5. Ava
5
Ava
“Of all the people to be stepping out of line and getting into trouble, I never thought I would have to worry about you .”
A low headache throbs at my temple and pulses behind my eyebrows. The kind of pain you want to rub away, but it just keeps coming back. While Salvatore goes to make arrangements for Nico, Marcel takes the opportunity to corner me alone.
I can barely listen to him.
When I was driving home with Nico, I never thought what it would be like when he got here. Marcel’s position within the family has always been so solid, a sure thing. I never questioned it. I never imagined a world where anyone would.
My anger boils.
Nico sat next to me, dragged me along with him for hours, and never told me what he was planning at the end of it all. That he was going to pull my life up by the roots.
Bastard .
“Ava,” Marcel says, drawing my gaze back to him. “Answer me. What were you doing there?”
“I just thought it would be nice to get out of the house for a little while.”
Marcel glares in the face of that half-answer.
We both know I could have gone anywhere, but going there was a deliberate, reckless choice. A bad idea in motion. And it turned out just like it was always going to. A disaster. My lip has started to throb now, a constant pulse that I want to run my tongue against to taste the copper. It’s easier to focus on that than the disappointment in Marcel’s eyes.
“I want you to imagine for two seconds what a night like this is like for me,” he continues, on and on. “When you pull one of your disappearing acts, I have to wonder if the next call is going to be the worst one. To only hear about your whereabouts through rumors and hearsay, IDing you in one of the most dangerous places, with him of all people—”
“How many times have you been to the ring?” I ask, cutting him off.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“How many times, Marcel?”
“Ava, that’s not the point.”
“It is the point! Because you’re a grown man, and you can go wherever you want and do whatever you like, and nobody can hold you accountable for that. So why can’t I?”
“Ava, you are not in the headspace to be making those kinds of choices.”
“Don’t talk to me like a psychiatrist. You’re not. Would you rather I go back into my room for a few more months? Bed rot the time away, so at least you know where I am?”
The silence hangs in the air.
He can’t even say no.
“Fine,” I whisper, furious and hurt. I whip around to do just that.
“Ava,” he says urgently. His tone locks my feet in place, cracks another piece of my heart off just a little. Marcel has Nico breathing down his neck, and all he’s worried about is me . A part of me wishes he would just scream at me. Maybe it would be better for all of us if he did.
“You asked for more responsibility within the family. We gave that to you. Can that just be enough, for now? I don’t know what tomorrow is going to look like. Right now, I have too much to worry about without worrying about you, too. Let me put out one fire at a time, but I promise—I’ll try to make this all better for you. Somehow.”
I hold my silence.
Being a nanny wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted a distraction. Something to get me away from everything I’d lost. Instead, I was given the responsibility of helping take care of Salvatore’s new daughter. Every day, I hold in my arms the kind of happiness I will never have myself. Every day for a month now, I have sat on the sidelines of someone else’s fairytale ending, watching the love between Salvatore and his wife play out right before my eyes.
Marcel shouldn’t make promises he can’t keep.
The family can’t help me. They’re good at killing, but I’ve never seen them resurrect anybody.
Still, I look into his tired face and nod. I can behave. For him. For now .
His hand ruffles through my hair, his thumb scrubbing against my lip with a sigh.
“Did he really save you?” Marcel asks.
“He did.”
Finally, I sit down and recount the tale, from Nico’s sudden appearance at the ring to the two of us going out and getting a late-night meal. I omit a few parts that might send Marcel on the warpath. In this version of the story, my phone disappeared in the chaos at the fighting ring, dropped out of my pocket. Nico staged holding me at gunpoint to get inside. All those critical moments of being pinned under Nico’s touch, being strung along in his “debt,” burning up in his gaze as if I am something he wants to devour—I leave those out. In my own way, this is how I protect Marcel. I don’t need to give him any reason to go hunt Nico down and make this even worse.
“I don’t know what the future will look like for us, Ava,” he sighs. “I don’t even know if we’ll be living here. If it will be safe for you.”
The office door opens again, interrupting us.
Salvatore looks tired, and I don’t think it has anything to do with the late hour. He and Marcel give each other one of those looks that hold a newspaper’s worth of words, all bold, disastrous headlines.
“Nothing will happen to either of you,” Salvatore says, sure of himself. “He’ll compromise.”
Marcel frowns. “I know it’s been a while since we’ve dealt with him, but have you forgotten how Nico is? He doesn’t compromise .”
“Neither do I, and he’ll break first if he knows what’s good for him. We won’t give him another option.”
My brother doesn’t look convinced. He tells me I should get some sleep, but Salvatore’s voice calls out instead. “Wait,” he orders.
I freeze in place. Salvatore Mori has never needed anything from me before. The don gestures to the chair across from him. Marcel looks as confused as I feel as I march toward the seat and sit, face to face, with the leader of the family.
“Did you know he was going to be there, Ava?” he asks, so straightforward it catches me off guard. I’ve never been suspected of anything before, but I realize how it must seem. Of all the nights that I slip off to the fighting ring, it’s the one where Nico mysteriously appears there, and we come back to the house together as if we’re old friends.
If old friends put guns to each other’s heads.
“She already told me what happened—”
Salvatore holds up a hand, cutting my brother off. He stares into me, his eyes like an X-ray, piercing down to the bone.
“No,” I answer him honestly. “It was all a coincidence. I didn’t know he was there until we were face to face.”
“Why did you come back with him?”
“Because he wanted to, and he didn’t give me much choice,” I finally admit.
“And you had no part in it?”
“Of course she didn’t, Sal,” Marcel says, stunned that I’m even being questioned, but no one acknowledges him. I feel a little more respected. At least someone thinks I’m capable of something—even if that something is just shooting myself in the foot.
“Marcel, step outside.”
“What?” he asks, shocked. All Salvatore has to do is raise his eyes, meet him gaze for gaze, and Marcel has no choice but to obey. He stands up, gives me a long, searching look, and then leaves the room. His footsteps are heavier than usual, the door snapping shut a little too quick. My brother isn’t one for tantrums, but even he can’t hide how pissed off this makes him.
“You really think I had something to do with Nico coming back?” I ask.
“No,” Sal admits, almost smiling. “But I am going to make you an offer, and I don’t want you to be influenced. The offer is for you and you alone. Marcel would interfere when it’s not his place.”
I sit a little straighter in my seat.
“What’s the offer?”
“Don’t look so eager,” he grumbles. “You’re not going to like it, and I hate myself for making it. But Nico only has a strong claim to Marcel’s position because he’s my brother. When people refer to the family , it has two meanings. The first category is the direct descendants of the Moris from Sicily, my own ancestors, and their relatives by blood and law. The second is those who work for the family in a close capacity. Like you and Marcel. If we could move you from the second category and into the first, then Nico’s claim about Marcel not being real family would be worthless.”
He makes it sound simple, but he’s right—I don’t like where this is going.
“If you were married to someone in the Mori family, someone close to me, it could save Marcel’s position as my right-hand man.”
I stare at him, a tiny black hole opening up in my chest and swallowing everything inside me. I was so close to already being related to Salvatore. If Vinny and I had gotten married...
I shut down the thought, shove it back in its coffin where it belongs.
“You don’t have to agree, Ava,” Salvatore says when I don’t answer. “It’s just an option. We can find another way. If I had someone to offer Marcel, I would—”
“I’ll do it.”
The words are abrupt. They burst from my lips before I’ve fully come to terms with the idea.
Salvatore studies me closely, that searching look reading me deep. “Why?” he demands.
“For Marcel. He’s only indebted to the family because he wanted to protect me when I was little. You know what he’s done for me, even better than I do. This is the first chance I’ve ever had to pay off that debt,” I reason. “It’s my turn to make a sacrifice for once.”
The chair creaks as he leans back, considering my reasoning. I continue, trying to keep the bitterness from my voice.
“And besides…I was never going to get married anyway. So it might as well serve a purpose.”
It sounds too cold, too practical. I see it in Salvatore’s eyes.
I should be kicking and screaming at the thought of an arranged marriage. Being sold off to some half-stranger that happens to share Salvatore’s last name. But I have felt this debt looming over me my whole life. Marcel never talks about it, never complains, but it has weighed on me since I was old enough to comprehend it. I wanted to pay it back somehow. Good grades, always listening, never causing trouble. Tiny little ways to show him that I was appreciative. Maybe this way, I won’t have to be in debt anymore. Maybe we will finally be even.
“You understand what would be expected of you,” Salvatore adds carefully. “The role you’ll have to play.”
“I know what wives do,” I say hollowly.
Salvatore’s gaze drops. Before he can reconsider the offer, before he can think too much about me being bedded by some stranger and having his children, I interrupt the thought.
“But I want something else in return. The way I see it, this is a favor to you and Marcel, and I want a piece of the bargain.”
Salvatore laughs softly under his breath. I think it looks like pity in his eyes, or maybe grief, for the girl I used to be, who would have never dared to ask for anything from anyone.
“Name it,” he agrees willingly.
“I want a better position within the family. Something else. I don’t want to be a nanny, or a cook, or a housekeeper. I want a job. A real job. I want what Frankie has. Not her job exactly, but… something .”
Salvatore sighs.
He doesn’t like it.
“And you want me to convince Marcel that’s a good idea.”
“I don’t care if he thinks it’s a good idea. I want you to convince him there’s nothing he can do about it either way.”
When Salvatore smiles, I see a hint of the relation between him and Nico—smiles that have nothing to do with happiness. That have meanings of their own. He nods.
“Fine. But only after the wedding. Once you’re officially a Mori, then we can look into a position for you.”
Salvatore stands and extends his hand.
I glance down, my future held there in his empty palm.
For a few seconds, my arm feels too heavy, like lead. I know this isn’t what I want. But that doesn’t matter. The only thing I want is six feet deep, and it’s not coming back. I grasp his hand and seal my fate. The deal is done. With one handshake, I am going to be married.
“Go to bed, Ava, and get some sleep. Let me deal with Marcel.”
My brother waits outside the office, his arms crossed, leaning against the wall. He watches me go, suspicious of what transpired behind closed doors. I avoid his gaze as I step by him.
“Goodnight,” I call to him. His eyes follow me until I slip into the darkness of the house, and then he rounds on the office door and disappears inside. I almost feel bad for Salvatore as I walk away. I’ve always thought his job must be the most impossible one of all—pleasing everyone . He might have sent me to get some sleep, but I know he won’t be having any.
The floorboards creak behind me.
The hairs on the back of my neck rise as I glance over my shoulder.
A silhouette stands at the end of the hallway, darker than the shadows around it. I recognize the shape. The footsteps approach. A steady, prowling pace.
Nico .
I turn away from him and march toward my room, but I feel the constant approach of his feet behind me. My heart flies into my throat on instinct, like a child on the basement steps, feeling the monster nipping at my heels. I slip into the safety of my room and slam the door between me and him.
I lock it just as the doorknob rattles violently.
I flip on the light, watching the knob turn and shake, backing away.
He really is crazy .
“What do you want?” I ask through the door.
No response. The doorknob is still. The clock on the wall ticks loudly, my own heart keeping the rhythm like a metronome. I inch forward, pressing my ear to the door to listen. My ears strain to hear through the silence. I can almost hear something, just there on the edge of my awareness—breathing? The door slams suddenly, sending my feet skittering backward as the hinges rattle.
Anger bursts in my chest, and I march to the door and rip it open, annoyed and done with his antics.
“What the hell do you think you’re—”
The hallway stretches on into darkness.
I stare out into the black shadows. Something moves down at the opposite end of the hallway, where Nico disappears into the rest of the house. I sigh under my breath, slam the door shut, and twist the lock.
It doesn’t help.
All night, I roll on my mattress. I twist and turn through the last few hours of darkness, certain I hear something just there on the other side of that door. Something watching, waiting, scratching to be let in. Something that won’t be scared off by a lock. By an angry older brother. By the word no .