Schooled in Revenge by Lasky Jesse

Author:Lasky, Jesse [Lasky, Jesse]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction / Media Tie-In
ISBN: 9781401305048
Publisher: Hyperion
Published: 2013-08-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“You said you know my story. How?” Ava asks the stranger at the shelter.

He tells her it’s not important how he’s come to know her story. What’s important is doing something about it. He wants to know what Ava’s been doing to get Starling Vineyards back. What she plans to do to right the wrongs committed against her.

She blanches, shrinking in her seat. As far as she’s concerned, there’s nothing she can do about it.

“Is there something you’d like to do?”

Ava’s heart thuds excitedly at the possibility. It’s not about the estate or the money. It’s about what it symbolizes. About the fact that people she trusted betrayed her as if she meant nothing, treated her life like some kind of game that they’ve now won.

Talking to Shay, she moves past heartbreak to red-hot anger.

“So what do you really want?” he asks her.

“I want to make them pay.”

“You’re talking about fukushuu,” he tells her.

Ava doesn’t even know what that means. She doesn’t care. She just wants to know who sent him.

Shay leans forward. “His name is Takeda. Satoshi Takeda.”

Shay says he can help her, his voice growing low to avoid the surrounding women, all of whom are in need of a hot meal on a cold night. He explains that Takeda specializes in the sort of retribution Ava wants, even if she hasn’t fully realized she wanted it until now.

“Not a second goes by where I don’t consider going after the people who did this to me,” she confides.

“Then why don’t you?”

Ava considers his question. She explains that she has no means. No expertise.

But Shay does. More importantly, Takeda does.

“I don’t know about this…,” Ava says.

“Sure you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t still be sitting here with me.”

“So you’re going to take me to Japan?”

“No, I need to stay here.”

“How can I trust you?”

“Because I know what you’ve been through,” Shay tells her. “And the fact that no one’s investigated the bastards who conned you out of your life, who show no remorse or regard for you or your family… Well, that’s why I’m doing this instead of still…”

“Instead of what?” she asks him, intrigued.

He shook his head. “It’s not important. What’s important is that I want to help. Takeda wants to help.” He pauses. “Close your eyes.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it,” he says gently. “Trust me.”

After a brief hesitation, she closes her eyes, although it will be a long time before she really trusts anyone again.

“Now think of those who wronged you,” he says. “Think of what they did to you. What they took from you.”

Ava’s lungs become heavy, her pulse racing as adrenaline hits her system. She’s tired of running. Tired of being afraid. Of moving from town to town, wondering how long it will be before the little she’s managed to scrape together will be taken from her again. She sees now that she’s scarred, damaged, afraid to live.

And because of that, she’s not living at all.

She welcomes the anger building in her heart, lets it push out the vulnerability and fear that has resided there since Charlie and Reinhardt stole her legacy.

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