The NSC Boxset: Heart of Stone (153 page)

Nodding, acknowledging him without words knowing I wouldn’t even be able to muster any, I took the few steps needed to reach Dane.

Slowly he lifted his head. I gulped. The half side of his face that had been mutilated already was pulverised, his cheekbone visible. Unable to concentrate I shifted my eyes to his remaining good eye.

“Have you any requests?”

He blinked at me, confused by my question. Tipping his head to one side, his face tightening at the pain it obviously caused him, he chuckled quite sinisterly. “Don’t tell me the famous Mason Fox isn’t accompanying you? You actually think you can hurt me?”

I scratched at the itch just under my eye. My blood was pumping too quickly and I knew I had to calm myself down. I was truthful with myself. I needed Mason. However, it was time to toughen up. Looking back on my life before my man, I knew I should be proud of how I had pulled myself through. So why shouldn’t I take delight in hurting someone who had hurt my loved ones? Dane had not only killed my baby, but hurt Mason. He’d stabbed Greg. He’d hurt me.

“Don’t you think I will hurt you, Dane? After all you’ve done to me and my family. You think I’m going to sit in a corner and watch someone else do my job for me?”

He shrugged. “Well that’s the reason you’re with Mason isn’t it, so he will deal with your problems. He’s always put himself out there for you, Ava. Pushed everyone else away just so he can protect and serve you. Queen fucking Ava.”

“You sound jealous.”

“Jealous.” He scoffed and shook his head. “Do you even know how long Mason and I were friends before you came along? Twenty years, Ava. Twenty fucking years that he just crushed under his foot because of you. We were like glue once, friends that would kill for one another. We didn’t only share women but trust and a soul, a soul that you demanded for yourself.”

Gripping his chin tightly I moved my face an inch from his. “And yet you thought nothing about killing your best friend’s child and raping his fiancé? Hell Dane, you’re an awesome friend.”

He heaved heavily when I brought my knee up quickly and jarred him in the balls, the little blood left in his face draining with the pain. “I’m so glad those balls of yours never fathered a child because it would be cursed from the off.”

I circled him, smiling at the bruising already displayed on his upper torso. Greg stepped forward and handed me something that made my heart race. He nodded, encouraging me when I hesitantly took it from him. “You can do this, Ava,” he urged calmly. “Think of your baby. Think of Mason’s heroin withdrawal. Think of what he did to you in that house.”

The image of me hung from the chain, the mirror image to Dane right then caused the blood in my veins to heat. The scars on my back tingled as though encouraging and fortifying my nerves.

Pushing myself, I lifted my arm high then snapped it down quickly and harshly. Dane screamed when the whip cracked the sore skin on his back. Red marks appeared immediately and my eyes widened on them, picturing how hard Dane must have belted me to break the skin when I had driven it as hard as I could.

“Snap your wrist,” Sam instructed. “It gives more of a sharp hit.”

I gulped but did as he advised. A long slash broke the surface of Dane’s skin, blood bubbling along the tear. It was enthralling, watching it trickle down the paleness of his skin as it dipped into old wounds and new injuries. I closed off to the screams as I shut my eyes and began a relentless beating, my mind relishing in the riddance of the hatred that had ridden my veins since Dane’s first ever betrayal.

Mason’s eyes filtered into my head, the tears in his eyes when he had told me I had miscarried. The pain on his face when he had lifted me into his arms after Dane had raped me and his own struggle with hurting his friend, a friend that had taken Mason’s love and tossed it away.

A hand settled on my wrist and I stopped, opening my eyes to witness the thrashing I had forced upon my enemy. Skin hung from his back in strips, deep lesions pouring with blood from where my hits had dug deep into his flesh.

Dane was quiet, his head hung low. Walking round him, I took his hair between my fingers and snapped his face back up. “You want more? You want me to show you exactly what
I am
capable of?”

He opened his eye, a slow smirk spreading across his face. “Do your best bitch,” he dragged out.

I pulled in a breath. My mind had shut down, my morals left at the front door before I walked in. I knew I would have nightmares about this for a long, long time but they were nightmares that I needed to put the others to rest, nightmares that would allow my mind to stay sane.

My heels clicked on the concrete floor as I slowly strolled across the large space to where tools were hung precariously on a brick wall. It looked as though someone had previously used the building as a workshop, carpentry tools dangling from bent nails and more simple tools placed on a wooden bench.

I eyed the rusty saw before plucking a Stanley knife from the bench. Twirling it in my fingers I swallowed back the bile and turned. Dane’s eyes fell to what I was holding, they widened slightly but other than that he showed no emotion. He was tough, I’d give him that but then I supposed after spending a lifetime with Mason, who wouldn’t be, he’d witnessed more death and destruction than most.

His gaze lifted to mine when I drew near. “You think I’m going to beg, Ava?” he chuckled, the action causing him to cough until he hacked up a lungful of blood and spat it at me. I blinked, not giving him the satisfaction of wiping it away.

“I wear your blood with pride, Dane. It’s like a trophy.”

He frowned, a hint of fear flashing across his eyes when he finally realised he wasn’t getting out alive. Yet he nodded. “I envy you, Ava.”

I tipped my head, my brow creasing in confusion. “Why?”

He grit his teeth when I dragged the blade across his chest, the deep cut allowing his life to flow out quicker this time. “Because you always had something I never had.”

I lifted my eyes to his, regarding him. “Which is?”

“Mason’s love.” He stated it so frankly and easily that my heart, for a brief second pulled away from my chest.

Unable to watch his pain, I prowled around the back of him, pulling the knife across his skin and watching mesmerised as his skin parted like the red sea and displayed his bright crimson flesh to me, layers of fat making me study how the human body was put together like a biology lesson in school. He whimpered, his knees buckling with the pain but he straightened up again.

“You always had Mason’s love, Dane. Don’t you realise that? He hurt you but he couldn’t kill you. Did you never see that?”

“What”? He choked out, a spray of blood hitting the pale concrete in front of him. I knew he was dying quickly now but for some crazy moment I wanted to prolong his death. I didn’t want it clean and I didn’t want it quick. He jolted, hissing sharply when I dug the blade into his lower back, twisting it round to cause deeper pain due to the tiny length of the blade. I needed more so hunting in the tools, I returned with a screwdriver. Digging it in deep, I narrowed my eyes and smiled when I hit bone and Dane cried out.

“He couldn’t kill you, Dane. He burnt you to teach you a lesson but then he walked away. Did you not think why he did that?” Dane was quiet. I knew he wasn’t unconscious just unable to answer. “Because he loved you. Like a fool.”

I scoffed at my own words, pushing the screwdriver even deeper to see if it would actually come through his stomach. I was in a zone I relished in right then, my mind and soul awaiting somewhere else until I was ready to once again become the Ava Stone that wielded compassion and scruples.

I sucked in a breath then blew it out when I caught sight of the blowtorch by the far end of the workbench. A slow smile crept along my face when I gently picked it up, nursing it as though it were a timid puppy. A flicker sped across my head of Katie writhing in pain, her body burning as her screams slaughtered my soul.

Enough. That was something I would never come back from.

Placing it back down, I turned to Sam and held out my hand. He nodded and placed the gun into my palm.

Holding it to Dane’s forehead, I bent close and whispered, “Beg.”

His eyes flicked open for a moment, his soul facing me as he held my gaze. But he remained silent. Taking a step back, I aimed at his knee and pressed the trigger. His scream was high and piercing, goosebumps exploding over my skin with the pitch.

“FUCK!”

“Beg me! Beg me to finish it!”

He shook his head, his strength angering me. Blood and bone shattered from his other knee when I fired, his flesh and marrow splattering my face but I left it there, wearing it to show him I wasn’t the weak little woman that he had taken so much from. I was Ava Stone. I was Mason Fox’s little warrior and fuck, if that didn’t mean anything else, it meant I was strong and ready for whatever life had planned for me now. With or without Mason, I no longer wanted to be scared. I no longer wanted to hide from my past or my future, whatever it held. I had to be strong, tough for my children and even tougher for my soul to remain intact.

“Beg me to die, Dane. Whatever you may think, I can do this all day. I’m not that Ava you met all those months ago. I won’t back into a corner anymore. I’ll face you fighting and kicking and screaming. I am going to kill you, it’s your choice whether it be quick or long.”

He screamed when I hit his right shoulder. Shaking his head as tears streamed down the open flesh on his face, he finally looked at me, weakness and defeat in his gaze.

“I was wrong,” he rasped. I nodded, gesturing for him to go on. A small smile curved his lips and I knew the next shot I took would end his life. “You are good enough for my best friend.”

My stomach clenched at the emotion in his voice. Placing the muzzle of the gun to his forehead, his eyes giving me thanks, I nodded reverently to him. “Would you like me to tell him anything”?

He stared at me for a moment, a slow lonely tear bursting over his long bottom lashes. “Tell him . . . tell him it was fun. Tell him he was my brother and I loved him.”

I nodded, squirming when my vigour started to wane.

Blinking up at me, he lowered his voice to a low grate. “I’m sorry, Ava.” Before I had chance to question him, he pressed his head against the gun. “End it. End me . . . please.”

A tear left me as his life left him. Dane didn’t deserve any compassion, but Mason did. I had ended the life of his best friend, the man he couldn’t find it in his heart to execute. The man that had held Mason up before I had ever had the chance to. A friend that had taken Mason and pulled him through his horrible childhood. Their friendship had ended when I had walked into Mason’s house that rainy morning two years ago. And now Dane had paid the ultimate price for his betrayal. Yet we had both known that if I hadn’t killed him then Mason finally would have.

Blood. Souls. Hearts. They were all destructible. Even the tightest of friends were never beyond betrayal. But at the end of the day, it was who was strongest lived longer.

I dropped the gun and walked away. Away from Dane’s lifeless body and away from Mason’s life. Out of all that Dane had said, the one line that haunted me for the coming months was, ‘You are good enough for my best friend.’ Because at the end of the day, I wasn’t. I wasn’t strong enough for him, nor was I good for him.

The man who had sworn to protect me had destroyed me. And the man who I had vowed to care for, I had broken beyond repair.

Sometimes the pull of two souls is so strong that when they meet the explosion is catastrophic. We just had to learn to fight it and live, or rather exist without each other.

Sometimes, love is just that little bit too destructive.

CHAPTER 32

4 MONTHS LATER

“AVA STONE!” I heard a voice behind me as I stood at the bar, ordering mine and the girls drinks. I spun on my heels to see Ethan the sonographer from the hospital stood grinning at me. I grinned back and held a finger up for him to hold on, he nodded and I turned back round to the slimy barman. I wondered if Mason knew one of his staff hit on all the female customers. “£3.45 change, sure I can’t tempt you to anything else tonight gorgeous?” he asked with a leer and I scowled at him before I turned back round to Ethan.

I was already well on the way to getting drunk and knew I shouldn’t have bought another vodka but I was in the mood for getting obliterated after a stressful week at work.

“Ethan,” I smiled and kissed him chastely on the cheek. “How are you?” I asked as we made our way over to the table the girls and I were occupying.

“I’m doing well. How are you?” I noticed his eyes flick to my left hand and then slowly over my body and I smiled at his check out.

“I’m good too.”

He nodded as I placed the drinks on the table and scanned the room for my friends, finding them strutting their asses at some blokes that had shimmied up to them. “You escaped the peanuts for the night?” he asked as I slid into the booth. He saddled in beside me and took a long pull on his beer. I couldn’t remove my eyes from the way his throat bobbed sexily as he swallowed it down. He raised an eyebrow and gave me a lazy grin when he caught me checking him out. My mouth was suddenly dry as my body excitedly lit up at the specimen beside me.

Clearing my parched throat I raised my eyes back to his. “Oh yeah, they’re at their dad’s until tomorrow,” I told him as my eyes drifted to the way he ran his tongue over the drop of beer residue on his top lip.

Jesus Ava! Get a grip!

I scolded myself, it had been too long since I’d had sex and my body was now alerting me to a possible candidate. I hadn’t been responsive to any male attention since I had left Mason but the way my body was reacting to Ethan I was secretly hoping I might be in for some action.

“Oh, are you and their dad not together now?” I saw a flash across his eyes as they dropped to my mouth and I ran my tongue over my dry lips. I reached for my drink and downed it in one, needing something other than Ethan’s mouth to focus on.

“No, we’ve been apart about four months now,” I said quietly with a shake of my head, the pain of our separation still tore through my soul. I missed him immensely and I was furious I still felt like this.