Page 69 of The Thief

“I was fine,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “Ava is a little jumpy and clingy, but we’ll get there. We’re starting counselling.”

“Youarefine. But it could’ve been so different.”

She sighed and smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“I’m going to say to you what you just said to me,” she whispered. “Try to forget what you heard. The man who threatened me is dead. What he said he was going to do, it didn’t happen.”

I wanted to tell her he wasn’t the only one warming the fires in hell. That we’d already picked off a few more and sent them gift wrapped back to Satan, but I didn’t. Instead, I nodded, and let her think I’d do as she said. It was better that way.

“Look, let me take the water up to Ava, read her that story I promised, then we can talk some more,” I said, and Jess nodded, stepping out of my arms and going to the cupboard to take out a pink water bottle, and fill it with water.

“Don’t let her con you into reading more than one,” she said, passing me the bottle.

“I’ll try. But when it comes to the Porter girls, I seem to have no self-control.” I shrugged, and she laughed quietly, shook her head and padded past me, heading to the living room.

I took the stairs two at a time, but when I got to Ava’s room, she was already fast asleep.

I stood in the doorway to watch her for a while, her little eye lashes feathering her cheeks, her blonde curls falling all over her pillow, and the soft sounds of her breathing.

I felt a twinge in my chest as I thought,I’d fucking die for this little girl, and I rubbed where it hurt, trying to ease the ache.

Then, I placed the water bottle gently on her bedside table, took a step back into the hallway and closed her door as slowly and quietly as I could.

That day of reckoning for the last two fuckers couldn’t come soon enough.

Chapter Twenty-Five

JESS

Tyler was a good man, I knew that. But hearing him talking on the phone the other night reminded me that he had another side to him. One I’d blocked out. One I didn’t want to acknowledge.

His soldier side.

He wanted to do what was right, and he thought enforcing his own style of justice on the men who held us was the way to do it. I didn’t want to argue, but I didn’t wholeheartedly agree. And I prayed the police would get to them first. That justice would be served correctly. I’d only just reconnected with Tyler, and selfishly, I didn’t want that to end any time soon.

I spent a few days mulling it over, wondering if I’d done the right thing, letting Tyler become a part of our lives. But the minute Tyler showed up at our door again, holding a box of Ava’s favourite cookies and asking if he could spend the daywith us, my worries were forced into a box in my head marked, ‘stress for another day’. One look at his crooked smile, and I was gone.

I heard him come into the living room later that night, after reading Ava another bedtime story, and he told me, “She’s already asleep.”

“I knew she would be,” I replied as he sat down next to me on the sofa. “You wore her out.”

“I hope that isn’t the case for both of you,” he said, a hint of suggestion in his voice as I felt the heat of his stare.

The tension in the air intensified. Sparks of nervous sexual tension that I wasn’t sure how to handle as I sat there, messing about with the TV remote to give my hands something to do.

Should I make the first move?

Would it make me look desperate?

But then I remembered that he’d kissed me the other night, and he wanted to take me out.

Fuck.

I hated awkwardness.

But then, the awkwardness disappeared as he took the remote, turned the TV off, and put his arm across the back of the sofa.

“Come here. You’re too far away,” he said, and I slid across the sofa to get closer to him.