Page 62 of Darkest Deeds
He cuts his eyes to me. “I ain’t for sale, asshole.”
“Then leave her out of this.”
“’Fraid I can’t do that. Been workin’ for her dad a long time. Ever since that girl was barely knee high.” He lowers his palm beside his knee, a sad smile on his face. “Quiet little thing. Always scurryin’ around like a church mouse.”
“I remember.” The image of a small, freckle-faced Ava fills my head, and I lower the gun.
“So quiet sometimes nobody even knew she was there.”
I could stop him, but I don’t. I let him talk because I know that girl. My heart hurt for her. She was only eleven when I started working for Sergei. So innocent and scared. Barely spoke to anyone, spending most of her time hiding up in that damn attic while staring out the window at a world passing her by. That’s why I started leaving orange blossoms for her. Someone needed to cheer her up.
“Now her mama and her step-mama…those two, not so quiet. Shame the accidents they had,” Blade says, his eyes darkening. “Especially after all those young girls started disappearin’ from Seven.”
My stomach drops. Ava’s mother downed a fifth of vodka and drowned in a bathtub when she was twelve. I held her hand as they lowered her into the ground. Yuri’s mother died in a car accident not long after he was killed. “What are you saying, Blade?”
“You ever think Ava didn’t talk for a reason, Nikolai? Maybe that little girl was smarter than both those women put together.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
He shakes his head. “Her daddy, Dmitry, me, you, hell anyone in this business, we all got blood on our hands. None of us are innocent. We knew damn well what we were gettin’ ourselves into and we did it knowin’ it was a one-way trip to hell. But that girl back there?” He points a thick finger at the curtain where Ava disappeared. “She doesn’t belong here. Never did. She had a good heart, that one. Then he tainted her and stole that child’s innocence.”
Oh shit. This will kill Ava.
“You know about what he did,” I say quietly.
Blade’s face doesn’t hold the shock I expect. Instead, his eyes seem hollow. “Yeah. The question is, do you?”
“Yuri? Unfortunately.”
There’s a pause before Blade spears me with a look filled with so much hate, I take a step back. “Not him, Nikolai. Sergei.”
“What are you saying?”
“After you weren’t a threat to it anymore, who do you think put that girl’s virginity up on the auction block?”
* * *
We’re driving northon I-95 in silence when Ava finally turns to me. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look like you’re about to rip that steering wheel off and beat somebody with it.”
Only if that person is her father.
Mik was right. She’s hiding something, but it’s not what I thought it was. When I read those texts on her phone from this Ethan guy about Yuri’s murder, I thought she tipped him off after seeing me that first night at Seven. I had myself convinced she was trying to get me arrested and fucked over twice.
But her secret is so much worse. It’s a betrayal deeper than anything I ever thought she’d done to me. A secret so depraved, she remained a slave to it eight years later.
“I said I’m fine. I’m just ready to get this shit over with. I need to get back to New Orleans.”
“Oh, right. Of course.” She shrugs and looks out her window.
“You’re coming with me.”
Ava’s eyes snap back to mine. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You heard me.”