Page 52 of Ties That Bind Us

“I blamed myself for Andrew killing himself for a long time. He was my twin brother, I felt like I should’ve known something was off, and no one else could really understand that. I had just started dating Jimmy at the time, and I thought he was trying to help me. But all he really wanted was somebody to get high with. I didn’t mind at first, it was making all of my pain go away. My dad lost his mind, he tried everything in the world to make me stop. He tried to beat it out of me, and when that didn’t work, he threatened to throw me into his prisoner cells for a month so I knew how good I had it.” She swallowed hard, biting back tears. “It became a power struggle between us, and I pushed even harder. But one day I overdosed, and Vince’s daughter found me. I guess at that point, I realized how bad it was. I agreed to do whatever my parents wanted me to, and so I started seeing a counselor. I stopped that day, and hadn’t had anything again until the other night.”

She paused for a second. The blood turned to ice in my veins listening to the way Alessandro had handled it. His daughter was crying out for help, and he treated her like one of his captives. He was a fucking monster.

“But I swear, it’s not like that this time, Nick. I have a handle on it, I won’t do it again,” she assured me, with a desperation in her eyes that made me nervous.

I wanted to believe her, but I also knew how things like this worked. I wouldn’t let her fail. The difference between this time and last was that she had me to support her, and I was going to keep her as far from her bastard father as I could.

“I don’t want you to see Jimmy anymore.” I gritted my teeth; even saying his name infuriated me. I’d hated the guy even before I knew what he had done to Ava.

“Done,” she agreed.

I reached for her left hand and grabbed the ring off the counter.

“Can I put this back on you?” I asked, waiting for her permission. Ava had never been given much authority over her own life, and that made it even more important that I followed through when I said I was going to do something.

“Of course you can.” Her voice cracked with emotion.

I smiled as I slid the ring back into place on her finger. “Promise me that if you ever feel like you want to use, you’ll come to me. That you’ll let me help you.”

“I promise, Nick.” She blinked back tears. “You don’t have to worry about it. I don’t ever want to get back to that point, and I’ll do whatever it takes.”

I brought her hand to my lips and kissed it softly. “Good.”

Ava leaned forward and wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing my cheek softly.

“But if it happens again, you’ll get professional help. I care about you too much to watch you self-destruct like you did last night. I’ll be here every step of the way, but understand that if you start using again, even at all, I’ll get you professional help and it won’t be a choice.”

“It won’t come to that.”

“That’s my girl.” I smirked. “I do have one more condition.”

“So many rules.” She rolled her eyes playfully.

I reached my hand around and tapped my fingers on her ass. “What am I going to do with you and that sassy mouth of yours?”

“Kidding.” She laughed, holding her hands up in surrender. “What’s your condition?”

I grabbed her hip bones and pulled her onto my lap. “Move in with me.”

She looked a little taken aback at my request. “You want me to move in here?”

“Yeah, I know we talked about it a few weeks ago, but I’m ready to make it happen. I don’t want to play around anymore. I want you here with me all the time.”

“Wow.” She let out a sharp laugh. “This is not at all how I expected this morning to go.”

“I know this isn’t the kind of conversation you’re used to, but it’s how things are going to go with me. Like I said, I want us both to be accountable, but it’s not my job to make you feel bad about what happened. If I had to guess, you’ve already been doing that. I want us to be able to come up with solutions together, it’s not a dictatorship.”

I could see that her mind was swirling, and I would have given anything to be able to know exactly where it was at.

“I guess it was bound to happen eventually.” She shrugged, giving me a soft smirk.

“No, that’s not what I want to hear.” I chuckled. “I want to hear that you want to be here with me.”

She reached out and put her hand to my cheek. “I want to be here with you, Nick. One hundred percent. Every day for the rest of my life.”

Chapter 19

Nick

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