Chapter 29
“Gin.”
I glared from him to his father and back again. Putting a tracking app on his new phone had been a better idea than I thought. All those bruises, the broken phone, the disappearances; they were all to meet his scumbag of a father. Seeing him hand money over to the man I wanted to stick into a shallow, unmarked grave made every inch of my skin ignite. My blood boiled as I stared back at Ash.
His eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open as if he didn’t know what to say. Those eyes that I had fucking fallen for darted around, a trapped animal in a goddamn cage about to be taken to slaughter. When he didn’t say anything else, I leaned forward, my hand on his table as I closed the space between us.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked him. “Huh?”
Ash swallowed hard. “It’s not what it looks like.”
My hand slammed onto the table. A glass of water spilled, but no one moved. Ash’s tongue darted out, running over his bottom lip as he stared up at me. I hadn’t seen him this scared of me since the night I brought him home. For the first time, I didn’t give a damn.
“Open your fucking mouth and speak,” I growled. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re feeding your father money after you told me you were going shopping. So I’m going to ask one more fucking time. What is this?”
“You’re making a scene,” Roger muttered.
I turned and shoved a finger in his face. “One more word, just one, and I’ll slam your face into this table until your head cracks open.”
The man shoved back in his seat, but something on my face must have deterred him from speaking. He kept his fucking mouth shut, his eyes darting around like the slimy piece of shit he was. My head whipped back in Ash’s direction. I grabbed his chin, my fingers squeezing his cheeks.
“Speak!”
“Let”s go home,” Ash said, shaking his head. “Come on. I’ll tell you everything there.”
“You’ll tell me right goddamn now,” I snapped.
“This is ridiculous,” Roger huffed.
I reacted without thinking. My hand reached out, fingers digging into his thin locks before I smashed his face against the table. One, two, three times. Every bang that echoed through the restaurant soothed my soul. When he sat up, he wavered, his eyes glazed as blood rushed down his face.
“Stop! Giancarlo, stop it,” Ash begged. He jumped up, grabbing my arm. “We better go. Everyone’s looking. Seriously.” He shook my arm hard until I looked at him. “Let’s go home. You’re not supposed to get in trouble, remember?”
I yanked my arm out of his grasp as a waitress rushed over to check on Roger. Hitting the cool air outside didn’t take any of the heat from my body. I stormed to my car, climbing in before I slammed the door so hard the glass rattled. Ash hurriedly climbed in. I had half a mind to tell him to get out, to fuck off, but I didn’t. I drove.
“Don’t be angry,” Ash whispered. “I didn’t want you to find out like this.”
“Find out what?” I snapped as I turned to glare at him. “What exactly were you doing with him? Giving him money? Giving him information? Was that the grand plan all along? Make me look like a fucking idiot while you help that asshole!”
“No, it wasn’t like that. Slow down,” he said.
“Fuck you!”
My heart wouldn’t stop hammering in my chest. I felt like a damn fool. All the shit I’d given to Benito for his screw-up with Brycen, and here I was making the same damn mistakes, too blind to see that I was being used. Had he actually been after Benito and landed me instead? Ash always had a fascination for the boss, and I wasn’t that. Was he after the same shit that Brycen was?
A hand touched mine. “Let me explain, please,” Ash begged. His voice came out choked, like he wanted to cry. I shook his hand off. “You’re not being fair.”
“Fuck your fair,” I muttered.
I wove around a car and shot past another one. Horns blared. I ignored them as my foot pushed the accelerator down more. One of the car’s wheels hit the curb as I took a corner. I kept going, needing to get home so I could think. So I didn’t end up on the news for bludgeoning someone to death, even if that was all I wanted to do.
“You’re freaking me out,” Ash breathed. “We’re going to crash.”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do, Ash snapped. “Fuck! I didn’t want this any more than you did. My father... no, my sperm donor was never supposed to be part of this. Once it started, I couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t let me.”
“Bullshit,” I muttered.
“Bullshit?” he repeated. “What do you know? You have no idea what it’s like to be pushed around by someone all your fucking life!” he yelled. “From the time I was a kid, that man has put a fist to my gut and a boot to my back. Never the face, though, you know?” he spat. “Couldn’t have the school calling social services. He broke my nose one good time and never did it again because I was almost free of him.”
“Save your sob story.”
Ash’s fist collided with my arm. “Fuck you! It’s not a sob story, and I wasn’t trying to screw you over. Yes, I gave him money more than once. I met up with him. I snuck around behind your back, and I lied to you, but—”
”Oh, ladies and gentlemen, there’s a fucking but!” I growled. “Go ahead, justify it. You ran around behind my back while lying to my face like I’m some kinda dumbass. If he was hurting you, if he was making you do anything, why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Bull-fucking-shit!” My grip tightened on the steering wheel as I made a sharp right. “You could have told me, and I would have snapped his goddamn neck, but no, you kept sneaking around. You know what that tells me? That’s what you wanted to do. Or else you just thought I was some little bitch that couldn’t protect you.” I laughed bitterly. “Right now, I honestly don’t know which of those is worse.”
“Not everything is about you, asshole.”
I threw on the brakes. The car screeched to a halt as I turned and stared at Ash. He wouldn’t meet my gaze, his arms crossed over his chest defensively. I searched his face, wanting to see the person I had come to fucking love, but all I saw was a liar. One who, if I hadn’t followed, could have milked me for everything I had. Maybe he would even be the reason I wound up back in prison. How did I do this? Why did I open up so much? What’s wrong with me?
“Why were you giving him money?”
“He asked,” Ash muttered. “The bruises are from me saying no. Or looking at him wrong. Who knows?”
“You give him anything else?” I asked. “Information? You have access to important records at Vitale Constructions. Did you ever give him any of that? Don’t you dare lie to me.”
Ash scoffed. “Fuck you. If you think I’m such a bad person, then what do you care what I have to say?”
We sat in heavy silence as I stared at him. I climbed out the car, slamming the door behind me. I’d wanted him to be sorry, to be upset, something! Not this closed-off bs. It made my walls shoot right back up where they should have been all along.
Walking into the house, I marched through the darkened rooms, not bothering to flip on any of the lights. The sound of Ash’s hurried footsteps behind me followed, as well as the lights coming on.
“I’m sorry,” Ash called. “You pissed me off acting like I wanted this, but I swear I didn’t. He would have kept hurting me.”
“You could have told me.”
“I told you it’s not that easy!” he yelled. “Goddamnit, look at me!”
Something crashed beside my head as I stuck a cigarette in my mouth. Pieces of broken vase lay on the ground. It was one Sarah-Lynn had picked out. I always thought it was so fucking stupid and ugly, all gold and black with brown marks on it. Looks like someone smeared shit on it. I used to tell her that all the time. She’d laugh and say maybe she should throw it at my head. Now it lay in pieces on the floor, broken, just like everything else in my life.
My eyes flickered up to Ash. I stormed over to him. Before he could escape, I slammed his back against the wall, my hand going around his throat. Ash reached up, his nails digging into my wrist as he glared at me.
“I did not do this to hurt you,” he struggled to get out. “I didn’t tell you because... I just couldn’t.”
“What does that mean?” I growled.
“It’s like—” His eyes swept back and forth as he frowned. “I’ve been lying for him for so long that it came naturally. And then, once the lie was out, I couldn’t stop. Listening to that man, obeying him, being his punching bag; that’s my natural state. I wasn’t trying to screw you over. I would never hurt you.”
Laughing, I shoved away from Ash. “Yeah? How am I supposed to believe you? I get it. You’ve got trauma, kid. All of us do! You know what I went through with Brycen and all that fucking drama that came with it. So, why the hell should I believe you?”
“You should believe me because I’m telling the truth,” he said, pushing off the wall as he walked toward me. He grabbed my shirt. “I love you.”
I threw up a hand after shoving him away. “I don’t want to hear that shit now.”
Ash’s eyes watered. “It”s true. I love you so much it fucking hurts, Giancarlo. Why would I betray you? What would I get out of it?”
“A hell of a lot,” I pointed out. I shook my head, wiping a hand down my face. “I don’t know what you’ve done. What you’ve said. I can’t go back to that fucking place,” I muttered, pacing back and forth. “Being caged up like an animal. Directed around all day for who knows how many years.” How much had I told him? What did he have on me? What would they put me away for this time?
“You won’t!” Ash shouted. “Not because of me. Please, believe me.”
How? Ash wanted me to trust him so easily, but my head was screaming to run, to get as far away from him as possible. The other side of me, the one that had fallen in love with him, wanted to grab him, shove him into a closet and lock him away. Enzo was right; letting someone you loved go was complete and total bullshit. My heart felt like it was being ripped from my chest. I didn’t know if I wanted to hold Ash or shake him.
“Gin.”
“No,” I said shortly, stepping away from him as he reached out to me again. “I can’t trust you.”
“What?” he whispered.
I turned on my heels. Ash called me, but I ignored him as I took the stairs two at a time to my office. I lifted the rug and typed my number into the safe as the sound of Ash’s feet bounded up the steps. By the time he walked into the room, I had stood up. I tossed a stack of banded bills at his feet.
“When we started this, I agreed to give you five hundred thousand if we decided to part ways. Consider this me being generous because I don’t owe you shit after what I saw today.” I slammed the vault shut, kicked the rug over it and stepped backward. “If you decide to give it all to your dickhead father, that’s on you.”
Ash shook his head. “I was telling him I couldn’t do it anymore,” he said, tears streaming down his cheeks. I ignored the way my heart squeezed. “The money I was giving him was to tell him to fuck off, that I didn’t want to sneak around and keep giving him shit anymore. You have to believe me.”
“I don’t have to do shit.” I reached into my pocket, pulled out my lighter, and lit the smoke dangling from my lips. “You need to get out of my place.”
His eyes widened, his jaw dropping. “No.”
“I don’t give a damn where you have to go.” I nodded to the money. “That’s more than enough to get you a taxi and a hotel room for a long ass time. Get out.”
Ash choked out a sob. “I’m not going anywhere!”
“I can’t trust you,” I stressed. “You think I’m going to go to sleep with you roaming around my place? Just wait for you and dear daddy to slit my throat in my sleep? Take the money and leave.”
Ash snatched up the stacks of money. My chest constricted, sickness twisting in my gut. I wanted to vomit seeing that money in his hand, knowing that he had picked it up, that he’d take it, only twisted the knife. Yeah, I’d given it to him. But some part of me clung to stupid hope that...
That what? That he’s not fucking me over? Bullshit. He and Roger were in on this from the start. Every moment, everything between us, it was all to get my money and hell, who knows? Maybe they had more in store and thought I’d never figure this shit out.
I couldn’t take another heartbreak. My chest felt like fire was burning me from the inside out. I couldn’t do this shit!
Ash crossed the room, opened the window and tossed the money out of it. He slammed it down and turned to me. Our eyes locked, my heart racing.
“I don’t want your money.”
“We both know what this was,” I muttered. “Consider our arrangement dissolved.”
“I love you.”
“So what?”
Ash”s chest rose and fell as he looked at me. He raised a hand like he wanted to touch me but let his arm drop as if he’d had second thoughts. Turning on his heels, he headed for the door.
“I can’t make you believe me. Lying was on me. I know you have serious trust issues, and I get it. But I’m telling the truth. I love you. I was turning my father away. And I was never using you, ever.” He turned around in the doorway. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I know how sensitive you are.”
I scoffed. “I’m not fucking sensitive.”
“Deep down where no one can see it, you are. Everyone thinks you’re just goofy, but the truth is that you freak out. You think too much. Sure, you play it all off like life is one big game, but I think if you didn’t, you would hate yourself. You’d never drag yourself out of your misery. I see that, Gin, every fucking bit of it. So I’m sorry I did this to you. I get why you can’t trust me, why you’re trying to hurt me. Even though I think you’re really just hurting yourself right now.” He lingered in the doorway as I stared at him. “I— Nevermind.”
Ash turned away and walked out the door. I heard the sound of him rustling around in his room down below. The front door slammed, silence echoed around me, and I cracked. My back banged against the wall. Pain shot through me, but it was dulled. I slid down, fingers going into my hair as the cigarette slipped from my lips.
That fucking asshole!
Why? What was it about Ash that made him see right through me? My need to put distance between myself and possible disaster had reared its ugly head, but all I wanted was for him to come back through the door. Or better yet, for me to go and drag him back where he belonged. My stomach turned, and I felt the panic rising in my chest, stealing my breath away as my throat tightened.
I was drowning.