AVA
I don’t realize just how much I expected Link to blame me for what happened until I finish telling him all about it and the only thing he says when I’m done is, “Good. Fucker deserved it.”
I blink, stunned. Having him here, sitting on my couch in his fancy get-up, oozing confidence and an “I’ve fucking got this” attitude, I’ve calmed down a little. The way he covered Joey’s body helps, too, and I only stumbled a few times when I got to the point in my story where he grabbed my face, tripping me to the floor, then shoving his hand up my shorts.
Link did stop me there. His eyes—impossibly black compared to the deep brown I remembered—seemed to burn as he leaned forward in his seat, asking, “Did he…”
He doesn’t use the word. Rape. He doesn’t have to, either. It’s obvious what Joey’s intents were, and while I shot him before he could, I was still assaulted and we both know it.
I shook my head, though, and Link didn’t push. He just waited for me to finish.
So I did. I called him because I needed his help, and he can’t do anything until he knows exactly what he’s dealing with. The way he reacted so blasé when he found Joey on the floor just proves that he was the only one I could call. Who else would shrug over a dead body like it was nothing the way he did?
This is part of his job, right? This is what he does. People die—and I’m not so naive to think he’s not responsible for some—and he makes them disappear. He can make Joey disappear, too.
He already told me to stop peering over my shoulder, peeking through the blinds, watching to see if the cops are going to roll up on my house. I’d been expecting them from the moment the shot echoed through my house, and even turned the television back off after I hung up with Link. Either they were coming or not, and the blaring volume on the set was adding to my jumpiness.
They are coming. At least, one is, but Link said it’s okay. If he gives the word, the cop will help him, and I know I shouldn’t believe anything a gangster says, but this is Link.
Even if he’s all grown up now.
I’m still in shock. I have to be. I freaking killed a man tonight, and while that keeps on running on repeat in the forefront of my mind like a song I can’t get out of my head, I can’t help but marvel at what a man Lincoln Crewes has become.
Is it the shadow of a beard on his strong jaw? His chiseled features, so wild and untamed and fierce despite the suit trying to contain him? It can’t. Looking at him, facing him from opposite sides of the couch, I notice that the first three buttons on his white shirt are undone, giving me a peek at his tanned chest and part of the tattoo he has hidden beneath it.
His suit jacket has fallen open. I don’t know if he wants me to see the gun perched dangerously at his hip, but though I started when I did, it’s… it’s different than the open threat Joey made, keeping his gun on his thigh. Link has it because he’s a dangerous man, and while I know he’d pull it in a heartbeat if he felt he had to, it’s as much an accessory on him as his tattoo.
Link’s hair is shorter than it used to be. That adds to his dangerous air, losing any of the softness he once had. His body is bigger, muscles more prominent as they bulge beneath the suit. He still has brawler hands, I think to myself, looking at his thick knuckles.
You can take the fighter out of downtown Springfield, dress him up, give him power and money… and, deep down, I want to believe he’s still the same kid who would fight in the back alley for twenty bucks and a pizza to bring home to our apartment.
I want to believe that—but then I glimpse into his dark eyes, seeing nothing but the promise of retribution and barely stifled fury without any of the love my Link once felt for me, and I know this isn’t Link at all.
This is the Devil of Springfield, and I’m at his mercy.
I gulp, and he frowns.
“Hey,” he asks, pushing his big body off of my couch. “You still drink that tea shit?”
Back during my college days, when anxiety over exams got to be too much, I settled my nerves with a steaming mug of chamomile tea. Link never touched the stuff, but he was always my biggest supporter. At the first sight of one of my freak-outs, he would start brewing a cup.
I nod.
“Where do you keep it? In the kitchen?”
“Yes,” I tell him.
Without another word, he starts across the living room, walking past Joey without a single look, though he does pause when he reaches my spread-out dish towel.
He goes to toe the towel with his dress shoe.
“No. Don’t do that.” At his look, I feel a wave of shame rush through me. “Puke’s under there,” I explain. “I threw up my dinner.”
And the most I could do while I waited for Link was cover it up with a towel. I left Joey’s destroyed face on display, but tossed a dish towel over my vomit because I couldn’t bring myself to clean it up while I waited to see if Link would show.
“Understandable,” he says, stepping over the towel. “I’ll get someone to clean that up when they come for the body.”
Does that mean he’s really going to help me? When all he said was that Joey deserved his fate, he didn’t add anything about what I should do now, and I wasn’t sure how to ask.
I don’t get the chance now, either. He pushes the doors to my kitchen in like he owns the house, vanishing into the other room. Part of me thinks I should get up and follow him. The other part feels weighed down by fear and stress and something I can’t quite understand right now, so I stay seated on my couch, not sure what else to do while I hear my former love move around my kitchen.
He’s gone for about six or seven minutes, and I spent that entire time realizing something. At first, it hits me that I didn’t tell him that I keep my tea bags in the cabinet over my fridge, or that my mugs are on the other side of the kitchen. I have a tea pot that I keep stored in a lower cabinet, but he didn’t ask about that, either.
And that’s not all.
I never told him where I lived, or where to find me. But after I called him, he was here in no time at all. Maybe I could explain that away as him looking me up on the internet or something before he hopped in his car, but what about the gun…
I told him I used it. He’d asked how I got my hands on a “piece”, wondering if I killed Joey with his own gun, but after I pointed out that the much larger gun was still where my ex hadn’t been able to reach it, I admitted that I fired the pocket pistol he sent me all those years ago.
He didn’t deny it. When I called it his gift, he sat there with an unreadable expression on his handsome face, waiting for me to continue.
Because Link already knew where I lived. He’d mailed me a weapon through the mail right after I moved in, and now he’s in my kitchen, going through my things as though he belongs in there.
As though he never left me.
When Link returns, he’s carrying my favorite mug in one of his big hands. Reaching the couch where I’m still sitting, he holds it out to me.
I take it.
“Drink.”
“I like to let it steep a little longer,” I murmur.
“I know.” Glancing up at him through the fringe of my lashes, he says, “I remember. But then you’re going to drink, pet.”
Pet.
My eyes drop back to the steam wafting over my tea.
Pet…
Link might have called me ‘Saint Ava’ when we were kids, but when we started dating more seriously in high school, he developed this habit of calling me all sorts of pet names, seeing which one would stick. My name only has three letters—and my middle name, Marie, is no better—so it’s not like I had any real options for nicknames. Lincoln had ‘Link’, and he wanted a name of his own for me.
I was ‘sweetheart’ and ‘baby’, ‘honey’ and ‘my Ava’, but the one he teased me with more than the others was ‘pet’ because he would put on this ridiculous British accent whenever he did.
He didn’t just now. Instead, with a deep rumble to his voice, and an expectation that he’ll be obeyed, the term of endearment rolls off of his tongue so easily, it makes me wonder how many other ‘pets’ he’s had since he left me—or currently has.
I try to shove that thought out of my head. It’s bad enough that my gaze instinctively landed on the ring finger on his left hand earlier, searching out a wedding ring. I was being ridiculous if—for even a moment—I got jealous over the women in Link’s life when I haven’t been a part of it for so long. That was his decision, after all, and he wanted me to move on.
Sometimes I wonder if I ever did…
Red and blue lights suddenly flash into the living room from between the slats in my window.
My hand sloshes as I jump, sending scalding tea onto my thigh. It burns my skin, causing me to yelp as I try to steady both my mug and my racing heart.
Eyes dipping to my thigh, Link frowns again. “Are you okay?”
I’m not worried about the burn from the tea. “There’s a cop out there.”
“I know. You stay here. I’ll take care of it.”
I’m so freaking glad to hear that. Setting my mug down on the arm of my couch, clasping my fingers together, I offer him a small smile and finally tell him what I’d been meaning to since he rushed over: “Thank you, Link.”
To my surprise, his jaw goes tight. “Don’t thank me. You haven’t asked me what I want for payment yet.”
What? Payment?
Of course. Link didn’t get to the top of the food chain in Springfield by doing jobs for free, whatever they are. He came because an old girlfriend called him, half-hysterical. That didn’t mean that he was doing it out of the kindness of his heart. He wants payment.
I can only imagine how much this is going to cost me.
“I have four thousand in the bank. If I cash out my retirement, that’s another ten, I guess. I know that’s not much, but—”
“I don’t want your money,” he says, cutting me off.
Oh. “Then what do you want?”
I don’t have much, but my car is pretty decent. My house, too. I have a little jewelry, if that’s what he means, or—
“You.”
The corner of his mouth twitches enough to be noticeable. It’s the first sign of amusement I’ve seen from him since he walked through my door and I tell myself he has to be kidding.
“Me?” I give a tiny laugh of my own. “What do you mean, me?”
“It’s very simple. I need a wife—”
“And you don’t have one already?”
I’m not sure if I sound relieved to hear that, or irrationally pleased. I shouldn’t have any reaction at all, but so surprised by the direction this conversation has taken, I give myself away.
Link shakes his head. “That’s the problem. As the head of the syndicate, I’m expected to have one. To turn the Sinners into a family, right? Can’t do that without a wife, and I’ve been too busy to find one. And here you are. No husband. No boyfriend,” he adds, and I can’t help but wonder how he knows that, “and no way out of this unless you say yes.”
“Link… you can’t be serious.”
“Dead fucking serious,” he agrees.
“Marry you… that’s your price. You want me to marry you?”
He nods.
Lifting my mug to my lips, I swallow a mouthful of tea. It’s still hot and I’m probably scalding the roof of my mouth and the length of my esophagus, but I forced it down. Right now, I need the calm it provides.
“Careful, pet,” he says softly. “Easy.”
Easy? Easy? I’ve got a dead man—that I killed—in my living room, a cop pulled up at my curb, and my former lover-turned-gangster freaking proposing to me… and he wants me to take it easy?
That’s not what he’s doing. Not really. The proposing part, I mean. Link didn’t suddenly realize after all these years that he made a mistake and he still loves me.
Oh, no.
I’m just a single woman who is desperate enough to even entertain this insanity.
And I am.
“So… if I say yes, it would be a fake marriage. Like a marriage of convenience, one of those in name only. Just so people stop wondering when you’ll find a wife… right?”
Link shakes his head. “It’ll be real from the moment you say ‘I do’, pet.”
Okay. He must’ve taken one too many punches to the face when he was younger because I’m beginning to think Link’s the crazy one now.
And yet, I can’t stop myself from asking, “What would I have to do?”
“I’ll need an heir one day.” There’s no small smile twitching his lips any longer. Link is really freaking serious. “Someone to take over the syndicate for me, with hellfire in their veins and the devil in their blood. With you as their mother, they’ll have some good in them, too.”
My heart is thumping, and I’m back to being too stunned to decipher why. “Children,” I sputter. “You want children?”
“Eventually. Why? Is that a problem?”
I don’t even know how to answer that. Acting the part of his wife in front of his gang is one thing, but sleeping with him? Having children with him?
Spending the rest of my life with the man who broke my heart when I was a silly little girl who still believed in fairy tale endings? A man who is blackmailing me into marriage in exchange for helping me get through the second worst night in my life?
As if he knows exactly what I’m thinking, he crouches down so that we’re on the same level.
“You’ll be my wife in all ways, and this whole night… all of it… it can just go away.”
If only it was that simple.
“Link, I—”
A shadow passes across his face. “They call me Devil.”
‘They’ might. To me, he’s always been Link.
“I know that, but—”
“Just making sure you do. Because if you say yes, I want you to know you’ll be tied to.” He waits a moment, then adds, “Who will be able to protect you as your husband should.”
Oh, he’s good. Link always was even when he was good. But Devil… he knows exactly what card to play, and that I have a shit hand of my own.
He wants a wife. I need protection.
From retaliation from the Libellula Family. From the law. From my own conscience… I need him.
It’s a devil’s bargain, and I can’t see any way but to agree.
“If I say ‘yes’, I’ll be safe?” I ask. “No one will come after me for what I did?”
Not Damien? Not the police?
Not anyone?
Nodding once, Link holds out his hand, palm side up.
Knowing what he wants, I lay my hand on his.
He folds his calloused fingers around mine, then rises up to his full height. Once standing, he gives my hand a tug, helping me to my feet.
We’re so close, we’re basically breathing the same air for a moment before he tugs again, pulling me up against his hard chest.
With his hand a possessive brand on my back, Link’s chin pinning me against him as he rests it on my head, he rubs the edge of his thumb along the height of my cheek.
“I promise you this, pet: no one will touch you when Devil marks you as his.”
