CHAPTER 10 #3
“Either way this is bad,” I admitted as I glanced to Ava to make sure she was still out.
“Either a psycho murderer grabbed him for getting too close, or the Owens have him, or are searching for him. If he’s not dead already, he will be soon.
” Just that thought shook me. Colt had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember.
He was family to me. Losing him would mean me losing a part of myself.
“We’re running out of time,” Deacon uttered.
“Huh?”
“That’s what she said to me,” Deacon explained as he turned to Jack. “Ava, she said we’re running out of time. She knows how bad this is. That’s why she was so distraught.”
“She’s smart, and from what I’ve heard about her she was a really fucking good detective. She knows,” I agreed.
“We have to do whatever it takes to get him back if there’s any chance, Mace.
If she loses Colt it will fucking end her,” Jack said emotionally, keeping his voice low.
We all looked to where she was sleeping.
She seemed peaceful for the moment, but all three of us knew that was simply because of the drugs.
Since the moment she walked into Temple a few days before I had seen nothing but pain and suffering from her.
She tried like hell to hide it, but I knew her every micro expression from the countless times we had scened together at the club when we were younger.
Jack did too. We saw her pain and her constant struggle beneath her smart ass remarks and mask of indifference.
She had been through hell and it was plain to see in her eyes every time she looked at me. She was barely holding on as things stood. Losing Colt would be that final push over the edge and into the abyss and I was pretty sure we all knew it.
“We don’t let that happen,” I announced stubbornly. “I’ll do everything I can to get Colt back, but if I can’t…if it’s too fucking late then we do whatever it takes to get her through it and we don’t let her give up. We’re not losing her again, Jack.”
“Just fucking find him, Mason. I know you guys have history with her, and I know she has feelings for both of you, but you need to know I’m not walking away from her without a fight either.”
“You barely even know her,” Jack accused.
“I know enough to know I have feelings for her, and I think she returns those too. I want to see where things can go between us at least,” Deacon went on.
“She’s ours,” I growled, a possessiveness I had never known rushing over me as I turned to Deacon with so much anger. He was a big fucker, but I’d be faster. I could take him down if I needed to.
“You sure about that? All you guys seem to do is piss her off,” Deacon taunted with the hint of a smug fucking grin on his face.
“Fuck you! You know nothing about what we have with Ava. She’s been ours since the first day she agreed to scene with us and she’s still ours now. She’ll always be ours, so back the fuck off!” I snapped.
“That why she keeps shoving the both of you away, but almost kissed me earlier?” The smug smile was fully in place on Deacon’s face now and I couldn’t hold in my anger any more as I rose to my feet, ready to smash his face in.
“Mace!” Jack grabbed my arm as he jumped to his feet and pulled me back.
“Don’t do this. We know what we have with Ava.
If he thinks he can come between us, then let him fucking try.
She’ll always choose us in the end,” he told me.
I knew he was trying to sound calm, but I heard the edge of anger in his tone.
He was pissed too, he was just more level headed than me.
“Fuck me!” Ava groaned and when we all turned to look at her she was awake and glaring up at us. “Why don’t you all just fight to the death? Last one breathing can throw me over their shoulder and carry me off to their cave,” she spat bitterly.
“Ava…” I tried,, but she sent me a glare that stopped whatever I was about to say to excuse our behavior instantly.
“You’re such fucking idiots,” she growled as she struggled to push herself up and swung her legs off of the sofa so she sat.
“My brother is either in the hands of a murderer or the mob, and you three are here having a fucking dick measuring contest over a woman who has told you repeatedly she can’t ever have a relationship! ”
“That’s bollocks love and you know it,” Jack told her as he dropped down to sit at her side.
“Mother fuck!” She roared at the top of her voice as she looked to the ceiling like she was praying for something. “One more fucking word about anything other than finding my brother and I swear to God I will shoot all three of you in the kneecaps.”
“Fine,” I huffed. “Most likely candidates to have Colt are the Owen’s. They’ll want to know what he knows and who he told, so they’ll keep him alive for a while if they found him.”
“Okay. That means they didn’t have him three days ago when they came to my place looking for him.
We start there,” Ava nodded. She left out that starting there was easier because the alternative didn’t bear thinking about – that the psycho sadistic murderer had taken Colt, but I saw it in the worry in her eyes, and I fucking felt exactly the same way.
Ava struggled to stand up, then seemed to pause for a second to steady herself, before crossing the room to where her walking aid was propped in the corner. I could see her shaking from across the room, but I also saw the determination in her eyes.
“What are you doing, sweetheart? You should eat. I ordered subs earlier. They’re in the refrigerator,” Deacon spoke first. Brave man. Still a complete asshole though.
“I’m getting Colt back,” She told him without even turning to look at him.
“How?” Jack asked.
“Mace. You know where I can find the head of this Itish family?” She asked as she paused and turned to me.
“You’re not talking to the head of the Owen fucking crime family, Ava,” I told her flat.
“Fine,” she nodded, then she turned and walked off down the hall towards the bedrooms.
“Fine?” I repeated as I looked to Jack with utter shock. Did I just win that argument? It couldn’t be that easy.
“No,” Jack said as he got to his feet. “It’s never that easy, mate.” He wasn’t wrong. Apart from when we all played together and she had been submissive for Jack and I, I was pretty sure Ava had never listened to a damned word I told her without a serious argument first.
All three of us followed Ava down the hall and into Colt’s office, where we found her sat behind his desk with his laptop open.
“What are you up to, trouble?” Jack asked.
“I have full access to Colt’s bank accounts. He made sure I could access everything from the day I turned eighteen. If this Owen family has Colt I’m going to buy him back,” she said firmly.
“Jesus. It’s not that easy baby and you know it. They won’t just let Colt go if he has information about their operations,” I sighed.
“Money talks, Mace, and Colt has a shit load of it from what I’m seeing in his accounts. Also, if they don’t agree to that, there’s always the threat of two cops already knowing plenty more about their operation that can be handed off to the FBI,” she said nonchalantly.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” I told her as I tried to stare her down, but she just glared right back.
“So be it,” she shrugged like she didn’t give a shit, and the terrifying thing was that I was pretty sure she really didn’t give a shit.
“Maybe we should all just think about this,” Deacon suggested, but Ava wasn’t even listening.
She slammed Colt’s laptop shut and tucked it under her arm as she struggled to her feet again.
Then she was charging right past us all and into her bedroom across the hall.
We all just stood watching her wordlessly as she opened the top draw of her night stand and pulled out a . 38.
“Where the fuck did you get that?” I demanded.
“Colt bought it for me. He taught me to shoot it too. He wanted me to be able to protect myself if I ever needed to. It was too big to carry around, so I always kept it in my nightstand, with…” she dipped down a little and ferreted about in the drawer again, then pulled out three cartridges for the weapon. “…ammo.”
I stood frozen and unable to speak as she slammed a cartridge into the gun and checked the safety, then slid it into the top of her jeans, at the small of her back.
The other ammo she put into a messenger back she pulled form under the bed, along with Colt’s laptop.
“I’ll need Colt’s file. Can you grab it for me please, Jack, but leave out anything to do with Helen’s murder,” she asked, and she was so calm it unnerved me. Did she really want to die, because what she had planned was definitely a suicide mission?
“You are not fucking doing this Ava!” I barked as reality finally hit me.
“Try and stop me, asshole!” Oh this woman was going to be the death of me! Even if she did stir my cock with how fucking sexy she looked when she was pissed with me.