Chapter 25
ALEX
Alex frantically climbed the stairs in search of Ava, his heart hammering against his ribs. He knew he shouldn’t have left Ava behind when he did. After almost losing her, he’d chalked up his fear to pure paranoia, but now he knew it had been more like a premonition.
How had Sebastian managed to kidnap her again? Had the weakness from the gunshot wound all been feigned? Did he overpower her?
Alex shook his head as he reached the top of the stairs, puffing for breath. Ava was a black belt going up against a wounded man. Even with his larger size, a gunshot to the abdomen should have leveled the playing field.
“What do you mean gone?” Kyle called as he raced behind him.
“I mean, she’s not here. He’s not here.” Alex shook his head at the ridiculous question, ducking into the first bedroom and called to Ava again.
“They can’t be gone,” Kyle argued. “How? Sebastian should be here, at least.”
“Well, he must be a heavy sleeper, because he’s not answering.”
Alex stormed down the hall to the next door, plowing through it and scanning the room before he left it behind. Each empty room felt like a punch to his gut. Every creak of the floorboards beneath his feet seemed louder, more ominous, echoing his fear that he’d failed her—again.
Kyle wrinkled his forehead. “I mean, how did she get him out of here?” There’s no way. He’s a big guy.”
“Maybe he walked,” Alex said, pulling open another door and finding a linen closet.
“He’d need help.”
Alex closed the closet and stared at Kyle. “You’re sure? Is there any way he could have overpowered Ava and taken her somewhere?”
“No,” Kyle said with an emphatic shake of his head. “No way. Not with the wound and blood loss. Could he knock her out with her favorite blend of knock-out spray? Yes. Could he carry her anywhere or even drive? No.”
Alex continued to another bedroom, peering inside. He stopped, his heart speeding as he stared at the mussed bedcovers.
He flipped on the light, calling to Ava despite it being obvious that she was not here. “Someone’s been in this room.”
“Or the Bancrofts don’t make their beds,” Kyle noted until Alex gave him a disapproving stare. “Sorry.”
Kyle crossed to the bed, eyeing the sheets. “Looks like there’s some blood here. I wonder if Ava moved Sebastian here and it was enough to open his wound.”
“Do you think she took him to the hospital?” Alex asked as he took another step inside, scanning the room. “Oh, no.”
“What?” Kyle asked, following the direction of Alex’s stare.
“Blood. A lot of blood,” Alex answered as he crouched next to a congealing pool of dark liquid. “Do you think it’s from Sebastian?”
“Could be,” Kyle said. “I wonder if she tried to move him and…wait, that doesn’t make sense. There’s blood on the sheets.”
“Maybe he wasn’t feeling good and tried to get up, fell and bled all over the floor.”
“Could be, but…where did she take him? She was supposed to call us,” Kyle answered. “How would she even get to the hospital. We just brought the car up to her.”
“Maybe they called an ambulance.”
Kyle shot Alex a skeptical glance. “The guy who had me remove a bullet on his dining room table called an ambulance?”
“Maybe Ava panicked,” Alex said. “He could have been unconscious, and she made the call.”
Kyle’s eyebrows shot up.
“What?” Alex asked as he rose to stand.
“Yeah, I’m not going to be the one who tells Ava you thought she panicked. I literally do not even want to see her reaction to that statement.”
Alex heaved a sigh. “You know what I mean…she didn’t want him to die. She says we need him. So, if she thought he was close to death, she’d do what she had to do.”
Alex fished his phone from inside his pocket. “I’ll solve this. I’ll call her.”
After a few rings, the call went to a generic voicemail. He growled as he pulled the device away from his ear. “Voicemail. That’s not making me feel any better.”
He tried again twice, still not getting a hold of her. His stomach turned over as he stared down at the phone. Could he find the location of the burner? “Did you see if his laptop is still here?”
“Didn’t notice. Why?”
“I want to track her phone. This isn’t sitting well for me.” Alex retreated from the bedroom, hurrying downstairs to search for the laptop. He scoured the entire living room, but couldn’t find it. With a curse under his breath, he shook his head. “I’ll have to use my phone.”
Before he could begin, the device rang in his hand. He nearly dropped it taking the call. “Hello,” he said, his voice breathless with anticipation.
“Put it on speaker,” Kyle hissed.
“Ace, hey.”
“Ava!” Alex shouted, toggling on the speakerphone. “Where are you?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Is Sebastian bleeding? Are you at the hospital?” Kyle interjected.
“No. He’s fine. But someone found the cabin. Someone from The Board.”
“Ava, are you okay?” Alex’s heart rose into his throat as he waited for the answer.
“I’m fine. We’re all fine. Well, except for the guy from The Board. He’s dead. I had to kill him. It was me or him.”
Alex recognized the guilt in her voice. “You did what you had to do, Avs.”
“Yeah,” she answered. “Anyway, we obviously had to abandon the cabin. I’m at a new location, but we may not be safe here either.
Our assassin friend from The Board had a tracker on his car.
We ditched the car, but I’m afraid we’re dangerously close to being found out.
Tell me you made some progress with Chris. ”
“Not yet. We decided to bring the car up to you first, then hit Chris first thing in the morning.”
“You’re at the cabin now?” Ava asked.
“Yeah,” Alex answered. “And panicked when we found it empty with a pool of blood on the floor.”
She cursed under her breath before she responded. “You need to get out of there. Take both cars. Concentrate on getting Chris out of the way so I can make my triumphant return. Hiding out is getting old.”
“Got it,” Alex said. “We’re all over it, babe.”
“Thanks. Alex, I love you.”
“I love you too, Sparky. And I miss you.”
“He may love you, but he also thought you panicked,” Kyle interjected.
Alex flung a hand in the air as he screwed up his face.
“I did not panic. But I’m going to go stir crazy soon. Go guilt Chris into admitting he killed me.”
“All over it, babe,” Alex said with a nod as they made their way to the door. “One guilty ex coming right up.”
“Thanks. Be safe.”
“You too. Especially you,” Alex answered as they stepped into the early morning air. “We’ll talk soon.”
His finger lingered on the end call button, but before he could press it, the call ended on Ava’s end. The click of the line and the disappearance of the active call sliced at him.
“We need to end this,” he said to Kyle.
“Let’s go pay a visit to your architect friend, then.”
Alex bobbed his head before he climbed behind the wheel of his vehicle. As he swung the car around, bouncing over the gravel drive leading away from the cabin, his insides twisted into a tight knot.
He hoped whatever conversation occurred with Chris did the trick. He couldn’t take much more of the separation from Ava. As the trees receded, giving way to the main road, his mind whirled.
Once they were over this hurdle and Ava returned to life, how could they move forward defeating The Board?
As the miles passed on their way back to the Hamptons, he grew more and more overwhelmed. Would Sebastian Bancroft actually be able to help them, or were they fighting a losing battle?
Images of having to disappear under false names to hideout in a new country haunted him. As they pulled into Chris’s hotel, his fingers tightened on the steering wheel with determination. They had to pull this off. They had to get Ava back.
He climbed from the car, meeting Kyle before they strode into the lobby. “Hotel records have him in suite two-oh-seven.”
“Time to pay our friendly neighborhood killer a visit,” Kyle said as he poked at the button to call the elevator.
Within a few seconds, they were following the signs to a block of suites numbering two hundred to two fifteen. Alex’s pulse quickened as he spotted the room number for the angry architect.
He cleared his throat and banged on the door.
It popped open a few minutes later. Chris, still in a bathrobe, raised his eyebrows. “Well, you’re not room service.”
Alex pushed past him into the room with Kyle following, not waiting for an invitation. “And you’re not the man I thought you were.”
“Uhhh, what’s that supposed to mean?” Chris let the door slam shut behind him.
Alex lunged at him, grabbing the lapels of the bathrobe and tugging him closer. “You killed Ava.”
“Whoa, what the hell, dude. Back off.” Chris shoved Alex away from him with a disgusted look on his face.
“He’s right,” Kyle answered as he pressed a hand against Alex’s chest, pretending to hold him back.
“Uhhh, no. Ava had some back luck with that plane blowing its engine but–”
“Blowing its engine?” Alex reached for him again, but Kyle kept a firm hold of him.
“Easy, Mav, easy. Death is too good for him.”
Alex wagged an angry finger in the air. “That plane didn’t blow an engine.
It exploded. Someone planted a bomb. Someone from The Board based on your information that Ava would be on that plane.
” His voice broke as he made the last statement, easily able to recall the intense grief he’d faced when he’d thought Ava was dead.
Chris screwed up his face. “What? No.”
“Yes,” Alex shouted, his fingers curling into fists. “Are you trying to deny that you didn’t tell someone about Ava talking to the DHS?”
Chris stared at the patterned carpet for a moment, his lips parting. “No, but…no.”
He shook his head, his features disbelieving. “No, they didn’t bomb a plane.”
“Really?” Alex asked. “If you believe that, you’re more of an idiot than I thought.”
“Think about it. These people are criminals. Do you think they’d let someone feed information to the DHS?” Kyle poked a finger at him. “She trusted you. She came to you to tell you about the DHS so you wouldn’t get caught up in this web of trouble. And you went and tattled.”
Alex’s cheeks burned as heat rose into them. “You killed her. You killed Ava with your big mouth.”
Chris stared blankly at him, his face morphing with shock.
His eyes darted nervously, his mouth opening and closing like he was trying to form words but couldn’t quite find the ones that would absolve him.
It was as if the reality of what Alex was saying started to sink in, the weight of it pressing down on his shoulders. “No, I…I just…”
Alex threw Kyle’s hand off of him, striding forward to come within inches of Chris. “You killed her. Whether you did it for your new pals or because you’re still angry she didn’t pick you, I don’t care. You killed Ava, and I hope the guilt eats you alive.”
He stepped past him, knocking into Chris’s shoulder as he grabbed the door handle and whipped it open. “Doc, let’s go. We have a funeral to plan.”
He stormed into the hall with Kyle hurrying to catch him. Alex glanced over his shoulder, his heart still hammering as he rounded the corner and headed for the elevators.
“Well?” Kyle asked once they were inside.
“I don’t know,” Alex said with a shake of his head. “I don’t know him well enough to say for sure, but I’d say the seed has been planted.”
“You were impressive, Mav. I think this will work.”
“Time will tell,” Alex said with a sigh as the doors whooshed open in front of them.
They strolled from inside, heading across the lobby. “Now, let’s go plan that funeral so he can break down at it.”
“I’m dreading this. Something about it feels so wrong.” The very idea of planning Ava’s funeral made his stomach churn, as if by doing so, he was accepting her death as real. But if it brought her back, he’d do it—he’d do anything.
“Yeah,” Kyle said, clapping him on the shoulder. “But think about how right it’s going to feel the moment she comes back.”
Alex tried to imagine her triumphant return to life, the shock from everyone else, the surprise. But all he could dwell on was having her back in his life and not having to worry about losing her every time he had to leave her in hiding.
Chris’s exit couldn’t come soon enough.
He hoped the confrontation he’d just had would help, but deep down, he worried he’d never see Ava again.