Chapter 21
twenty-one
Matthias has a family.
Archer’s name is really Ivan, and he is Matthias’s brother.
Kirill, the man Matthias thought was his father, started the human trafficking ring we know as the Chameleon Agency, and was a member of the stupid secret society thing.
Oh, and he is dead.
And his biological father is here to help.
Because he is the head of the Russian Bratva.
Like, the head honcho.
The Pakhans of all Pakhans.
I am going to be sick.
The helicopter ride is short. An easy ninety minutes, which is plenty of time for my husband to catch me up on all the shit he has been doing as a dead man. The Archer/Ivan thing still gets me though.
I owe that man a swift right hook to the jaw.
Twat waffle.
“The penthouse might not be secure,” my father tells Matthias. “But we’re going to need all the evidence from the vault if we want to piece everything we’ve all learned together.” Matthias nods in agreement.
“Have your lower-tiered men move to a safe house,” my father says. “The rest of you can come stay with us. I doubt anyone will look for you there.”
Except someone would know we’re there. I go to say something, but Matthias’s elbow jabs me in the side.
“Sounds good,” he agrees. “I’ll have Tony drive you.”
Nodding, my father kisses my forehead gently before striding out the lobby doors. All my time here and I never knew there was a helipad on the top of the building. It is kind of cool in a billionaire tycoon kind of way.
“Wait for me outside with Kristian,” Matthias tilts his head at the burly security guard that monitors the lobby doors. He is a good guy with a sucky name. Not that I hold it against him, I just refuse to call him by it, opting for Kris instead.
The man has never seemed to mind.
“Okay,” I whisper, clutching the boxes to my chest.
“Good girl.”
And there go my panties. Matthias bends down and kisses me softly before following Maksim and Vas into the elevator that leads down to the subbasement level where the vault is held.
“Ma’am.” Kris opens the glass door for me and tilts his head toward the large fountain area a little further from the building. “There’s a bench just over there we can sit at until they return.”
I grin and nod. “Thanks.”
He leads me to the large wooden bench that sits just in front of a small fountain that is the building’s main focal point in the front. The building is as much of a business hub as it is a home. Not just for me but also for many of my men.
No, not mine any longer.
Matthias’s.
A small part of me mourns the loss of being Pakhan. I doubt Matthias is planning to let me help him run anything. Not that I want to run anything with him.
He lied to me. Kept secrets. I wept for him, killed for him, and he isn’t even dead.
We may be getting along now, but that doesn’t mean I will just crawl back to him. I tried that before and look where it got me.
Nowhere.
When he thought I betrayed him, I did everything I could to draw him back in. To get him to trust me again and build back some of what we had before.
I pursued him.
If he truly wants me, he has to come after me. Woo me. And there is no way in hell I am going to make that easy.
But that is something for future Ava to deal with. After a large cup of coffee. Maybe two. Right now, I am more interested in the note addressed to me in my mother’s handwriting. Licking my lips, I pull the paper out of my pocket and unfold it.
Mo Réalta,
If you are reading this then my time has come, my precious little star.
I don’t want you to be sad.
Death is nothing to fear or mourn but something to rejoice and cherish.
You are ten now, my heart.
I don’t have much time. They are coming for me, and our time together will soon end.
I love you. I want you to know that. Because what I am about to tell you may very well break your heart as it did mine so many years ago.
There are dark forces at work, my star, that I hope will never taint your sweet, gentle soul.
When I was eighteen, I was taken by a man named Elias Ward who works for a devil.
A man with two faces.
I don’t notice at first. The changes were so subtle that I barely saw what was right in front of me.
Until one day I did.
You will never meet your grandfather, God rest his soul, for the man who wears his face is nothing but a lie.
A con.
One that has been going on far longer than I could have ever anticipated.
Oh, my star.
I escaped the man who took me, and I ran back to your father. The love of my life.
Unfortunately, I was ill-advised and later betrayed.
But I didn’t figure this out until several months later.
Elias stole me again and I am resigned to my fate until one day I found out about my little miracle.
Mo Réalta.
It became life or death. If Elias ever found out about you, he would have forced me to end the pregnancy.
With some help, I escaped again.
I went back to your father, but he had already moved on.
With the one who betrayed me.
She is not who she appears to be, my heart.
Over the years I struggled to find out how she was involved, and I think I finally found it.
The connection.
If only I put it together sooner.
I found the old barn. The one exactly like Elias’s.
They trained girls there to be sex slaves to wealthy men and women.
But she was more than that. She was a plant. A fake.
At the same time, she was so real.
Not everyone is who they appear to be, and you will find that those who appear the weakest are in fact the strongest.
I never expected her to betray me. But she did.
And now they are here.
Remember I love you.
Forever.
Your father’s name is Liam Kavanaugh. His father is my father’s right-hand man. He is a good man, my star.
Find him. Tell him my story.
And one day, I hope you find a man just like him.
A mix of monster and prince.
A warrior.
A partner.
I love you, Mo Réalta.
Remember what I’ve told you and—
The words blur near the bottom, my breath caught somewhere between my ribs and my throat.
My fingers tighten around the paper, knuckles aching, as if holding on might somehow finish the sentence for her.
My pulse roars in my ears, drowning out the world, drowning out everything but her voice echoing in my head—love, warning, loss.
I lean closer, desperate, fragile, needing whatever comes next to make sense of the wreckage she’s left behind.
“Run!” Kristian shouts next to me, ripping me out of the reverie my mother’s letter pulls me into.
A thunderous explosion tears through the air. The world fractures in sound and force, and then Kristian’s weight slams into me, driving me to the ground as the light vanishes and everything goes black.