Page 79 of Dirty Hearts

I felt it all with him, and I couldn’t have loved him more than I did, than I always had. I just wasn’t sure if it was enough.

In the end, whenever that was, love would never be enough.

* * *

Claudius

* * *

I could have breathed fire.

It took everything out of me to calm myself down in front of Ava. I wanted to hit something, destroy something. Find those guys, whoever they were. I got her back to my place, then arranged to get her CCTV recording.

I watched it, saw the goons, but I didn’t recognize any of them.

Never seen them before. Not even one of them.

I had Dante and Gio with me. Alex and Jude were on the streets again gathering intel, and the secret force was working on things from their end.

Luc’s men: Saul, Louis, and Donny were on their way. They would stay here and watch the place.

Ava was upstairs. When we got here, The Four were already inside waiting for us. I sent Ava straight to my room. There she stayed. That was hours ago, and she hadn’t come down.

She’d looked freaked out by the guys. She was freaked out from the situation.

I definitely couldn’t blame her. Not in the absolute least. I couldn’t even relish in the fact that she’d told me she loved me. It was something to be savored, but I didn’t have the luxury of time.

Shit got real today. Obviously because of last night.

I could only imagine what must have happened when Corey gave his report on what went down at the club.

So, they were playing the old card of coming at me through my girl.

The extension of that message those guys sent was not just knowing Ava was mine. They were also saying that they’d come at me through her if I messed with them. If I asked too many questions. If I dug too deep to discover whatever secret it was I wasn’t supposed to know about.

Fucking hell.

“I feel like a sitting duck, boss,” Gio said, leaning against the edge of the table.

“The feeling is mutual.” I had to agree. All the work we’d done so far was basically for nothing, and I wasn’t sure what we were waiting for.

I was hoping the secret squad would come back to me with something by now, but I hadn’t heard from them. That meant they didn’t have much to work with either.

We were in my office. It was quite unlike the office in town because I kept some spare weights in here, and it wasn’t as organized, but this was where I kept paperwork and other shit that was business related.

With a curious look on his face, Dante went to the TV and switched on the DVD player, getting ready to watch the footage again.

We’d watched it ten times already, and nothing stood out. I didn’t know what he thought he might gather from watching the eleventh time.

“Hey, bro, what are you thinking?” I asked, moving closer to him.

“I don’t know, boss. I think… just let me play around with this a little.”

The footage started playing. I watched Ariel, the redhead at the restaurant, show the three guys to their table. They said something to her, and she went to get Ava. Ava went to them and …

Dante froze the screen and stared at it. Other than the repulsive sight of the fat fucker who was talking to Ava, I didn’t know what he was looking at.

“What is it, Dante?” The suspense was killing me.