I’ll take care of her

                                                  ******

She must’ve felt me staring because she paused her conversation and

looked directly at me, her cheeks tinting pink at my unflinching gaze. She’d

changed out of her jeans and T-shirt into a purple dress that swirled around

her knees.

Too bad. The dress was nice, but my mind flashed back to our car ride,

when her damp shirt had clung to her like a second skin and her nipples had

strained against the decadent red lace of her bra. I’d meant what I’d said

about her not being my type, but I’d enjoyed the view. I could imagine

myself lifting that shirt, tugging her bra aside with my teeth, and closing my

mouth around those sweet, hardened peaks—

I yanked myself out of that startling fantasy fast. What the fuck was

wrong with me? That was Josh’s sister . Innocent, doe-eyed, and so sweet I

could throw up. The total opposite of the sophisticated, jaded women I

preferred both in and out of bed. I didn’t have to worry about feelings with

the latter; they knew better than to develop any around me. Ava was nothing

but feelings, with a hint of sass.

A ghost of a smile passed over my mouth when I remembered her

parting shot earlier. I hope that stick in your ass punctures a vital organ.

Not the worst thing anyone’s said to me, not by a long shot, but more

aggressive than I’d expected coming from her. I’d never heard her say a bad

word to or about anyone before. I took perverse pleasure in the fact that I

could rile her up so much.

“Alex,” Josh prompted.

“I don’t know, man.” I dragged my eyes away from Ava and her purple

dress. “I’m not much of a babysitter.”

“Good thing she’s not a baby,” he quipped. “Look, I know this is a big

ask, but you’re the only person I trust not to, you know—”

“Fuck her?”

“Jesus, dude.” Josh looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. “Don’t use that

word in relation to my sister. It’s gross. But…yeah. I mean, we both know

she’s not your type, and even if she was, you’d never go there.”

A sliver of guilt flashed through me when I remembered my errant

fantasy a few moments ago. It was time for me to call up someone from my

roster if I was fantasizing about Ava Chen, of all people.

“But it’s more than that,” Josh continued. “You’re the only person I

trust, period, outside of my family. And you know how worried I am about

Ava, especially considering this whole thing with her ex.” His face

darkened. “I swear, if I ever see that fucker…”

I sighed. “I’ll take care of her. Don’t worry.”

I was going to regret this. I knew it, yet here I was, signing my life

away, at least for the next year. I didn’t make a lot of promises, but when I

did, I kept them. Committed myself to them. Which meant if I promised

Josh I’d look after Ava, I’d fucking look after her, and I’m not talking about

a text check-in every two weeks.

She was under my protection now.

A familiar, creeping sense of doom slithered around my neck and

squeezed, tighter and tighter, until oxygen ran scarce and tiny lights danced

before my eyes.

Blood. Everywhere.

On my hands. On my clothes. Splattered over the cream rug she’d loved

so much—the one she’d brought back from Europe on her last trip abroad.

An inane urge to scrub the rug and tear those bloody particles out of the

soft wool fibers, one by one, gripped me, but I couldn’t move.

All I could do was stand and stare at the grotesque scene in my living

room—a room which, not half an hour earlier, had burst with warmth and

laughter and love. Now it was cold and lifeless, like the three bodies at my

feet.

I blinked, and they disappeared—the lights, the memories, the noose

around my neck.

But they’d come back. They always did.

“…You’re the best,” Josh was saying, his grin back now that I’d agreed

to take on a role I had no business taking. I wasn’t a protector; I was a

destroyer. I broke hearts, crushed business opponents, and didn’t care about

the aftermath. If someone was stupid enough to fall for me or cross me—

two things I warned people never, ever to do—they had it coming. “I’ll

bring you back—fuck, I don’t know. Coffee. Chocolate. Pounds of

whatever is good down there. And I owe you a big, fat favor in the future.”

I forced a smile. Before I could respond, my phone rang, and I held up a

finger. “Be right back. I have to take this.”

“Take your time, man.” Josh was already distracted by the blonde and

brunette who’d been all over me earlier and who found a much more

willing audience in my best friend. By the time I stepped into the backyard

and answered my call, they had their hands beneath his shirt.

“Дядько,” I said, using the Ukrainian term for uncle.

“Alex.” My uncle’s voice rasped over the line, scratchy from decades of

cigarettes and the wear and tear of life. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“No.” I glanced through the sliding glass door at the revelry inside. Josh

had lived in the same rambling, two-story house off Thayer’s campus since

undergrad. We’d roomed together until I graduated and moved to D.C.

proper to be closer to my office—and to get away from the hordes of

shrieking, drunken college students that paraded through campus and the

surrounding neighborhoods every night.

Everyone had turned out for Josh’s farewell party, and by everyone, I

mean half the population of Hazelburg, Maryland, where Thayer was

located. He was a town favorite, and I imagined people would miss his

parties as much as they missed Josh himself.

For someone who always claimed to be drowning in schoolwork, he

found a lot of time for drinking and sex. Not that it hurt his academic

performance. The bastard had a 4.0 GPA.

“Did you take care of the problem?” my uncle asked.

I heard a drawer open and close, followed by the faint click of a lighter.

I’d urged him to quit smoking countless times, but he always brushed me

off. Old habits die hard; old, bad habits even more so, and Ivan Volkov had

reached the age where he couldn’t be bothered.

“Not yet.” The moon hung low in the sky, casting ribbons of light that

snaked through the otherwise-inky darkness of the backyard. Light and

shadow. Two halves of the same coin. “I will. We’re close.”

To justice. Vengeance. Salvation.

For sixteen years, the pursuit of those three things had consumed me.

They were my every waking thought, my every dream and nightmare. My

reason for living. Even in situations when I’d been distracted by something

else—the chess-play of corporate politics, the fleeting pleasure of burying

myself into the tight, warm heat of a willing body—they’d lurked in my

consciousness, driving me to greater heights of ambition and ruthlessness.

Sixteen years might seem like a long time, but I specialize in the long

game. It doesn’t matter how many years I have to wait as long as the end is

worth it.

And the end of the man who had destroyed my family? It would be

glorious.

“Good.” My uncle coughed, and my lips pinched.

One of these days, I’d convince him to quit smoking. Life had driven

any sentimentality out of me years ago, but Ivan was my only living

relative. He took me in, raised me as his own, and stuck by me through

every thorny twist of my path toward revenge, so I owed him that much, at

least.

“Your family will be at peace soon,” he said.

Perhaps. Whether the same could be said of me…well, that was a

question for another day.

“There’s a board meeting next week,” I said, switching topics. “I’ll be in

town for the day.” My uncle was the official CEO of Archer Group, the real

estate development company he’d founded a decade ago with my guidance.

I’d had a knack for business even as a teenager.

Archer Group headquarters called Philadelphia home, but it had offices

across the country. Since I was based in D.C., that was the company’s real

power center, though board meetings still took place at HQ.

I could’ve taken over as CEO years ago, per my uncle’s and my

agreement when we started the company, but the COO position offered me

more flexibility until I finished what I had to do. Besides, everyone knew I

was the power behind the throne, anyway. Ivan was a decent CEO, but it

was my strategies that had catapulted it into the Fortune 500 after a mere

decade.

My uncle and I talked business for a while longer before I hung up and

rejoined the party. The gears in my head cranked into motion as I took stock

of the evening’s developments—my promise to Josh, my uncle’s nudge

about the minor hiccup in my revenge plan. Somehow, I had to reconcile

the two over the next year.

I mentally rearranged the pieces of my life into different patterns,

playing each scenario out to the end, weighing the pros and cons, and

examining them for potential cracks until I reached a decision.

“Everything good?” Josh called out from the couch, where the blonde

kissed his neck while the brunette’s hands became intimately acquainted

with the region below his belt.

“Yes.” To my irritation, my gaze strayed toward Ava again. She was in

the kitchen, fussing over the half-eaten cake from Crumble & Bake. Her

tanned skin glowed with a faint sheen of sweat from dancing, and her raven

hair billowed around her face in a soft cloud. “About your earlier request…I

have an idea.”

                                                              ******

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