Criminal Affinity [18+]

Chapter 64

Him

He had fallen asleep. Ivan stirrs and opens his eyes, the tightness of his muscles a result of sleeping upright. Buttery sunlight filters in through the parts of the window his blinds didn't cover, displaying shards of light on his wooden floors.

A soft snoring grabs his attention away.

He moves his gaze to the source, crumpled in the corner of his couch. Ava. Ivan blinks the sleep out of his eyes to see her red hair fanning over those sharp features, lips slightly parted.

Unease shoots through him. He hadn't meant to fall asleep. Ivan doesn't remember the last time he fell asleep in front of someone.

But he was entranced by the peace emitting from the sleeping girl next to him. Slowly, his senses come back to him and the pain isn't blinding as it usually is.

No, it's not. Because Ava had noticed him fading away last night and handed him painkillers, stashed in a cupboard in his room he hardly ever uses. She had given him more than what he had taken in years, and it did the final undoing.

A restful sleep with no sharp slices of pain stirring him awake.

Broken memories of last night rush him at once as he sets his eyes on the scissors and bits of blood everywhere. He had been drinking, he had been in pain.

He wanted to be. Last night marked the eight years he had lived through after surviving the night he lost his sisters. Lost? No. They were taken from him, along with the innocence of the boy who knew nothing but survival.

Ava had come sometime in the middle. The screaming, the nightmares. He had wanted her to leave because he went near no one all these eight years. He welcomed the pain, because it wasn't even a fraction of what his sisters had to go through. He needed it to remember, to feel alive and to feel the age-old anger.

The man responsible was still out there. Ivan would never let himself forget.

Ava stirrs, making a small sound before easing into another position. She must be uncomfortable, but Ivan didn't want to disturb her sleep.

He sits forward, grabs himself a tall glass of water and drink it down. He feels his head clearing, but he finds himself looking back at Ava.

She hadn't left or spoken after what he told her about Malika. She had handed him the pills and moments before he fell asleep, her hands had been on him. His chest—stroking. Cleaning the blood away.

She had forgotten to clean the blood on her cheek. His blood.

Acting on instict, Ivan reaches out to smooth away some of the red strands falling in her face before brushing his thumb along the even planes of her cheek, her jaw and her chin.

The girl looks nothing short of an angel even with dried blood on her face.

She moves, leaning into his touch. If she was awake, she might as well have bit his hand. That thought alone makes him want to withdraw his hand, but some unseen force binds him to the activity.

"Your hand smells like blood." Ava says, voice hoarse but healthy.

Ivan cracks a smile for her, despite her eyes being shut still. "Sorry, princess. Remind me to perfume every part of my body next time I'm around you."

Ava slowly opens her eyes, scanning his entire body once, then twice. Not a look of invitation but a look of assessment. Of concern.

He doesn't deserve it.

"Are you in pain?" Ava asks.

Ivan shakes his head. "Should you be using your voice?"

"It's fine now." Ava clears her throat. "I think."