CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Griffin
I reach my townhouse fueled with anger. Ava can beat to death all the domestic abusers she wants. She can knife anyone coming to kill her, and I’ll fuck her covered in their blood. It gets me off. Deep down we’re forged from the same fire.
But bringing up Rand Miller and not telling me she tried to kill him then letting me be ambushed and looking like a fool has me livid. I only pray she has an excuse. I’m fucking crazy about her, and I want to believe her. I’ll believe almost anything.
“Ava?” I roar, climbing the stairs to the main level from the ground-floor foyer.
Bridget steps into my path from the kitchen. “Mr. Quinlan, Mrs. Quinlan left for the children’s charity event an hour ago. She was waiting for you.”
Charity event.
Another thing we have in common, hating those fucking things. Yet she went ahead when I would have expected to see her upstairs lounging on our bed in sweats, thankful I was late and hoping we could blow it off together to just fuck all night.
We can’t get enough of each other.
“Mr. Zervas picked her up when you didn’t show,” Bridget adds. “The...mean one.”
Ares...
“That fucking explains why she left without me,” I mutter and eye the woman standing there. “Sorry. Did Bourne go with her?”
“Yes, of course, sir.”
That guy will sink to the bottom of the ocean for her if I ask him considering what happened last week. Dead guards have families who turn into enemies. I let the whole letting-my-wife-duck-into-an-alley thing go.
After a quick shower, I find my tux all wrapped in plastic. Someone had it dry-cleaned from the last event. Something tells me in my gut, it was Ava and not Bridget.
I dress in the tux, all the unnecessary layers and accessories, and hate my life even more when I get back outside and feel the brutal August heat. I’ll be drenched in sweat soon.
Gus drives me to the event, and I chat with Shane via group text with a heads-up about the lovely conversation that he missed.
His one response floors me:
Shane: I wish she did kill him.
Shane has his share of blood on his hands, but with his technical skills sharpening in recent years, he’s a better cyber asset. Something in that message tells me he’s aching for some action.
“We’re here, boss,” Gus says, and I put my phone away.
“Thanks, stay close.” I get out of the car with Zeke and Ace behind me.
At events like this, rich and famous people arrive with protection. I’m not just rich, I’m dangerous. With dangerous enemies.
After bypassing a red carpet, I stomp through the lobby to get inside the ballroom, but I see Bourne coming at me with a look of terror. Only, studying him closer, I see in his eyes just how fucking enraged I must look.
“Boss, Ava is with Mr. Zervas,” he explains quickly, following me to the ballroom’s double doors. “He told me to post in the lobby.”
“It’s fine, Bourne.” I take a breath and pat him on the shoulder. “Table number?”
“1, sir.”
Fucking figures. I’ll have an audience watching me when I drag Ava away from the table to answer my questions and face her betrayal by not telling me what she did to Miller. Not warning me.
The crowd is a mixture of guests both standing around and sitting at tables. When I get to Table 1, I’m halted by the vision of Ava sitting there wearing the black wedding dress with what looks like a tiara on her head.
Her elbows on the table, she sits with her jaw in one hand and stares into space. She looks fucking miserable .
I pick up my pace and notice Ares sitting next to her looking regal as ever with his legs crossed and an arm draped over the back of Ava’s chair. He’s talking to someone to his right, ignoring his sister.
I’m steps away when my mere presence hits her, like our souls connect. She looks up, and the rush of relief and joy on her face hits me like a blow.
My anger vanishes in a heartbeat.
There’s an explanation for all of this. She’s a mass of complicated contradictions, even if she acts simple on the surface. She’s also deadly, and I often have to remind myself she can kill me in seven different ways and in a matter of seconds.
Every day that I wake up next to her is a gift. Literally. The gift of life.
Seeing me, Ava pushes away from the table, prompting Ares to whip his head around. He reaches for her when she bolts from the chair, but I keep my gaze trained on him. Our eyes meet and he glares at me. At her submission to me .
That’s right. She’s mine.
Ava dives into my arms. “Oh, thank God. I handed in the donation. Can we leave, please?”
I brush my hand across her chin, my eyes studying every inch of her. “What in God’s name is on your head?”
“Ares brought it for me to wear. Some family heirloom,” she scoffs and reaches for it.
“No. Don’t...” I keep it on her head and peer into her eyes. “I need to talk to you.”
Her mouth forms a little o. “Is something wrong?”
“Something is very wrong, siren.”
She steps back. “What have I done now?”
“Not here.” I take her hand and lead her into the lobby.
“Boss?” Zeke is there immediately, looking for directions from me.
“Where can I talk to my wife alone? ” I emphasize the word because this conversation is going to end with my pants around my ankles while I fuck her.
“Follow me,” Zeke says and stalks off toward the back of the lobby.
He knocks on the door to a private lounge where two people are sitting on a sofa talking. “Out. Now,” Zeke barks at them.
Surprisingly, they scurry away. No questions asked.
Zeke holds the door for me. “I’ll post right here.”
“No one comes in. Do you understand? Especially her brother.”
“Griffin?” Ava gasps. “What’s going on?”
I nudge her inside and lean against the back of the closed door. “Rand Miller is in a wheelchair. Said he’s paralyzed because of you.”
“A wheelchair? I didn’t see a wheelchair.” She steps back, swishing the dress to the side.
“You said you saw him in a restaurant. At the bar. Was he standing?”
She blinks and paces. “He was... He was on the other side of the bar. I assumed he was standing. You don’t immediately think someone is in a wheelchair when you can’t see their legs.”
“What happened, Ava? You said you thought he was dead. What did you do to him?” I can’t tell her yet about Miller’s threat to take her away from me.
Or that she’ll be arrested if I don’t hand her over. Not that I would let that happen.
“Miller was a problem from day one.” Ava scowls, having to repeat a story I bet she’s kept locked in her heart all these years.
“Tell me.” I realize my fury was rooted in the fear of losing her over this. “Everything.”
“We were in a raft doing surf drills. He wasn’t helping paddle the boat. It was rough out there. We had to paddle twice as hard against the tide. But he made me do all the work to exhaust me for the next round of drills. Then he attacked me and tried to throw me into the water. We crashed into the rocks. The boat tipped. We both fell overboard. Before I even had my bearings, I saw...” She tears her gaze from my hungry eyes feasting on a confession she never told anyone. “I saw his hands flailing like he needed help. But he immediately disappeared beneath the surface of the water. The undertow pulled me in that direction, too. If I swam that way to save him, I could have been thrown against the rocks as well. But it was his fault we lost control.”
I believe that she didn’t do it on purpose, but I also know she’s capable of exacting that type of vengeance. Miller is getting even by threatening to manufacture witnesses out of the blue. He apparently has the power to force the Navy to open an investigation about a seven-year-old accident.
He might have political power, but I have financial resources to pay off or murder his witnesses. I’m also a fucking mob boss with an enforcer and a death squad who can convince Miller to withdraw his threat.
I just needed to know the truth. “Why didn’t you tell me this the day you saw him?”
Ava drops her hands to her sides. “I honestly thought he was dead. When I saw him alive, I figured he was okay. He knows what he did. He knows he sabotaged the drill and forced us to slam into the rocks. That’s why I was never questioned. Never charged. And if someone suspected otherwise after I left the Navy, NCIS would have been at my door in a heartbeat.”
I listen to every word, and it all makes perfect sense. Especially if Miller knew he was at fault. In all the time I was guarding the base, I saw a lot of candidates get hurt. It was par for the course. That training center ran on the vibe of individual responsibility. No one blamed someone else for their failure.
At the time, Miller might have had a rare crisis of conscience. He was fighting for his life, dealing with the news he was paralyzed. Revenge wasn’t on his mind.
Clearly, that wore away after so many years. Now he wants to punish Ava for an accident he orchestrated. He wants to hurt me for punching him. Something most guys would shake off. Not an entitled prick like Miller who thinks he walks on water. And to settle the score, he wants to take my wife away from me.
“You saw him today?” she asks, finally. “He told you the crash was my fault?”
“Aye. He’s trying to sabotage the UN project.”
“Fuck it.” She waves her hands. “Let’s kill him.”
The air leaves my lungs in a sharp bark of laughter. What in fuck’s sake did I marry?
“Save that energy, that fight, for something else. You should have told me what Miller did to you, so I could have had him killed before that horrible meeting today ever happened.”
“What can I do?” She looks at me with those big brown eyes I want to see go dark from my cock.
“You need to feel the pain of what I went through today listening to his threats, fearing I’d lose you.”
She visibly shutters, her cheeks flushed. “Today?”
“Not just today. Do you know what you’ve put me through all these months? You are on my mind all day, every day, and at night. You’re all I fucking want. Now, I’m going to punish you for that. With my cock. In your ass, wife . Get on that sofa, get on your hands and knees, and lift that damn dress.”
Her shocked look almost drags a laugh from me. “Are you serious?”
From the inside of my jacket, I remove a tube of lubrication. “I swiped this before I left the house. What do you think?”
“You’re a lunatic.”
“I’m your lunatic.” I place the tube against her lips. “And deep inside you’re just as unhinged as me.”
“That’s debatable.” She crosses her arms.
“You also understand duty and honor. And accepting punishment with grace. To me, that’s your ass in the air, an offering for me to take you in the most primal way a man can fuck a woman. To atone.”
She sucks in a breath.
“I’m going to fuck you like an animal and you’re going to beg me not to stop.” I unzip my trousers. “I will fuck you the way you need to be fucked. The way we fucked when you thought I was a stranger you’d never see again.”
“I don’t think so,” she says, stepping back.
I grab her dress and reach under the skirt to get at her pussy. “Then why are you wet?”
“I thought you were a hitman, that night.” She fights to breathe.
“And you still fucked me?”
“It got me off.” She shrugs.
“I was a hitman, but I’ve never killed a woman. Right now, you’re in more danger of being so sore and your legs trembling so bad, I’ll have to carry you out of here.” I grip her waist. “On. Your. Knees. Wife. ”
Staggering back, she keeps her dress bunched in her hands. Cursing under her breath, she gets on the sofa.
I climb on behind her and whisper in her ear, “I’m giving you a safe word because your punishment will hurt. Nothing else you say will make me stop.”
“And what is that?”
“Your safe word is... I love you.”