Page 96 of Dirty Hearts

He placed a kiss on my forehead and walked away.

All I could do was stare as my heart broke again, and my soul wept.

Chapter 24

Claudius

* * *

Yesterday brought with it an answer clear as glass. It was the answer I didn’t want, but it truly was the answer to what my heart feared the most.

I needed to let her go.

Let Ava go. It was the same answer I’d had in the very beginning. The same fucking answer that tore me apart.

Letting her go this time would be harder, because she knew the truth. She knew how much I loved her, but love wasn’t close to enough for us to be together.

I needed to let her go and live a normal life. Go be happy with a man like that dweeb John. Crispy clean in his suit and that I-think-I’m-hot-shit attitude. She could go be happy with someone like that in her restaurant.

She could meet a normal guy, have a family, and live the rest of her life happy and safe. A life that didn’t include me.

A life where she wasn’t tainted by my world.

I wasn’t like Luc. Luc was the guy who had his shit together. The significant thing about it was, whether he was in the business or not, he had his fucking head screwed on and knew how to handle a situation.

Me, I just lost my mind, and when it called for it, couldn’t think past running into the street on a blood hunt for the fuckers who messed with me and mine.

Too much had happened in just this week alone. All disasters like signs or massive warning billboards telling me to get this woman out of my life if I didn’t want to ruin her any more than I had.

So, that was it. It wouldn’t matter what I wanted. It was the right thing to do.The right thing—my old friend returning, rearing its ugly head in my face,

telling me that all the choices I made would never include my own happiness.

Fuck.

Ididn’t matter. That didn’t matter. Right now, I had to switch into serious mode and get to the bottom of this.

Instead of sleeping, I went to my office and called in every resource I knew before the sun came up.

That also included contact to the hacker we’d used three years ago when Amelia got taken by Victor, and Taglioni Donachie.

The hacker’s name was Cora.

Getting her details meant talking to Amelia’s friend, Brad Sinclaire. A damn cop based in L.A. I hated cops more than anything, but he was a guy who actually grew on me even though I gave him a hard time.

I needed Cora now because I didn’t know how much time we had available to us.

Last night, whoever was watching us killed David. That and the incident at the restaurant all spoke of what trouble was on the way. So, I needed eyes everywhere.

Pa and I were already waiting for The Four when they came in.

I noticed the tension rippling off Dante and Gio. Tension toward Alex and Jude.

Pa glanced at me when the door closed.

I had everything prepped in my mind, but for the first time, I didn’t know how to start.

There was too much shit. Mostly, I wanted to torture the rat amongst us and kill him.