Page 24 of Dirty Hearts

“Leaving. I’m going to look into this.” I needed to.

“Can I ask you to stay out of it? Let them do whatever it is they’re doing and just watch your back.”

“No, you will not ask me that.” I looked at him like he was crazy. “For years, years I’ve been looking for some kind of lead. I don’t care where Goliath is. I will find him. He linked up with the Manellos before. They must know something. If you truly wanted me to stay out of it, you wouldn’t have told me anything.”

Luc chuckled off key. “Maybe. Maybe I just want you to have some closure, finally.”

“Thanks for the info.” I moved to the door.

“Tell Ava the truth, Claudius. The whole truth.” His words stopped me.

I turned back to face him. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

He shrugged. “She deserves to know. If she hates her sister for what she did to you two, it actually doesn’t matter. But if you have any feelings for her at all, give her the respect she deserves with the truth. I’d want to know if it were me.”

I took in the serious expression on his face, took in the sense in his words, took in what they meant.

It was logical to tell the truth. But how did I do that? I could paint it to make Marissa look bad with the way she’d fooled me.

However, that would excuse my guilt in the mix and make me look like the good guy.

I’d always prided myself on being able to tell the twins apart. For me it was easy. I knew the one my heart reacted to. It was evident from day one.

To me the women might have been similar but not the same.

Marissa, however, lay in wait to catch me at the most vulnerable time in my life.

That night, I didn’t know truth from lies. I never saw past the glimmer of her pretending to be Ava.

I never had the strength for it.

In my rendition of the truth I’d have to tell Ava that I got wasted because hours before, I’d lost one of my best friends.Henry.Luc knew this story all too well.

That fucking psycho Victor Pertrinkov killed Henry, his wife, and their two kids, and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could have done about it.

I got wasted, plastered out of my mind, and Marissa picked that moment to reel me into her trap.

That was the truth.

Chapter 6

Ava

* * *

Iwoke up this morning feeling like shit.

Absolute shit. Just like yesterday.

I tried everything and couldn’t get out of this stench of a mood I’d been in since seeing Claudius.

I went to work this morning with a dark cloud over me and couldn’t shake it all damn day.

And worse, it was starting to affect my work. That never happened. Never, ever. Work was the one thing I could always rely on, and now he’d taken that too.

I couldn’t focus enough to finish off the menu, and it didn’t help that I hadn’t heard back from the realtors or the bank.

When I’d called them yesterday, they said they were still waiting to hear from the owner. Since I hadn’t exactly done this before, getting a commercial property and a loan to expand, I figured that maybe it was normal to wait.