40. Ava #2
The contract. The flash drive. Not wanting to get any closer to me than he had to.
“Why would I have information on the Burelli’s?” I whisper, my voice barely audible.
“Because, Ava. Who do you think your father is?”
“No.”
Alex doesn’t have to speak to confirm what I already know.
Oh my God.
I stumble back, clutching the counter beside me for support.
He used me.
I fell for the man who’s using me like a tool in his game.
The room tilts, my breath coming shallow and uneven.
He’s lying. He has to be lying.
But his eyes—dark, gleaming, far too steady—don’t waver.
“You’ve felt it, haven’t you?” Alex presses, stepping closer, his voice low and coaxing, like a snake slithering through the cracks in my defenses.
“That nagging sense that something was missing. That someone was keeping things from you. All those years of wondering who your father is. Did you really think it was for your protection?”
My throat closes. “Stop.”
He doesn’t. “Your father isn’t some ghost story, Ava. He’s alive. And very much involved.”
I shake my head so hard it makes my vision blur. “You’re wrong. He loves me,” I whisper, but the words feel thin, fragile, like glass ready to shatter.
“Or maybe he just loves what you represent. A bargaining chip. Access. You’re not a lover, Ava. You’re leverage.”
The word cuts straight through me, colder than a blade.
I grip the counter until my knuckles ache, staring at him, desperate to find the lie in his face. But he doesn’t blink. Doesn’t soften. He waits, patient and sure of the poison he’s planting in my chest.
“I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you,” Alex says, interrupting the thoughts spiraling in my head. When I meet his gaze, it’s full of pity.
“Get out.”
He reaches for me, and I bristle at his touch. “Ava—”
“Get. Out .”
Alex grimaces, his hands falling to his sides. He heads towards the door, while I stay frozen in shock.
“Ask him who Nolan Marks is, Ava . . .” he says quietly. “Then tell me that he cares about you.”
He walks out, leaving me staring at the door while the world comes crashing around me.
He lied to me. Every person I’ve ever loved has lied to me.
My eyes burn before I realize I’m crying.
I clutch the counter, feeling like I’m going to be sick, and when I raise my eyes to meet my reflection in the mirror, they’re bloodshot and smeared with makeup.
Levi Cross made me fall in love with him, then he used me.
Once the tears start, I’m powerless to stop them. Every single emotion I’ve been holding back for the last three months crashes through me like a tidal wave. Nana. The Burelli’s. Levi. The loneliness aching in my chest.
Suddenly . . . it’s all too much.
With some dismay, I realize the reason I’ve been so drawn to Levi from the moment I met him. It’s because when he looks at me, it’s not indifference I see. It’s reverence. Desire. Need so potent, it pisses him off.
Levi Cross isn’t indifferent towards me at all.
And that pisses him off.
Too bad it wasn’t enough.
“Ava, get the fuck back here,” Levi growls from behind me when I hurry up the stairs to the second story of Cross Estate.
My heart bottoms out when he catches my hand, then it turns to something much more dangerous when I realize the unsteady ache in my chest is because I know we can’t come back from this.
Levi grips my hips and pushes back against the wall. My tongue darts out to lick my lips, and I’m so confused, I don’t know whether I want him to take me to his bed and hold me like his baby girl or bend me over the side of it and fuck me like his whore.
In a flash, he spins me around, pushing me back against the wall. His hands press into the wall on either side of my head, caging me in.
“Why are you hiding from me?” he asks, and the deadly edge to his voice is suddenly much softer.
It’s unfortunate because it will make it that much harder to deny him in the end.
“I . . .”
A tear slips down my cheek, and he watches its descent, his thumb coming up to capture it like it’s made of gold.
“Talk to me,” he says softly in my ear, and a shiver moves through me. I lay my head back against the wall, closing my eyes. “What happened?”
The scent of whiskey washes over me, and a fresh tear slips down my cheek.
When I force my eyes open, the eye contact sears. I want to look away, but I need to know the truth.
My mind races a million miles a minute, unable to comprehend that this entire thing between us has been nothing more than a lie.
—So, I ask the question that I know will either make or break us.
“Who is Nolan Marks, Levi?”
His entire body stiffens against mine, and that’s when I know .
I watch as realization crosses his handsome features, each passing moment more devastating than the last.
Then, in the silence of the hallway, he lets out a dark chuckle.
“This is great,” he mutters, pushing away from me. “Real fucking great.”
“You lied to me,” I breathe, tears stinging in the backs of my eyes. “Who is he, Levi?” When he’s silent, my patience snaps. “Who is he?” I screech, shoving at his chest with the anger coursing through me like hot water.
His gaze meets mine, and the darkness there makes it feel as though all the air has been sucked from the room.
His jaw tightens, and he looks away.
“The head of the Burelli crime family.”
“And?”
“Your father.”
My knees wobble, weak as my body vibrates.
My father.
His silence stretches, heavy enough to crush me. I search his face for the man who once steadied me with nothing but his touch, but all I see is stone and shadows.
Finally, he exhales through his nose, the sound harsh. “Because you were never supposed to know. Not like this.”
My chest twists. “You knew the entire time?”
His jaw feathers, and I feel like I’m looking at a stranger. The Levi I know is gone, replaced with one far more deadly.
“From the moment I met you.”
I think it would hurt less if he’d slapped me. My chest feels like it’s been flayed open, my heart ripped out and stomped on before being haphazardly sewn back into place.
“You were just using me . . .?”
“It’s not fucking like that,” Levi grits. “Your father is a dangerous man, Ava. I’m trying to protect you.”
“Bullshit!” I turn away from his piercing blue gaze because it hurts too much to look at him right now. Knowing that every interaction between us has been a lie from the moment I met him. “How could you do this to me? I trusted you. I . . . fell for you.”
“Ava,” his voice softens. He reaches for me, but I tug away from his grasp, backing up into the banister behind me. He takes my face in his hands, and this time, I slap him so hard my hand stings. “ Goddamnit , listen to me.”
“Why?” I growl, tears mixing with my makeup and blurring my vision. “How would I even know it’s the truth? You’ve lied about everything from the start.”
His eyes burn with a venom that sends a chill through me.
“Everything I have done, I have done to protect you.”
“ Don’t touch me .”
I push away from him, and he lets me, though he doesn’t let me get far. His hand reaches for my waist, and I almost back out right there.
“Just fucking listen to me, Ava. Your father isn’t a good man. He murdered Wright, and now someone is trying to use you against him. Against me because it was my job to stop it, and I couldn’t. I walked away because my brother needed me, not realizing I was putting you in danger with each step . ”
I shake my head, completely overwhelmed.
“Ava, look at me,” Levi growls. “You know this is more than that. You know that. You know me .”
I suck in a deep breath, watching his hands clench before my eyes slide back to his. Something brief flashes across his features, but I saw it. A kind of desperation only someone who’s about to lose everything would feel, all while telling themselves they never wanted it anyway.
“You’re making me regret you.”
He winces at the way my voice cracks, taking a single step towards me. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him indecisive.
“Can you not feel everything I do? Can’t you see I’m fucking desperate for you? Me? I’ve never been weak for anything in my fucking life, but you? I’d go to war for you, Ava. I have been fighting for you. I . . .” he stops and scrubs a hand through his hair. “Fuck,” he curses.
“Goodbye, Levi.”
I hurry towards my door, but he’s there, catching my wrist and tugging me back to his chest. In a split second, his hands come to either side of my face, and he crushes his lips to mine.
Pain, unlike anything I’ve ever felt, blooms in my chest.
God, I want to sink into him and forget the world exists. Go back to that cabin and spend weeks memorizing every detail of his body and soul.
It won’t be enough, though.
He lied. He hid the truth from me. He knew who my father was from the start, yet he didn’t feel like I deserved to know.
There will always be a part of him that he keeps hidden from me. Shunning me for reminding him of anything he deems off-limits. Refusing to accept that I’m not the bad guy in his story and merely the stupid girl falling completely, madly in love with him.
I rip my lips away, putting a hair’s breadth of space between us.
“Purgatory.”
He releases me as if I’d burnt him, and falls back, his hands fisting at his sides and his eyes wild.
In the time that I can remember since I met Levi, I’ve never seen that expression on his face. Uncertainty. Hopelessness.
“Try and leave me, Ava.” His voice is rough and unhinged, but there’s something else underneath it all. Something like pure fear.
“Consider this my resignation.” I keep my eyes trained on the wall. I can’t look at him now. If I do, I know I’ll break. “I don’t expect anything from you.”
“ No .”
“You can hide behind your walls, Levi. I still see you. You’ll let me go because it’s what I want, even if it kills you.”
And then I leave him standing in the hall alone, trying not to break down before I make it to my room and lock the door behind me.
“Carry her in here.”
Christian lifts me like I weigh nothing, like I’m not completely falling apart. He carries me into their spare bedroom, laying me down on the bed gently. Mila trails silently behind him, her face pale, eyes wide.
She found me curled on the hardwood floor of my room, too empty to move, too shattered to care. I don’t know how she knew. Maybe something in her chest tugged the moment mine broke. Either way, she came. And I hate how grateful I am because I ruined their night.
When Christian steps away, I don’t even wait. I curl into myself like something wounded and small, wishing I could fold myself out of existence. My body aches, but not in any way anyone can fix.
I think I’m numb. Or maybe just ruined. His words keep playing in my head, looping like a cruel lullaby. But it’s not like it matters anymore.
I signed the contract. I agreed to the rules.
I just didn’t expect to lose myself along the way.
I didn’t think he’d tear my walls down so gently . . . and then obliterate everything left.
“Give us some space,” Mila says softly, her voice so careful it barely stirs the air. Christian hesitates, then the door clicks shut.
I hear her come over, the soft sound of her steps, then the dip of the mattress behind me. A moment later, arms wrap around my body—warm, steady, undeserved.
She holds me like someone who still sees something worth saving.
But I don’t feel worth saving.
Unlovable. Unworthy.
Disposable.
Trash.
“I’m so sorry, Ava . . .” Mila whispers, and her voice cracks like she’s breaking with me. But I can’t speak. My throat’s raw, closed. I can’t even beg her to stop being kind.
The only thing I can do is cry—quiet, helpless tears that slip down my face and soak into the pillow like they’ve been waiting their turn.
“I’m sorry,” she says again, softer this time. As if maybe she knows I’m not just crying over him.
I’m crying because in the midst of it all, he’d helped me find myself.
Even if it was all a lie.