CHAPTER 10 #2
“Colt,” I whispered. I felt too exhausted to even get the word out any longer. “I h-have to find him. Time’s running out.”
That reminder was all I needed to have me struggling out of Deacon’s embrace, but he wasn’t letting me go.
“Ava, just hold up for a minute, okay?” he gasped as he stilled my fight easily and turned me so I faced him. “Tell me what happened? Tell me why time is running out.”
“I found it…Colt’s file. I knew…I should have known sooner, but I…I know now. I know who has my brother.”
“Who?” he pushed as he reached for my hips again when I started to sway unsteadily.
“Him!” I cried as I flailed for the hem of the t-shirt I wore and ripped it up. “The m-man who did this. A psycho took Colt and t-time…there isn’t enough time!” I panted.
Deacon looked at the brand on the left side of my torso with utter horror. It was scarred over now, but the word was still clear to read. SINNER. That was exactly what that sick sonofabitch who took me and tortured me had branded me that night.
“Jesus Ava. That’s what happened…what that fucker did the night you were attacked?” he gasped.
“That’s why we have to find Colt. If that bastard has my brother then he’s being tortured just like I was, and I was only there one night. Colt…Colt’s been gone for over a week, Deacon! A weak! He could be…it might be t-too late already!”
I was losing it. No, it was too late. I’d already lost it.
The terror of what my brother could be going through, or worse, the very real fear it was already too late, mixed with the guilt I felt of Helen’s death, along with who knew how many more?
All because I’d been too ashamed and afraid to go to the police.
It had crashed down the walls I had spent sp many years carefully erecting to protect myself.
There was no more false bravado. No more making myself seem strong.
That was all gone and I just felt lost and every bit as broken as I knew I’d always been.
“Mason is coming, okay? You need to try and calm down before he comes, otherwise you won’t be able to work with him to figure anything out.
Why don’t I carry you to the living room and get you settled on the sofa, okay?
Then I’ll bring the file to you so you can show Mason. Will that work?” Deacon offered.
I wanted to argue with him, but even as crazed as I felt I realized there was no way I was making it back around the corner to Colt’s room without ending up on my ass, and likely falling to pieces as a result.
And he was definitely right that I needed to calm down before Mason arrived.
He was going to lose it if he saw me mid meltdown as I was right then, and I could not risk him cutting me out of the investigation.
“Okay. Thanks,” I whispered with a sniffle. Deacon just nodded, then swept me up into his arms.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked as he readjusted me in his arms. I knew it had to be awkward to pick me up. I was far from small at five feet nine, but he managed it so easily that he almost made me feel petite.
“No. I’m good,” I replied with a weak smile. “I’m really sorry you keep seeing me like this. I swear I don’t usually lose my shit like this. You just always seem to be closest when it happens since I came back here.”
“Like I told you that first night we met, I’m here for you whatever you need, honey.
If that’s someone to be near when you want to lose your shit, I’m good with that.
I like you Ava. You’re tough and smart and you don’t take shit from anyone.
It’s a breath of fresh air, sweetheart,” he told me gently as we moved to the living room.
“I like you too Deacon, and I’m really fucking grateful you were the one to peel me off that sidewalk the first night outside Temple ,” I told him as I looped my arms around his neck, knowing it was a bad idea, but just wanting to be closer to him.
A tension built between us as Deacon just stopped and locked his eyes with mine.
It wasn’t a bad tension, it was good, like sparks were flying between us in some bullshit romcom.
Then I found myself moving closer to him.
Just one kiss. I already knew he would be the most amazing kisser, and I wanted that.
I wanted to remember what it felt like to feel young and free.
I wanted the thrill of romance and kisses that set you alight and made you feel alive, even if just for a few moments.
The crash of the front door of the apartment being thrown open violently stopped everything and Deak and I pulled apart like we’d been shocked with electricity.
“Jesus Ava! Are you alright? What the bloody hell happened?” Jack demanded as he came barreling into the apartment looking panicked and panting like he’d run all of the way there.
Deak and I shared one more heat filled glance as he lowered me down to the sofa so I was laid across it, then Jack was there, his arm planting on the back of the sofa as he leaned over me and looked me over with worry.
“She’s okay, Jack. She’s not hurt,” Deacon assured him as I tried to calm my racing heart and catch my breath. “Where’s Mason?”
“He was at a crime scene. He had to wait for someone to come and take over so he sent me. He won’t be far behind me,” Jack explained as he dropped to a crouch at my side and smoothed some hair out of my face. “What happened, love? You’re shaking?”
“I’ll get the file,” Deacon said as he left the room.
“What file? Did you find something?”
“I think I know who has Colt, Jack. I think it was the fucker who hurt me,” I told him shakily.
MASON
“What the fuck was Colt thinking?” I growled, struggling to keep my voice dpwn when I was so pissed with my idiotic best friend. “Why wouldn’t he just bring this to me?”
I’d been at Colt’s place for over an hour and Ava had been passed out on the sofa the whole time, Deacon and Jack having convinced her to take some of her pain meds, which had knocked her out.
Jack had told me how upset and exhausted she’d been when he arrived and I was seriously worried about her.
I knew how strong she was - how strong she had always been.
She had been through so much and yet she never stopped pushing to keep going.
It was a huge part of what I had loved about her when I first met her, and it was still a huge part of why I still loved her.
But physically her own body was working against her.
She was shaky all of the time, and I had seen the struggle she faced just to walk, let alone tackle obstacles like stairs.
The stab wound to her shoulder had just made things even harder, and I was at the point where I felt the need to stamp my foot down and stop her from working the investigation to find Colt.
I needed her to be safe and as healthy as she could be.
The problem was I knew her pretty well, and I was pretty damned sure if I tried to do that, she’d just ignore me and go it alone behind my back, and that was an even more terrifying prospect, especially when the Owen crime family could be mixed up in it all.
“I have no idea. He never said a thing about all of this to me. I knew he was upset about Helen, of course. We all were. She was a sweet girl, but Colt never said anything about this,” Jack said as he waved a hand towards the papers I had spread out on the floor around me.
“Ava was sure whoever murdered Helen was the guy who attacked her all those years ago,” Deacon said.
He’d been quiet since I walked in and he’d barely moved from the armchair closest to Ava.
I was beginning to think he was under Ava’s spell, just as Jack and I had been ensnared so ong ago.
“She…she showed me how she knew,” he went on as he looked between Jack and I, his face set with tension.
“She showed me that…” he pointed to one of the crime scene images from Helen’s murder.
It was a close up of a word that had been burned into her skin.
“…on her stomach. That exact word. That murdering psycho…h-he branded her with that word, just like he did Helen.”
“What? Ave…she…she has that, on her skin?” Jack uttered and when I looked over to where he was sat on the floor before our girl, his back leant against the front of the sofa she lay on, he looked like he was going to throw up.
Deacon just nodded, like he couldn’t even bring himself to speak anymore about it, and I got it.
Just the idea of anyone hurting Ava that way had me wanting to forget everything I stood for as a detective.
It had me wanting to hunt this fucker down and inflict every injury he put on Ava’s perfect skin before I sliced his fucking throat.
“So whoever hurt Ava, killed Helen. We know that now, but the others are different. There’s no bodies. I think Colt could have been onto something with the sex trafficking angle on them,” I surmised, just needing to focus on something other than the rage and blood thirst pumping through my veins.
“So it could be the traffickers who have Colt, or they might not even have him. Maybe he did just disappear when he realized they were coming for him, to protect us all from it all,” Deacon mused.
“It’s a theory,” I nodded. “It would explain why he left those weird voicemails. He didn’t want us to worry, but it doesn’t explain why he wouldn’t just come to me with all of this.”
“He was protecting Ava,” Jack spoke up. “He didn’t want to break the promise he made to her that night, not to tell us what happened to her.
He didn’t want to betray her trust. Maybe that’s why he was trying so hard to get in contact with her.
Maybe he knew he was getting in too bloody deep and wanted her permission to talk to you about what he found. ”