جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 207

Ava ~~~ Leonel jumps in front of me before I can scream.Many guests, just like me, are yelling, and many more are too shocked to make a noise, but in all this, no one runs for the exit. I think fear roots everyone to the spot.I look over Leonel’s shoulder to see Jaxon, holding a weapon in one hand and clenching his fist in the other. Around him, at least ten of Leonel’s security surround him with much bigger, much scarier guns.But it doesn’t matter how big those other guns are. It only takes one shot from Jaxon to change a life forever.“We have you surrounded, drop your weapon!” Kenzo barks. Jaxon cackles, a sound so cruel it curls my toes.“Do you really think I give a fuck what happens to me?” he asks the guards. “As long as I kill fucking Leonel Sinclair , I don’t care if I go down.”Maybe he truly has run mad. It could be because of how long he was locked up, or this could be him at his core.Either way, I’m in a stupid amount of danger.“Does anyone believe the bullshit t

Jaxon Pierce ~~~ Love. That wondrous feeling. That incredible joy. The only thing worth having. I’ve loved. I loved my mother, even when she chose my stepfather, and my father even when he didn’t choose me. I loved Hazel Levine and her red hair and green eyes how she trusted me even though she shouldn’t have. I loved Adrian Allard, the father I never had, the one who gave me my life’s purpose, my greatest love: Ava Jade Allard. And my God did I love her. She is beautiful. She is strong. She is smart and kind and all that crap I never said or allowed myself think. She’s perfection. I broke perfection. I didn’t think I would, even as I came to her wedding and shot her fiancé, none of this came to mind. My only thought was that she was beautiful, mine, and maybe being stolen from me. But maybe she was never mine. Even before the gunshot smashed into my head I knew it was over for me. She was kneeling there, looking at me with confidence I knew she could

Ava ~~~ Adrian’s head snaps back with a crack, a groan straining out of him. He collapses onto the grass.“Fuck!” He mutters, his hand coming up to cover his nose, and I see a trail of red dribble to his chin.I’m too riled up for care. There is no way in hell he’s standing in front of me, actually alive and well. I hurry to my feet, with Evelyn and Riley’s help, so that I’m standing over him, ignoring some of the wooziness from having passed out. “Sorry”. I spit, not sounding sorry at all, “I needed to test if you were real.” He looks up at me, and I feel like fainting all over again.“Ava-“ “Don’t.” Evelyn surprises me by saying. She glares at my dad like he personally offended her, and in response, he snaps his mouth shut.Her blue eyes turn away from him to stare at me, and all the leftover anger in them melts away.“Ava, honey, are you okay?” She coos, and I want nothing more than to pull her into a hug so I can melt into her motherliness. It would make up for the wonderful

Leonel ~~~ I flit in and out of consciousness. Whether I’m awake or asleep, it’s one nightmare or the other that plagues me. Asleep, I see my father, feral from behind a jail cell. Sometimes he has his belt, ready to whoop me like I’m 10 years old again, and I can’t move despite being taller than him, more bulked than him. Other times I see Madison in his lap, kissing and grinding against him as he looks me in the eye, glimmering with a winning smile. When it’s not that nightmare, it’s Rafael, so small and fragile in the corner of a room. Above him, my father looms, ready to whip the boy with golden curls and curious eyes, ruining him as he ruined me. Other times it’s not Rafael in the corner, but Ava, a cruel look on her angelic face that is there because of me. “Don’t you really think I wanted this wedding to happen? You, with a business on the brink of failure? No actually, not just your business, but you who is on the brink of failure. ” She says decidedly, her v