eyes are filled with shame, despair…and so much terror.

A grenade goes off somewhere deep inside me, dousing me with a rage I’ve never felt before.

“MOTHERFUCKER!!!”

I spin around with one single focus.

There’s someone I need to kill.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN




Ava




“Gavin, wait! Please!”

He doesn’t listen, doesn’t stop. He just keeps storming his way to the other end of the bar, where Shayne sits with his guys. Buck watches us with narrowed eyes as we pass by.

“Buck,” I call out, my voice nothing but a rasp. “Help me. It’s—”

With a rush, Gavin is gone. He lunges through the crowd and tackles Shayne out the side door. The music stops and the crowd goes quiet. I bolt out the door after them.

Under the light of a single street lamp, all I can see is Gavin’s dark hoodie clashing with Shayne’s white dress shirt as they hurl through the parking lot, bouncing off cars and stirring up dirt. I hear the sounds of fists hitting flesh, of grunts and growls. I try to yell at them, but my voice fails me. I look around desperately, searching for help among the people from the bar who have filtered out and now surround them.

“Somebody do something,” I wail, but no one listens. There are too many who have been waiting for someone to take Shayne on.

So I stand there, helpless, watching as they go at it, like two bulls locked in a battle out in the wild. Shayne’s a little bigger, but slower. Gavin’s quick and knows how to fight. Shayne manages to get his arm around Gavin’s neck, but he breaks free and spins, then nails Shayne with a hard punch to the face that sends Shayne wobbling, and blood streaming down his nose and onto his white shirt. Shayne’s guys rush in to jump Gavin, but Buck steps inside the circle, aiming a shotgun at the men.

“This stays fair,” he shouts. “One on one.”

The men glare at him, but step back. Shayne manages to get in a couple blows, hitting Gavin in the face and in the ribs, but then Gavin spins and kicks Shayne square in the chest, taking the wind from him. Shayne staggers backwards and Gavin pounces on him. He grabs Shayne by the collar and punches him in the face. And by the way Shayne’s head bobbles, I know he’d be falling over, but Gavin holds him up by the collar of his shirt and keeps hitting him, over and over. And then my stomach lurches when I see what he’s doing. He isn’t stopping. He’s—he’s going to kill him.