~ Ares

A week. Had it really been an entire fucking week?

It always seemed like work swamped me after I had a revelation, and this week was particularly brutal because I knew Ava was waiting for me to make some kind of gesture. I was run so ragged that I barely got a chance to call her and cancel our meetings, and the few hours I got to sleep each night were spent reviewing the fantastic thirty-six hours I’d spent in her apartment—and in her arms.  

It was Saturday by the time I got some breathing room, and though I called her several times, her cell went straight to voicemail. Though I assumed she must be busy with work, I couldn’t quell the desire to see her. We’d been apart all week and I needed her smile—I needed her body and her soft, reassuring voice in my ear.

She’d turned me into a fucking softie and I was so absorbed in her that I didn’t even care. I did my best to concentrate on something else. I worked out until I physically couldn’t anymore and half-watched one of my favorite TV shows until it went off. At about eleven in the evening, I gave in. After a shower and a change of clothes, I was off to Brooklyn, grinning with the prospect of surprising a half-asleep Ava.

This late at night there was little traffic, and I reached the outer borough within twenty minutes. When I killed the sports car’s engine, however, something gave me pause. I could hear muffled yelling from the apartment building, I frowned, straining to hear the altercation.

“Let go of me you fucking asshole. Take your hands off me or I swear to God—”

“You’re gonna give me a taste of that sweetness, Ava. You’re mine now—it’s the best thing for you.”

Ava.

I was out of the car and up the four flights of stairs before my brain even caught up with my body. At the sight before me, my vision went red with anger. Ava was on the concrete floor, wrestling with some pencil-necked idiot who was trying to tear her dress off. Her face was flushed with anger and exertion as she fought him off, and the asshole just kept coming at her, finally slapping her in an attempt to subdue her.

I was on him inside of a second.

At my sudden appearance, Ava screamed, but I barely heard her. I tore her assailant from her and slammed him into the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of him. I hadn’t gotten into a fight in at least six months but my body still remembered the raw fury of conflict. I drove my fist into his face once, hard enough to bloody his nose and leave him dazed.

“Yours?” I snarled, focused on nothing but the dickless figure in my hands. “She’s yours? You fucking spineless sack of sewage!” I hit him again and again until his pleas for mercy became gurgles and blood bubbled from his lips. Several somethings snapped, and the impacts of my fist went from meaty to crunchy in the space of a few minutes.

“Ares, stop. Stop it! You’re killing him, Ares, please!”

Dimly, I heard sirens in the distance as I became cognizant of Ava trying, in vain, to pull me from my victim.

“That’s enough! Jesus, that’s enough.”

But it wasn’t. He had his hands on her. As far as I was concerned, I could put the man six feet under and he’d still deserve a beating. Whether by blessing or curse, the cops arrived before I could cave his skull on. With Ava looking on, and rage still coursing through my veins, they cuffed me and read me my Miranda rights. It wasn’t a first for me... but it was certainly the first time I’d been so completely, blindingly angry.

I didn’t know which was worse—seeing Ava with another man or seeing that man with his hands on her. Though both ideas made me want to destroy something, one hurt more than the other... and I didn’t want to admit to myself which.

I was compliant as they admitted me to Brooklyn holding overnight. The guy I fucked up was in no position to press charges, but I had no doubt they were coming. He’d be eating through a straw for a while and I was fucking glad—but that didn’t dim the pain of remembering what I’d come upon.

Ava... looking like a dream in a gorgeous dress—with another man. I doubted some guy in a tuxedo had just happened past her apartment building and decided to assault her. That meant that she had been out with him.

With someone else.

The thought kept me up all night—not that I could have slept in my blood-stained suit on the hard material of the cell’s cot. I was still brooding by the time the sun came up, wondering how long it would take for one of the high-ups to find out what had happened and come and get me.

My wait actually ended up being shorter than I expected. Around seven in the morning, the station head came to tell me my bail had been paid. His face spoke volumes of what he thought—in his mind, I had simply snapped back to my roots. A violent pretty boy with too much money and violent tendencies. In one night I had undone the image that Ava and I worked so hard to cultivate... and all because of what I’d seen.

The irony was brutal.

When I walked out of lock-up, I expected to see Josiah—complete with disapproving frown and lecture but, instead, Ava stood there, still in her gown from the night before. The place where her assailant had hit her was already swelling into a deep purple bruise. I couldn’t decide what to feel at the sight of her. Part of me was glad that she was all right, and part of me was crumbling on the inside.

“Ares.” She rushed towards me, her expression worried. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” My answer was cold—abrupt. I eyed her skeptically. “Where the hell did you get a hundred thousand dollars bail?”

Ava’s face colored slightly. “My townhouse down payment.”

Fuck. Why had she gone and done that? The stockholders could have put it up, easy. That was chump change for them. I almost told her so, before I remembered the sick feeling in my gut that she had put there and I thought better of it.

The silence stretched, long and awkward between us until she spoke again. “I wanted to thank you... for saving me. If you hadn’t come... I don’t know what I would have done.”

“Right. Maybe bringing a stranger to your apartment wasn’t the best idea in the first place.” The caustic words slipped from me before I could stop them, but I didn’t immediately regret them. She’d hurt me. Fucking hurt me... and I let her.

Ava’s eyes went wide with shock before her color heightened. “Jesus, Ares. Hamilton was my Mom’s doing. She set up a fucking gala date for me and he was there when I got there.”

“So, you spent the whole night with him?” I pressed, relentless. “Invited him back to your house? You just started, Ava. Maybe you shouldn’t be working on your numbers quite so soon.” It was a low blow and it came from a dark fucking place, but I was too wrapped up to fight it. I was tired, my knuckles were split six different ways, and the last thing I wanted to do was talk about my feelings.

Ava looked as if I’d slapped her. She hadn’t even looked that hurt when her so-called date actually struck her the previous night. In that moment, I knew that whatever pain I inflicted went far deeper than what he’d done—and for a split second, I wanted to take it all back. Ava’s large green eyes shone with tears even as her jaw trembled with anger.

“What the hell do you care who I sleep with anyway?” she bit out, her stance rigid. “It’s not like you actually care about me anyway, right? You said it yourself, you’re not capable of loving anyone, Ares, so spare me the man spurned act.”

Her words sent me reeling and it took all my physical fortitude to keep from collapsing into the nearest chair. But Ava wasn’t done. She continued, determined to have her say. “Look at us, Ares. Look at us. We’re a fucking mess. You’re everywhere at once and I... I was stupid enough to fall for you. Stupid enough to love someone who says he can’t love me back. How sustainable is that, really? How long before it turns to resentment?” Tears ran freely down her face as she blurted the words without filter, and my heart constricted in my chest. “I’m sorry for what happened to you. You didn’t deserve any of it—not Laura, not your father and not your grandfather’s death, but I can’t do this. I can’t spend my entire life waiting for you to throw me a bone. That’s not living.”

Emotions assaulted me from every angle. Guilt, regret, anger... and something bigger. Something that filled the pit of my stomach and clogged my throat, threatening to undo me completely. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears, and Ava was staring at me as if she expected me to say something that would make it all better… but I didn’t know how. I had never known how. I let one failed relationship eat me up for ten years. I couldn’t deal with my own emotions—how the hell was I supposed to deal with someone else’s?

“Fine.” My words came out hollow and flat, my face a mask of impassiveness. It was easier to draw in on myself—to numb myself to the crushing pain. If I let myself feel it, I didn’t know if I could bear it. “You want to live? Live. Be with whoever the hell you want.”

Ava’s lower lip trembled as she opened her mouth to reply, but I cut her off swiftly. “And considering the severe conflict of interest here, I think it would be best if we terminated our contract.” Ava’s hand rose to her throat as pain suffused her gaze. For a long beat, she just stared at me, fresh tears running down her face. “You’ve been a great asset to me,” I continued, deadpan and oh-so-professional. “But I think we’re done here.”

She choked back a soft sob that tore my heart in two. “You know what I think?” Her words came out in an anguished whisper. “I think you’re an asshole.” With that, she turned on her heel to leave the precinct without another word.

For a full minute after she left, I stood there, the emotions I tenuously held at bay threatening to overwhelm me. I took a deep breath, massaging my split knuckles so the fresh wave of pain brought me back to the here and now. I could get a handle on this—I could control it. I was always in control, and now that Ava was out of the picture, things could go back to the way they were.

I needed things the way they used to be... that way, I wouldn’t have to remember how she made me feel.