Criminal Affinity [18+]

Chapter 70

The mattress sinks under Ava's weight. He doesn't move from his spot, but Ava doesn't push him. What if he leaves?

"You know where I come from. You know what I am." Ivan begins, hands idly undoing the top buttons of his shirt.

The harsh lines of his face and the weary draw of his mouth almost make him look like a different person. Ava draws the covers tighter around herself, patiently nodding her head.

"Drugs, petty theft, local gang attacks for a few meals," Ivan says. "I had more than my own stomach to feed. I got so caught up, I forgot I also had more than my own back to watch. I had two more sisters. My...mother didn't even bother naming them."

Ava can't help but notice how his Italian accent creeps into his words, now weighed heavily by the life he lived in his homeland. She also doesn't miss the venom glazing it.

"The girls were always sick, so we struggled a lot. Katrina never left their side because they were closer to her than the two of us. But I...I loved them."

Ava stares at Ivan, covers now a looser around her body. She hardly pays any mind to it. The word love out of his mouth sounds foreign enough to make her sit up straight. How could a mother do that to her children? Were none of the fathers present? How could the mother even know which children belonged to who?

"She was never home. She never brought anything home. Some of her pimps felt bad for us and would occasionally give her some money, but by the time it would reach us it would only be enough for one full meal. I did everything I could to keep us afloat. It was always only just enough." He says.

Ivan inhales before dragging his haunted gaze to hers. She feels an overwhelming impulse to throw her arms around him, but keeps her wits in check when she remembers the blood on his shirt. Gian's blood.

Is he dead? What more did he dredge? Not an ounce of her being cared about any of that right now.

"One day they went missing. They never left the house, so we knew something was wrong. I went out to look for them and I came back to find Katrina hiding inside in a small hole in our walls. It took me an hour to get her out of there, she didn't believe it was me and not him. Then she told me. What he did." He says.

"I will spare you the details. They were killed in front of her. He loaded them into the back of a vehicle, accompanied by some people she didn't recognize." He takes another breath, Ava's heart clenches when she hears the shake in it. "We heard him come in. I hid her and confronted him. I wanted to kill him, but he got to me first."

Ava's gaze falls to the floor, along with the rise and fall of her chest. With horror, she hears the sound of him undoing all the buttons of his shirt. Before she can stop it, her eyes well with tears.

"No." She hears herself say.

"He left me outside our house." He says, but she can hardly hear him over the roaring in her heart. Her eyes rake over the gnarly, poorly healed gunshot wounds again and again until it's all she can focus on. "I was found hours later and taken to a hospital in the neighbouring city."

"I'm—" Ava says, sucking in a sharp breath.

"Henderson found me a couple weeks later, linked to the aggravated murder of one of the men responsible that I tracked down." His voice is hushed, distant. "You know what happened next."

She does. She does know what happened next. A glimmer of hope, a shot at life, of saving what he had left of his family—which, too, was ripped away from him.

Left for dead. Twice.

A shudder scratches down her back when she looks him in the eye again. Ava gathers herself onto her feet and edges closer. Ivan wordlessly watches her approach.