Fortitude (Heart of Stone) (16 page)

The door opened and this time we welcomed the oblivion
that took each of us from our inner tortures.

I ran my hands over the duvet that decorated Ava’s bed.
The teal colour she had chosen was soft and feminine, but still not too girly.
I smiled when I realised she would have made that choice to include my tastes
without even realising she was doing it.

I closed my eyes and took another hard breath. I missed
her so much. It had been over six months now, six long fucking torturous months
without her.

And yet, as fate goes, just when I was about to put an
end to her denial, the cruel twist of life beats me to it and takes her from me
again.

Walking over to her mirrored table, I ran my fingers over
the mass of her make-up strewn across the surface of it. Her usual perfume, the
one that reminded me of honeysuckle and oranges, sat waiting for her to spritz
again. The small comb had replaced the thick brush she’d always used, reminding
me of her now honey blonde hair that resembled a baby’s delicate tresses. That
made me smile, I knew she liked the colour secretly, she’d always wanted to be
slightly blonde, but the deep rich red in her colouring had never taken
properly with dyes.

I chuckled when the memory of her gawping at me with bright
orange hair from the bedroom doorway as tears streamed down her face and her
hands flapped about reminded me of some our happy times.

I picked up her pot of anti-aging creamy shit stuff she
applied every night religiously and twisted off the cap, dipping my nose near
it to pull in the smell of her bedtime scent. I’d never tell her but it had
always turned me on. I’m sure the manufacturers of that damn stuff added
aphrodisiac extras; they should for the bloody price she always paid. Plastic
surgery would have been cheaper in the long run.

I entered the bathroom and turned on the shower,
pre-warming it to the heat I always had it, scowling and shaking my head in
frustration when I saw that Ava had it set to lukewarm as always. What was that
all about? Who the hell had a lukewarm shower, apart from Ava that was?

I used her toothbrush. I knew she’d hit me if she found
out but stupidly, it took me closer to her, linked her with me.

The soap looked at me, the £15 bar of soap she always
defended was one of her luxuries – one? One? Damn, she was the only woman I
knew who couldn’t seem to count past one, even when there were twenty odd… it
was always just the one. Like just the one bar of chocolate or just one more
Agent
Provocateur
bra and thong set.

The image of her shoving a bar of soap swiftly into her
little mouth when she was pregnant and I’d caught her in my bathroom gave me
another smile. There was only my wife who would crave something hideous when
pregnant… and oh god, the bloody gherkins!

The shower pounded my back, stimulating every deadened
fibre until my pores tingled angrily and my skin pimpled funnily. Ava had
always wrinkled up like I’d never seen before, mind you, the three bloody hours
she spent in the tub didn’t help, with her glass of wine, her strawberries and the
mountain of bloody Ferrero Rocher’s.

Right then, I’d have given anything to see her wrinkled
body slide up and down the tub like she used to just to annoy me, her perfect
lithe body gliding up and down on her belly, water sloshing over the rim of the
bath and drenching me as I’d sat on the toilet reading her the latest Ker Dukey
novel she always went crazy for. Mind you, I’d never complain, she was always
horny as fuck after reading one of them.

I squirted her shampoo into my palms, smiling at the baby
brand that she would have to use now while her hair was in its fragile period.

I’ll admit, the day I saw her after her treatment, the
day I stupidly hated what my fucking damn mouth had come out with, had been a
shock. For over twenty years, Ava had had such beautiful thick healthy hair,
her copper curls one of the things I had fell in love with. And then suddenly,
it was gone. She had appeared to be a completely different person, someone I
hadn’t recognised. However, it hadn’t just been her hair that had stunned me;
it had been her whole look. She’d lost shit loads of weight, her face was drawn
and pale, her once smooth freckled skin had been covered in blemishes and
broken veins and her striking green eyes were dull and lifeless.

I hated how my thoughtlessness and lack of compassion had
caused her to run and break. And how she’d turned to Steed after.

I stepped out of the shower, dried off and climbed into
her bed, pulling the duvet up to my face and inhaling her sweet scent,
consuming her, filling my soul with her essence.

I didn’t know what to do. For once there was absolutely
nothing to go on. There had been no contact in two days… nothing.

Initially, I hadn’t been too concerned. Occurrences like
this, something usually happened to give me a lead, or a contact would be made
to tell me why this was happening. But as yet, nothing. And now I was starting
to panic. Now I was struggling to take another breath in case Ava was taking
her last.

After everything; after what the cancer had put her
through, and how she had fought like my warrior always did, I prayed to god
that she would get through this final battle.

I needed her. My heart needed her. My soul needed her.

Her glorious bastard would follow her into hell if need
be.

I once told her that she would never leave me, even in
death.

And I would keep that promise.

“Can I ask you a question?”

I shifted round to face Rebecca. The dampness in my jeans
was cold and irritating. Every time it dried out, I had to wee again. We’d been
here around two days by the coming and going of light, but that two days had
given me more of an idea about my surroundings. However, now my brain was
starting to shut down with dehydration, my stomach hurt so badly with pangs of
hunger and I was exhausted. I knew I wouldn’t get out of here unaided now; I
was too weak and vulnerable.

“Go for it,” Rebecca slurred. She was losing the fight
too. She no longer cried, she was too frail and in as much pain as me. Her
fingers had gone blue from being elevated for so long, her bottom was as sore
as mine after sitting in our own urine for so long and her spirit had
evaporated into the dust particles that refused to stop floating around us.

“If Mason means that much to you, why did you bribe him
to marry you? Wouldn’t you have just wanted him to be happy?”

She sighed and rolled her lips, her gaze slipping from me
to a random spot of dirt on the floor. “It was all so hard at first. I got
pregnant and daddy did something I had no idea about at first.”

“You didn’t know he was blackmailing Mason?”

She shook her head and looked at me, “Not at first, no. He’d
asked who the father was, I told him Mason but I knew he wouldn’t want anything
to do with it and daddy took it from there. But then it was so easy to go along
with.”

I frowned and tipped my head in confusion. “But it wasn’t
Mason’s baby, was it?”

She shook her head, her teeth gnawing on her sore lips as
her heartache took her to a place I knew all too well. “No it wasn’t. At first
I thought it was. The dates fit, even though I’d had sex with another.”

“No Rebecca, the dates didn’t fit.”

She turned to me, her eyes so sad and watery. “I… I lost
it.”

“What?” None of it was making sense.

She blew out hard and shifted until she was looking at me
without a twist in her neck. “I was six weeks pregnant when you came on the
scene.”

“Oh my god…”

She nodded slowly. “I knew he didn’t love me, Ava. I knew
it in my bones and I selfishly hoped the baby was his but then as soon as I
found out, I lost it.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah, nothing more to say really is there. Anyway, it
had been my only hope of... of holding onto him. I knew he would never turn his
back on a child so…”

“So?” I urged her on.

“So, I slept with someone, became pregnant again and told
Mason it was his.”

Silence descended. Rebecca never removed her eyes from me
as she gauged my reaction.

“I loved him so much Ava, I need you to understand that.
I needed him with an ache that was physical. It tore at me daily, and it broke
me down so much until there was nothing of
me
left. I turned into the
crazy woman who would do anything to get the man she loved.
He
turned me
into that woman.”

“I…”

“He knew though.” She smiled sadly. “He knew it wasn’t
his even before you threw that paternity test at us. He’d known long before
that…”

“Rebecca…”

She continued, whether she hadn’t heard me or whether she
chose to ignore me, I would never know… but her next words blew my world apart.

“He always knew, Ava. We’d never in six years used a
condom, and I’d never got pregnant before, so he knew.”

“You’re not making sense.”

She frowned at me. “Well he would never be the dad to my
baby if he can’t have kids, would he?”

I stared at her, my mouth open, each particle of air in
that room whooshing towards me as my vision tunnelled and I struggled to remain
conscious.

“W..what, but… George… Katie…”

Her eyes widened on me and her own mouth fell open. “Oh
my God, he never told you.”

I shook my head at her. The last twenty years now became
a nightmare, a hole in my life where memories now became lies and family
moments teetered on the edge of my sanity.

“Ava… shit. Why did he never tell you? I thought you
knew. I thought… I thought…”

“Are you saying he knows?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “He had an inkling at the beginning,
when I never got pregnant. And when I told him I was pregnant he went and got
tested. His swimmers don’t swim Ava. Mason is infertile.”

Nate and Greg grabbed an arm each and tackled me to the
floor. I had broken, finally, after three days of hell, my sanity had ruptured
and brought on my wrath with no limits.

The arsehole in the club should have taken my mood into
consideration before he had slammed my sister up against the wall and stuck his
hand under her dress.

What the fuck was wrong with some people? Arseholes! The
lot of them.

“Get the fuck off me!” I roared at my friends as I
struggled to slip from their grip.

“Calm the fuck down, Mase. Then we’ll let go. You were
gonna kill him.”

“Good!”

Kerrie shook her head at me, “For Christ’s sake Mason, go
and cool off. I can handle things myself.”

“He had the whole of his damn arm up your dress!”

“Yes,” she huffed. “And if you had given me a moment, it
would’ve been wrapped around his throat. Go back to the warehouse; kick the
shit out of something in there. But don’t ruin the club in your breakdown!”

So I did just that.

***

“How do you think Ava’s coping with Rebecca?” Greg asked
when he passed me a bottle of water. I kicked at some of the corrugated walling
I had pulled off, moving it to one side and sank down next to him in a clear
space on the floor.

I laughed loudly, “Well, I would have thought by now
she’s killed her.” I answered openly and honestly.

Greg nodded in agreement. “But aren’t you a little worried?”
I shook my head and frowned at him, not understanding his question. “Well, your
ex and your wife in the same room. An ex who I may remind you was hell bent on
splitting you and Ava up in the first place.”

“It’s crossed my mind.” I rolled my lips and turned to
him, “But really, there’s nothing Bec can say or do that Ava isn’t already
aware of. She found me with Rebecca in the Panther. She saw the lines of coke
on the table. She knows.”

We both drank and lost ourselves to our thoughts for a
while before Greg turned to me. “Well now we know that it isn’t Etta doing
this, have you any fresh ideas?”

I shook my head and rubbed at my chin as I stretched my
knuckles to alleviate some of the soreness from my destruction. “No, and that’s
what scares the shit out of me. Not how Ava is coping, cos’ I know my wife, I
know her limits. It’s the unknown that I fear. Hope, everyone says is a
wonderful thing, hell we even gave it Katie as a middle name, but hope right
now is the epitome of evil to me, because what if it’s false, what if hope is a
lie, an illusion of what could be when the reality is hopeless?”

“You know,” Greg sighed. “When you both gave up, when Ava
pushed you away and you pushed yourself further away, there was one thing that
was always there, was always ready and waiting for you to find it.”

“Yeah,” I questioned, “what was that?”

He smiled at me softly as he tapped my cheek then pushed
himself up, holding out his hand to me. I gripped it and let him pull me up.
“Hope, Mason. Hope.”

The door swung open and I frowned as panic started to set
in. Rebecca and I weren’t greeted with the single man this time, there were
three that walked in. All three were tall, built like brick shithouses and
curiously each one sported blonde hair and square chins, making them almost
identical. They each ignored us. Two stood either side of the door as one big
guy pulled out a phone from the pocket of his jacket.

I flicked a glance at Rebecca who was glancing at me
nervously and then to each of the men. I wanted to tell her to calm down. I
could literally see her heart pumping through her breastbone as perspiration
beaded her brow, her eyes anxiously widening then narrowing as too many deliberations
rushed her brain. Her body wasn’t strong enough to cope with the adrenaline
surge. I ignored the men and grabbed her attention. “Rebecca, calm down.”