The Blood Debt

Chapter 14

Roman

It's like someone flicks a switch on her that night. A shell of the old Ayla is what comes home with me from Nolita, and I don't know if I'll ever get her back in those early days.

I know I'm going too far even before Gabe's opening night, way before the old lady lets the cat out of the bag about Bobby Moore, and Vengeance turns to look at me with more hurt in those doe eyes than I've ever seen in them. I don't need to see the hurt in her eyes to know that I've taken things too far. Every punishment I've ever dealt Vengeance, has taught me a lesson about fortitude and the quiet dignity of taking the high road, and this lesson is no different.

After Gabe's opening, I watch her day and night. I have to tell her to eat, to shower, to go to bed, to wake up. I try to act like I'm not bothered by her walking dead impersonation, but it rattles me in a way I've never been rattled before. Seeing her like that, watching her drift to a place that's out of my reach, that l can't bring her back from makes me restless, and for the first time since I've met her, it makes me question when I went from wanting to fuck her, to actually caring about her. What happens to her that night, makes me finally accept that at some point Ayla Moore stopped being just a blood debt, and became something more.

I know when I take her to Gabe's opening night that someone's going to let slip about her old man. I actually have plans to watch it happen. I know she's been patiently plotting and planning for an entire year, and as heartless as it is, I need her to understand that any plans she has about leaving me, are futile; she's not going anywhere.

I know exactly how the night is going to play out. I know that even if by some miracle she's able to get one of those assholes to help her, the news of her father's death will be enough to cripple her plans. But there's one thing I don't predict - how I'll react when l see it happen.

When Lionel Mathers crushes her hopes in the first five minutes, it doesn't feel anywhere near as good as I thought it would.  It's such an easy win that nothing that easy feels worthy of celebration.  Especially when I see how the light dies in her eyes when he shakes my hand; how she retreats into herself when he won't listen to her.

Any hope she holds onto, ends when she finally realises Mathers knows I've kidnapped her, just like the others do, and no one lifts a finger to help her. Of course she doesn't know that I have enough dirt on Mathers to get him disbarred, and that the loyalty of others is borne out of fear, not friendship. I make sure Ayla knows only what she needs to know that night - that she's never leaving me, and I make sure she knows it long before the snobby socialites start whispering and turning their backs on her, playing their roles to perfection as I knew they would. So when the old hag decides to have a moment of clarity, in that one part of the night where everyone has served their purpose, and they just need to shut the fuck up so we can get out of there, the whole thing turns into a shit show.

She doesn't leave the apartment for twenty-one days straight after that night. I have the keycode panel removed from the door knowing its served its purpose, but she never ventures outside of the apartment despite this. She doesn't change out of her pyjamas.  She doesn't speak a word to me, and when I try talking to her, there's barely a flicker in her eyes. I'm lucky to get a nod or a mumbled word in response. I can't remember when she last showered of her own or ate a proper meal. She spends her days sitting by the window that looks out onto 11th Avenue. It's where I find her each night when I come up after midnight and force her into bed. I call Nora who tells me it's normal, that she's in disbelief and shock, and that she needs time to process what would have been a difficult death to accept, even if she'd been given the opportunity to mourn with her family. She tells me to let her go home, but I can't. Not now. Not like this. I haven't seen her cry once. She hasn't asked me a single question about her father's death, and it has me wishing she'd just let go of everything she's trying so desperately to hold together. I wish she'd let it pour out of her, like I know it will, if she'd just let it, but then on day twenty-two something happens that changes our relationship forever.