Chapter 4
AVA
Ava's eyes fluttered open as she came back to her senses. The whir of computers and the sharp scent of new technology filled the air. Her head pounded slightly, and the room spun around her.
She groaned, raising her bound hands to her head as she winced.
“There’s water on the bedside table,” a robotic voice said from the darkness.
She snapped her hands away, her heart racing as she searched the room.
Her eyes, still not adjusted to the dim light, couldn’t find him. “Raven?”
A dark figure stalked across the room with heavy footfalls from his thick boots. With a gloved hand, he grabbed the glass of water and thrust it forward toward her.
Ava tried to sit up, the room spinning, and she slouched back down.
Raven set the glass on the table, easing onto the edge of the bed. “Ava?”
“What the hell did you hit me with?” she groaned. “This has never happened before.”
She pressed her hands over her eyes.
“Nothing different. Tell me your symptoms.”
“Dizzy, fuzzy-headed, and there’s a strange, masked man hovering over me.”
Raven sighed through the mask, grabbing the water again. “Try the water. It will help you recover.”
She bobbed her head as she struggled to lift her chin for the water. “This should do it. Some water will counteract any of the ill effects of the drugs you keep pumping into my system.”
“They are harmless and necessary, Ava.”
“Show me the studies,” she said with a groan as she twisted onto her side with a groan, tugging her legs up to her abdomen.
“Are you feverish?” Raven asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not that warm, I don’t think.” Her stomach convulsed as the water roiled inside it. “Ohhh.”
She rocketed up to sit, shoving at Raven who refused to budge. “Move or I’m going to puke on you.”
He stumbled back, rising quickly as she scrambled off the bed. “Door on the left is the–”
She didn’t hear the last of the statement as she raced into the bathroom and dropped to her knees at the toilet. Raven followed her in, grasping her hair as she emptied the contents of her stomach.
She sat back on her haunches, blowing out a long breath as she wiped at her lips with the back of her bound hands. “Tell me again how the water was supposed to help.”
“The drug should not have caused this,” Raven answered.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” she said before blowing out a long breath.
“I would never take a chance with your life, Ava.”
She glanced sideways at his hand, still clasping her hair behind her back. “Thanks for the assist. I think I’m okay now.”
“You sure?”
She blew out a steadying breath as she nodded. “I think. But maybe I’ll skip the water if it’s all the same to you.”
“You should drink it when you can. Maybe some food first.” He rose, offering her a hand.
“Food? You’re supposed to be decrypting a flash drive, not cooking me dinner.”
“I didn’t expect you to be sick,” he answered. “You need rest, food, and care.”
She struggled to stand, her head still swimming. “You’re so sweet. You really know how to take care of a girl you’ve drugged. Gosh, if only I had met you before Alex.”
Raven bent over, scooping her into his arms.
“I didn’t mean for you to take that as an invitation. All those roses aren’t working. I’m married to Alex.”
He didn’t answer as he carried her into the bedroom and laid her on the bed.
“Where are we anyway? Is this your place?” Ava glanced around, hoping to take in some details to use later. Could she actually use this to figure out more about his identity?
“One of them,” Raven answered as he spread a blanket over her lap.
“Oh, one of them. Aren’t we fancy?” She stared at the dimly lit space, the opposite end of the room filled with monitors.
“Stay here. I’ll make you something to eat.”
“Thanks for the royal treatment,” she said, as he rounded a counter into the kitchen, visible from the bed.
“You know I care about you, Ava.”
“Yeah, I remember. The roses and then the continued druggings really prove the depths of your devotion.” She rolled her eyes at the statement, wondering how Alex and Kyle were handling her absence.
“Hey, how long was I out?”
“Four hours.”
“Four hours?!” she tried to stand on her weak knees.
“Sit down,” Raven said from the kitchen as he dumped water into the foam container of dried noodles and bouillon.
“No, you need to decrypt this drive and drug me again so I can go home. Alex must be going out of his mind.”
“Alex Stone is fine. He’s probably only waking up.”
Her heart skipped a beat as he said the words, and she snapped her gaze to him, immediately regretting it as dizziness overcame her. She collapsed onto the bed, trapped in a surreal nightmare.
What if she never made it back to Alex?
“Ava?” He set the cup on the counter and hurried to her, easing onto the mattress.
“I’m fine, I just turned too fast. What do you mean Alex is only waking up? What did you do to Alex?”
“Frick and Frack could have followed me. I couldn’t have that. They got a taste of what you had only intensified a bit to match their size.”
Ava shot him an annoyed glance. “Perfect. Are you going to go make them soup?”
“They’ll be fine.”
“Then so will I be,” she answered. “Now, get the flash drive out of my pocket and decrypt it.”
“After you’ve eaten.” He rose from the edge of the bed and returned to the kitchen to finish with her soup.
After ninety seconds in the microwave, he pulled out the cup, peeled off the lid, grabbed a spoon, and crossed to her. “Eat.”
“Would love to eat that oh-so-carefully prepared ramen, but–” She raised her bound hands. “Kind of tied up at the moment.”
He set down the cup and spoon before he dug into his pocket, pulling out a switchblade and snapping it open. “Don’t make me regret this.”
He sliced off the zip tie binding her and motioned to the soup.
“Okay, okay,” she said with a nod as she reached for it, taking a tentative sip of the broth off her spoon. “Mmm, you must have gone for the expensive stuff not the ninety-nine-cent package.”
“So, what is your deal, Raven? Even now…after everything we’ve been through…you still won’t show me your face. Why?”
“I have my reasons, Ava.”
She set the cup aside after slurping up a long noodle. “What are they?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he answered.
“A misunderstood man of mystery.” She bobbed her head as she searched her mind for a way to get him to admit something about his background. “Still…honestly, Raven, you have to trust me at some point, right? I mean, you shot Miranda for us. By the way, any idea how she is? She’s alive, I assume.”
“She is alive,” he answered.
“Okay, so…there we go…we just broke into a Board stronghold together. You shot someone to protect us. But you can’t trust us with your face?” She ate a little more of the soup as he stood silent before she set it aside.
“Okay, come on,” she said. “This is getting ridiculous. You want us to trust you, but you can’t trust us?”
A sigh escaped from Raven’s mask again, his chin bowing to touch his chest as his fingers curled into fists. “Ava…”
She glanced up at him. Was he breaking? Was he about to tell her more? She leaned slightly closer as she hung on his words. “Yes?”
“This situation is very complicated. And I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand.”
“What I don’t understand is hiding behind this mask. Do you know how much easier this would be if we could trust you? Honestly, every time we have to make a choice, it’s so hard to choose you.”
“What choices are you making?” he asked.
“Any choices,” she said with a shrug as she grabbed the cup of soup again. “Giving you the drive, trusting you to help us rescue Alex, not escaping from the creepy house of horrors you kept me in.”
His fingers curled into fists again. She eyed the tense posture. Maybe a different tactic would work.
With the soup set aside, she rose to stand. “Listen, Raven, you look a little…uptight. Maybe you should take a seat and relax.”
“Don’t patronize me,” he warned, wagging a finger at her.
“Okay…so…I have no idea what you want. You leave me roses, then when I’m nice to you, you don’t want that either.”
“I don’t want disingenuous attention designed to keep me off-balance and make me reveal a detail you can use to unmask me.”
“Just take off the mask, Raven. How bad can this be?” She heaved a sigh, shifting her weight. “Fine. Don’t take off the mask. Let’s just do what we have to do.”
Raven followed her as she sauntered over to monitors and grabbed the mouse. “Don’t–”
The monitors glowed to life as she glanced at him, taking the glass of water from his hands.
“Touch that,” he finished with a sigh before he grabbed her arm.
“Wait,” she said, yanking her arm from his grasp. “You’re supposed to decrypt in front of me, not drag me away from the computers.”
“No,” he tried again before she turned back toward them, her heart stopping.
She cocked her head as she stared at the images on the screen. With a flutter of her eyelashes, she whipped around to face him. “What is this?”
He shrugged. “Research. Give me the flash drive.”
“Research?” Her voice went an octave higher as she threw a hand toward a screen with images of her home plastered on it along with a tracer, showing her cell phone’s location. “You’re watching us. You’re tracing my phone.”
“I need to keep you safe. You’re important to my cause.”
“Really? You’re not tracking Alex’s phone.”
“The Board still needs Alex. They won’t kill him. You…” He tugged his gloves tighter. “You’re a different story, Ava.”
“Oh, right, so this is all just to protect me.”
“Give me the flash drive,” he answered, holding his hand out toward her.
She narrowed her eyes at him before she took another look at the screen. “Who else are you watching? What are all these other cameras?”
“Not your business,” he answered. “Flash drive.”
“Uh-uh-uh,” she said. “We’re a team now, remember? We’re supposed to be full access with you.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“Yeah, you did. Last night on the beach. You agreed to it. Now, it’s time for you to start living it.”
“I’m taking all the risks here, and–”
Ava scoffed. “Hardly. A few days ago, I was dangling from the roof, breaking into a secure server room for you. I went into the hotel room of a man involved with both The Board and the Russian mob for you.”
“I helped you rescue Alex. We’re even. You don’t make demands. Now, give me the flash drive.”
Ava heaved a sigh, realizing she wouldn’t learn anything from him on his own turf. She’d need to finesse this in a better way.
With a sigh, she took a sip of water before she reached into her pocket and withdrew the drive, handing it over to him. “Here.”
He wrapped his gloved fingers around the drive before he skirted past her to sit at the desk. He placed the drive into the tower before he tapped at the keys, pulling up a decryption program called Relion.
Ava leaned over his shoulder, staring at it. “What’s Relion?”
“Board Decryption software.”
“How did you get it?” Ava glanced at him, wondering if she could be fast enough to pull his mask off and how he managed to have software from The Board.
“Ava…maybe you’re right,” he answered. “Maybe it’s time I told you more.”
Her heart hammered, as she waited for the coveted answers they’d sought so many times before.
Before he could speak again, alarm klaxons blared in the room and red lights flashed. He twisted back toward the computer before pounding a fist against the desk. “No!”
“What is it?” Ava asked, her chest tight.
“Trouble. We’re being invaded.”
Ava’s heart rose into her throat as she spotted masked gunmen opening a door that she presumed led to their location. Her mind raced, trying to calculate their next move. This was no longer about getting information; it was about survival.