Chapter 20 #2
Despite everything, a small laugh escapes me. “Fair point. Raphael’s lucky you were benevolent enough to resuscitate him.”
Avery snorts. “I wanted to prove a point and give us both an out, not become enemy number one of the Rockfords.”
My stomach twists at the thought of ever hurting Aaiden. How did Avery manage to kill his mate, even for a short time?
“So you decided your career meant more than your mate?”
Avery’s brow furrows. “No. I chose not to allow us both to live miserable lives.”
“What do you mean?”
“Raphael hated being a lawyer. It was just supposed to be the front his parents picked for him to legitimize the family business. He loved being a mercenary, but he gave it up because Aaiden asked him to.”
Avery strides over to the snack options on the table by the coffee maker and rifles through them.
“If he’d talked to me about the situation, we could have found a solution where we were both happy.
But he made the decision on his own, expecting me to accept it without question, and I refused to be miserable for the rest of my life while watching him die inside. ”
I look down at my hands, at the calluses formed from years of combat training. Would choosing Aaiden lead to me being miserable? Unfulfilled? Eventually angry? And would I take those feelings out on him? Is there a compromise where we’re both happy?
We could be mates and hide it from the public. Which would be fine for me alone. But how would that affect any children we had, if he could never acknowledge them outside the privacy of our own home? The house staff all sign NDAs, but what if one of them spoke to the media?
“For what it’s worth,” Avery adds, “you don’t have to decide right now. Take some time. Finish the work you’ve started. See how you feel when the list is complete.”
The suggestion offers a middle path I hadn’t considered. Not staying away forever, but not rushing back, either. Space to finish what I began. To ensure they can never hurt another person, if for no other reason.
“Yeah,” I agree. “Maybe that’s best.”
As Avery said, I now have time to decide.
“On my mark.”
The words buzz through my earpiece as I hold position. The security guard passes five feet away, the beam of his flashlight sweeping across the concrete but missing the space where I’ve wedged myself between shipping containers.
Avery’s intel was solid. Three guards, rotating on fifteen-minute cycles, with a four-minute gap on the east side. Long enough for me to slip in, retrieve the documents, and disappear before anyone catches on.
“Three. Two. One.” Jace counts down from his position in the surveillance van. “Mark.”
I slide from my hiding spot and cross the exposed concrete toward the service entrance. No wasted motion. No hesitation. My body knows this dance, has performed it countless times. The door yields to the security card Avery provided, and the electronic lock clicks open.
Inside, the hallway stretches empty before me, fluorescent lights humming overhead. The building houses a shipping company, legitimate on the surface but moving more than legal cargo.
According to Avery’s intel, they’ve been expanding their business to include military-grade weapons from across the sea, untraceable automatics and armor-piercing rounds that fetch triple their value on the black market.
Our job is to find proof and extract it without leaving evidence of our presence.
I navigate the corridors without needing guidance, the building’s layout already memorized. Three right turns, one left, second door on the right. The executive office waits behind a standard commercial lock that takes me less than thirty seconds to bypass.
“You’re clear for the next six minutes,” Jace updates in my ear. “No movement on this floor.”
The office is furnished in a luxury style but lacks personality. No family photos. No personal touches. The computer sits dark on the desk, but I ignore it. Digital evidence isn’t my department. I’m here for the physical files.
The safe behind the painting is almost insulting in its predictability. The combination comes from intelligence gathered over weeks of surveillance, and the lock turns under my fingers.
Inside, I find the weapons manifests, buyer lists, and payment records I’m searching for.
I photograph everything, pages turning under my gloved fingers without leaving a trace.
Serial numbers for foreign-made RPGs headed to a conflict zone.
Wire transfers from warlords. Coordinates for three upcoming dead drops.
This evidence will eliminate three of Avery’s biggest competitors in the trafficking business, clearing the way for his own gunrunning operation to expand into those territories. A good night’s work for him, by any measure.
“Two minutes,” Jace warns.
I finish the last document, return everything as I found it, and close the safe. The painting swings back into place, concealing all evidence of my intrusion. One sweep of the room confirms I’ve left no trace, and then I’m moving back through the building, retracing my steps with the same care.
As I slip outside, the night air cools me. The guards are still on their rotation, oblivious to my presence. I arrive at the extraction point with thirty seconds to spare.
“Clean exit,” I murmur into the comm as I slide into the waiting car.
Jace meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Nice work.”
The ride back to the safe house passes in comfortable silence.
No one asks unnecessary questions. No one hovers or checks to see if I’m okay after the job.
They trust me to handle myself, to speak up if something’s wrong.
It’s different from the Rockfords, where concern and protection wrapped around me like chains.
When we arrive at the safe house, I hand the phone with the photos over to Avery.
His eyes glint as he pockets the camera’s memory card. “Good job eliminating another competitor, everyone. Get some rest. Tomorrow’s shipment to the Eastside needs our full attention.”
The team disperses, each to their own space within the sprawling warehouse Avery has converted into headquarters. My room waits at the end of the hall, sparse but private. A bed. A desk. A window to get some vitamin D. More than enough for my needs.
I strip off my tactical gear and store my weapons.
The routine should provide a sense of satisfaction after a successful mission.
The job was clean, the intelligence gathered without complications.
Avery’s crew accepts me now and treats me as one of their own.
This could be my life. Simple. Uncomplicated.
I look over at my notebook on the desk. I’ve eliminated every target from my hit list that I could locate, working through them between Avery’s jobs.
Yet a sense of something missing persists, expanding as the adrenaline fades. The mission brought no real satisfaction beyond the technical pleasure of execution. No sense of purpose or completion. Just another task finished, another step in a journey that doesn’t lead anywhere I want to go.
As if summoned by my thoughts, my phone buzzes on the nightstand, and Aaiden’s number lights up the screen, the same as it has every night this week.
I stopped getting new burner phones after the third time the Alpha proved he could still find me and resorted to silencing it when he calls, or letting it ring through to voicemail.
But tonight, I let it vibrate, counting the rings until it stops, and the silence that follows fills me with a sense of loneliness.
Could Avery’s crew become my family? Probably.
But they’re not the Rockfords.
Here, it’s mostly business. Sure, there are some teasing comments thrown back and forth, but not with the same intimacy that the Rockfords have.
No knowing snickers exchanged over breakfast. Here it’s bantering between co-workers.
There, it’s love between family. Here, there’s just this stark room and professional distance, so different from the Rockford household, where lack of privacy comes with the chaos of family, where romantic partners bicker and make up in the hallways, where someone is always ready with unsolicited advice or a shoulder to lean on.
I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes until everything goes white.
I can accept that Aaiden was attempting to protect me from what being his mate would mean.
But he also didn’t trust me enough to make these choices for myself.
Didn’t include me in the planning or the decision.
He kept me at arm’s length, thinking he knew what was best for both of us without ever asking what I wanted.
Both things can be true at once. He can love me and still be wrong about how to show it.
My hands fall to my sides.
If I go back, it can’t be on his terms alone. It can’t be because it’s easier than forging my own path. It has to be because I choose everything that comes with it.
For the first time since I walked out of Rockford Manor, the path forward begins to clear.
It’s not easy, or simple, but at least it’s visible.