Twisted Love: Chapter 13

Thayer University’sannual alumni charity gala was the event of the season, but while it did raise money for the latest cause du jour, it wasn’t really about charity. It was about ego.

I attended every year.

Not because I wanted to be a philanthropist or reminisce about my college days, but because the gala was a fountain of information. Thayer counted the most powerful people in the world amongst its alumni, and they all congregated in the ballroom of the Z Hotel D.C. every August. It was the perfect opportunity to network and gather intel.

“…pass the bill, but it’ll get killed in Congress…”

I pretended to listen while Colton, an old classmate who now worked in government affairs for a major software company, droned on about the latest piece of tech legislation.

He rarely had anything interesting to say, but his father was high up in the FBI, so I kept him in my orbit in case I needed him in the future.

It was always about the long game—measured not in weeks or months, but in years. Decades.

Even the tiniest of seeds can sprout into the mightiest of oaks.

It was a simple concept most people didn’t understand because they were too busy chasing short-term gratification, and it was the reason most people fail. They spent their lives sitting on their asses and telling themselves “someday” when preparation should’ve started yesterday. By the time “someday” came, it was too late.

“…this IP issue with China…” Colton stopped abruptly. Thank God. If I had to listen to his nasal voice one more second, I would’ve walked over to the bar and stabbed myself in the eye with a fork.

“Who is that?” he asked, a hungry look overtaking his face as he stared over my shoulder. “She’s hot.” His voice was as hungry as his expression. “I’ve never seen her before. Have you?”

I turned out of mild curiosity. It took me a second to latch onto whatever unsuspecting girl had captured his attention. Colton was almost as big a womanizer as Josh.

When I finally located the source of Colton’s ravenous gaze, my muscles snapped into a rigid line and my fist closed around the stem of my champagne glass, tight enough the delicate glass could shatter at any moment.

She glided into the ballroom, her lithe body poured into a sleek gown that flowed over her curves like liquid, shimmering gold. She’d gathered her hair up in a fancy hairdo, exposing her swanlike neck and smooth shoulders. Dark eyes. Bronze skin. Red lips. All smiles and sunshine, unaware she’d walked into a pit of vipers.

A goddess entering the gates of hell, and she didn’t even know it.

A pulse ticked in my jaw.

What the hell was Ava doing here, wearing that dress? She wasn’t an alumna yet. She shouldn’t be here. Not around these people.

I wanted to gouge out the eyes of every man staring at her like they were starved and she was a juicy steak, which was pretty much every man here—including Colton. If he didn’t put his tongue back in his mouth soon, I’d cut it out for him.

I left him salivating behind me without a word and stalked toward Ava, my strides eating up the distance between us with angry, purposeful steps. I made it halfway before someone blocked my path.

I recognized her scent before I saw her face, and my muscles tightened further.

“Alex,” Madeline purred. “I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

Her scarlet gown matched the glossy lipstick coating her pouty lips. Blonde hair spilled over her shoulders in sculpted waves, and I was close enough to see the faint outline of her nipples through the silky material of her dress.

Once upon a time, that might’ve turned me on. Now, she might as well be wearing a potato sack for all the reaction her outfit and seductive smile elicited.

“I’ve been busy.” I sidestepped her; she mimicked my action and blocked my path again.

“You never made it up to me for canceling our date.” She trailed her fingers over my arm. It was a light, practiced touch, meant to leave the receiver wanting more.

All I wanted was for her to get out of my way.

My eyes strayed toward Ava again, and my already-tense muscles bunched up further at the sight of Colton by her side. How the fuck did he get over there so fast? I’d played basketball with him once in college; the man was slower than a turtle on morphine.

“And I never will.” I removed Madeline’s hand from my arm. “It’s been fun, but it’s time for us to part ways.”

Shock scattered over her face before coalescing into a mask of stunned anger. “You’re breaking up with me?”

“In order to break up, we’d have to be dating.” I nodded at one of the men staring at her ass. “The congressman looks interested. Why don’t you go say hi?”

Red tinted her creamy skin. “I’m not a prostitute,” Madeline hissed. “You can’t pimp me out to another man when you’re done with me. And we are not done. Not until I say so. I’m Madeline fucking Hauss.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. We’re all prostitutes in our own ways.” My smile lacked any semblance of warmth. “I’ll give you a pass for your tone tonight, given our history. But don’t contact me again, or you’ll find out the hard way how I earned my reputation for being ruthless. I’m not above ruining women.”

This conversation was over.

I left a sputtering Madeline behind me and walked away, irritated by the interruption and furious at the sight of what awaited me in the middle of the dance floor.

Ava and Colton swayed to music from the live band the university had hired for the gala. His hands rested on her hips, and I saw them inching lower with each passing second.

I arrived next to them right as she laughed at something he said. It rang through the air like silver bells, and the tic in my jaw pulsed harder.

He didn’t deserve her laugh.

“Something funny?” I asked, masking my ire with an expression of cool indifference.

Surprise and wariness flared in Ava’s eyes at the sight of me.

Good.

She should be wary. She should be fucking home, safe and sound, instead of dancing with a manwhore like Colton and letting him put his hands all over her.

“I was just telling her a joke.” Colton chuckled but shot me a warning look that said, Why are you cockblocking, man? He was lucky if all I did was cockblock. I was tempted to break every bone in his hand for touching her like that. “You mind? We’re in the middle of a dance.”

“Actually, it’s my turn.” I maneuvered myself between them and pulled him off her with a little more force than necessary. Colton flinched. “You have to leave the gala early. Business calls.”

His brow pinched. “I…” His eyes roved between me and Ava, whose own eyes did the same between me and Colton. Realization dawned on his face. Guess he wasn’t so slow after all. “Ah, you’re right. Sorry, man. I forgot.”

“We’ll get lunch one day,” I said. I didn’t burn bridges unless it was a business rival or I had to. Seeds. Oaks. “At Valhalla.”

The Valhalla Club was the most exclusive private club in D.C. It capped its membership at one hundred members, each of whom was allowed to bring one guest for a meal each quarter. I’d just handed Colton the ticket of a lifetime.

His eyes widened. “Oh, y-yeah,” he stuttered, trying and failing to hide the awe in his voice. “I’d like that.”

“Good night.” It was a dismissal and a warning rolled into one.

Colton scurried off, and I turned my displeasure on Ava. We were close enough that I could see the way the lights from the chandeliers reflected in her eyes, like tiny star-beams streaking across an endless night. Her lips parted, lush and wet, and an insane desire to find out whether they tasted as sweet as they looked gripped me.

“You ran off my dance partner.” Her voice came out breathier than usual, and my cock jerked at the sound.

I gritted my teeth and tightened my hold on her until she gasped. “Colton is not a dance partner. He is a womanizer and a slimeball, and it’s in your best interest to stay far, far away from him.”

It would be in her best interest to stay far away from me too, and the irony wasn’t lost on me. If she only knew why I’m in D.C…

But fuck it, I was okay with hypocrisy. It didn’t even crack the top ten of my worst traits. “You don’t know what’s in my best interest.” The star-beams morphed into fire, sparking with challenge. “You don’t know me at all.”

“Is that so?” I guided her across the floor, my skin prickling from the strange, electric charge in the air. It was a thousand needles piercing my flesh, searching for a weakness. A crack. A doorway, however tiny, through which it could slip and jumpstart my long-dead, long-cold heart.

“Yes. I don’t know what Josh tells you about me—if he tells you anything at all—but I assure you, you have no idea what I want or what’s in my best interest.”

I paused, causing her to stumble into my chest. My thumb and forefinger grasped her chin, forcing her to look up at me. “Try me.”

Ava blinked, her breaths coming out in short, shallow puffs. “My favorite color.”

“Yellow.”

“My favorite ice cream flavor.”

“Mint chocolate chip.”

Her chest rose and fell harder. “My favorite season.”

“Summer, because of the warmth and sunshine and greenery. But secretly, winter fascinates you.” I lowered my head until my own breath skated over her skin and her scent crawled into my nostrils, drugging me. Turning my voice into a hoarse, sinful version of itself. “It speaks to the darkest parts of your soul. The manifestations of your nightmares. It’s everything you fear, and for that, you love it. Because the fear makes you feel alive.”

The band played, and the people around us whirled and danced, but in this world we’d carved for ourselves, it was silent save for our ragged intakes of breath.

Ava shivered beneath my touch. “How do you know all that?”

“It’s my job to know things. I observe. I watch. I remember.” I gave into my desire—a tiny one—and traced her lips with my thumb. A shudder rolled through us, our bodies so in sync we reacted the exact fucking way at the exact fucking time. I brought my thumb down and tightened my grip on her chin. “But those are shallow questions, Sunshine. Ask me something real.”

She stared up at me, those eyes liquid chocolate beneath the lights. “What do I want?”

A dangerous, loaded question.

Humans want a lot of things, but in every heart, there beats one true desire. One thing that shapes our every thought and action.

Mine was vengeance. Sharp, cruel, bloodthirsty. It had bloomed from the bloody corpses of my family’s bodies, inking itself into my skin and soul until my sins were no longer mine but ours. Mine and vengeance’s, two shadows walking the same twisted path.

Ava was different. And I’d known what her true desire was the moment I set eyes on her for the first time eight years ago, her face shining and her mouth stretched into a warm, welcome smile.

“Love.” The word floated between us on a soft gust of air. “Deep, abiding, unconditional love. You want it so much you’re willing to live for it.” Most people thought the biggest sacrifice they could make was to die for something. They were wrong. The biggest sacrifice someone could make was to live for something—to allow it to consume you and turn you into a version of yourself you didn’t recognize. Death was oblivion; life was reality, the harshest truth that had ever existed. “You want it so much you’d say yes to anything. Believe in anyone. One more favor, one more kind gesture…and maybe, just maybe, they’ll give you the love you want so desperately you’d whore yourself out for it.”

My tone turned biting; the conversation made a U-turn and headed straight for harsh and brutal.

Because what I admired most about Ava was also what I hated about her. Darkness craves light as much as it wants to destroy it, and here, in this ballroom, with her in my arms and my cock straining against my zipper, that had never been more clear.

I hated how much I wanted her, and I hated that she wasn’t smart enough to run away from me while she still had a chance.

Though let’s be honest, it was already too late.

She was mine. She just didn’t know it yet.

I hadn’t known it myself until I saw her in Colton’s arms and every instinct raged at me to tear her away. To claim what belonged to me.

I’d expected her to grow angry at my words, to cry or run away. Instead, she stared at me, unflinching, and said the most unbelievable thing I’d heard in a long, long time.

“Are you talking about me, or are you talking about yourself?”

I almost laughed at the sheer ludicrousness of the statement. “You must have me confused with someone else, Sunshine.”

“I don’t think I do.” Ava stood on tiptoes so she could whisper in my ear. “You don’t fool me anymore, Alex Volkov. I’ve been thinking about it, the way you noticed all those things about me. How you agreed to look after me, even though you could’ve said no. How you stayed in to watch those movies with me when you thought I was upset and let me stay the night in your bed after I fell asleep. And I’ve come to a conclusion. You want the world to think you have no heart when in reality, you have a multilayered one: a heart of gold encased in a heart of ice. And the one thing all hearts of gold have in common? They crave love.”

I tightened my grip on her, equal parts furious and turned on by her foolish, stubborn goodness. “What did I tell you about romanticizing me?”

I wanted her, but it wasn’t a sweet, tender kind of want.

It was a dirty, ugly want, tainted by the blood on my hands and a desire to drag her out of the sunshine and into my night.

“It’s not romanticizing if it’s true.”

A growl slipped out of my throat. I allowed myself to hold onto her for one more moment before I pushed her away. “Go home, Ava. This isn’t the place for you.”

“I’ll go home when I want to go home.”

“Stop being difficult.”

“Stop being a jerk.”

“I thought I had a heart of gold,” I mocked. “Choose a side and stick to it, Sunshine.”

“Even gold can tarnish if you don’t take care of it.” Ava stepped back, and I tamped down the ridiculous urge to follow her. “I paid for my ticket, and I’m staying here until I decide I want to leave. Thank you for the dance.”

She walked away, leaving me in fuming silence.

* * *

I made a concerted effort to ignore Ava for the rest of the night, though she hovered in my peripheral vision like a golden spark that wouldn’t go away. Luckily for every man in the room, she didn’t dance with anyone else; she spent most of her time chatting and laughing with alumni.

I spent mine gathering intel—information about congressmen I’d need if I wanted to expand Archer into a conglomerate, tidbits about competitors, interesting nuggets about friends and foes.

I’d just wrapped up an…enlightening conversation with the head of a major consulting company when I lost sight of Ava. One minute she was there; the next, she was gone. She was still gone twenty minutes later—far too long for a bathroom break.

It was getting late; perhaps she’d left. We hadn’t parted on the best note, but I’d check on her to make sure she got home safely. Just in case.

I was already on my way out when I heard a thump from the small room by the ballroom, which served as an overflow space for guests’ bags and jackets.

“Get off me!”

I froze, my blood icing over. I opened the door, and the ice erupted into scalding flames.

Ava’s soon-to-be-dead ex Liam had her pinned against the wall with her wrists above her head. They were so focused on each other they didn’t notice me enter.

“You told me you didn’t have a new man,” Liam slurred. “But I saw you dancing and watching him. You lied, Ava. Why did you lie?”

“You’re crazy.” Even from here, I saw her eyes flashing fire. “Let go of me. I mean it. Or do you want a repeat of last week?”

Last week? What the hell happened last week?

“But I love you.” His voice turned plaintive. “Why won’t you love me back? It was one mistake, babe.” He pressed his body against hers, preventing her legs from moving. Fire scorched my veins as I stalked over, my approach muffled by the plush carpet beneath my feet. “You do still love me. I know it.”

“I’m giving you three seconds to move, or I can’t be held accountable for my actions.” A burst of pride shot through me at Ava’s flinty tone. Atta girl. “One…two…three.”

I’d just reached them when she head-butted him. A howl ripped out of his throat; he stumbled back, clutching his nose, which now gushed blood.

“You broke my nose!” he spat. “You asked for it, you slut.” He lunged for her, but he only made it halfway before I closed my fist around the back of his shirt and yanked him back.

It was only then that Ava noticed me. “Alex. What—”

“Mind if I join the fun?” I hauled Liam up by his collar, my lip curling at the sight of his watering eyes and bleeding nose, and socked him in the gut. “That’s for calling her a slut.” Another blow to the jaw. “That’s for holding her against her will.” A third hit to his already-suffering nose. “That’s for cheating on her.”

I continued my blows, letting the fire wash over me until Liam was unconscious and Ava had to drag me off him.

“Alex, stop. You’ll kill him!”

I adjusted my shirtsleeves, breathing hard. “Is that supposed to deter me?”

I could go all night and not stop until the bastard was nothing more than a pile of bloodied flesh and broken bones. A film of red tinted my vision, and my knuckles were bruised from the force of my blows.

The image of him pinning Ava against the wall flashed through my mind, and my anger erupted anew.

“Let’s just go. He learned his lesson, and if someone sees you, you’ll get in trouble.” Ava’s face was the color of porcelain. “Please.”

“He wouldn’t dare say anything.” Nevertheless, I relented because of how bad she was trembling. Despite her toughness earlier, Ava was shaken up over the incident. Plus, she was right; we were lucky no one had stumbled in on us yet. I didn’t give a shit if they did, but there was no need to drag out an already unpleasant evening.

“We should call an ambulance.” She eyed Liam’s prone form with unease. “What if he’s seriously hurt?”

Of course she still cared about his well-being after he tried to fucking assault her. I didn’t know whether to laugh in disbelief or shake her.

“He won’t die.” I’d controlled my hits so they were punishing but not fatal. “He’ll wake up with a helluva banged-up face and a couple of broken ribs, but he’ll survive.” Unfortunately.

The worry remained on Ava’s face. “We should call 911 anyway.”

For fuck’s sake. “I’ll place an anonymous call from the car.” I had a burner phone in the glove compartment.

I placed a steadying hand on the small of her back as we exited the hotel. Thankfully, we didn’t pass anyone except the doorman along the way. “Now.” I pinned Ava with a glare. “Tell me what the hell happened between you two last week.”