Chapter 37
37
I stop short of entering the hospital room. I’m feeling dizzy and need a deep breath.
“Are you okay?” Enzo asks.
For the past few days, I was desperate to hear if Anton was okay, even asking to come and see him. Now that I’m here, it’s so monumental, I must be white as a sheet.
I watch a nurse walk past and a patient nip into a bathroom.
I stall. “It was nice of the police to get him a private room.”
Enzo flattens his lips and says nothing.
“Oh…” I cock the corner of my mouth. “Thank you.”
He pulls me in for one of his strong, reassuring hugs I’ve come to crave anytime something is wrong.
I wrap my arms around his waist. “Why am I so nervous? It’s not like we’re strangers.”
“Because for the first time, you’ll truly see each other.”
Enzo is right. What Anton and I shared was a trauma bond so deep it created unbreakable closeness but at the same time, I don’t know anything about him.
I take a deep breath. “See you later in the cafeteria?”
He pats his laptop bag. He’s been working on my name change for me so I don’t have to think about it. He’s insisted on doing everything that might take stress off my shoulders.
I can’t wait to be Ava for good. In my mind, I haven’t been Lucy since I got on that bus in Southern California.
“I’ll just grab that chair over there.” He points to a stiff chair outside the room opposite. “No rush.”
It will take time for this all to fade from our systems. I don’t blame Enzo for not being able to let me out of sight for long.
He presses a kiss to my lips. “I love you. You’ll feel better after you two talk.”
Facing the room, I take another deep breath and head in.
Anton is asleep. He looks different from how I’ve always seen him. He’s enormous by normal human standards, and as such, no matter what we were doing, cooking or watching a Christmas rom-com, he always seemed powerful. Right now, he’s pale and frail. He’s connected to IV tubes.
There’s a chair next to the bed. I sit because I feel awfully close to passing out. I have to keep reminding myself to breathe.
I don’t want to wake him, he needs sleep to heal. The doctor explained the bullet tore into his intestines. He’ll take time to get his strength back but he survived.
He took that bullet for me.
I always knew he would. I always knew he cared and no matter how messed up the therapist tells me I am after my first session next week, at least I know I don’t have Stockholm syndrome.
Enzo already told me what he learned from Anton’s statement when he finally pulled through the operations. He got taken in to Sánchez’s organization as a prisoner just days before I arrived.
Anton had been a Navy SEAL for years in his twenties but was offered honorable discharge after an injury small enough to still be fit, big enough to be offered retirement. He took the chance to leave service because, at twenty-nine, he was ready to start a family with his then fiancée. He returned home to find she’d been cheating on him with his best friend the whole time.
Thinking he had nothing left to live for, he spiraled into a self-destruction and became a vigilante. For years, he worked for hire, taking down criminals, working as a PI.
One day, he took a job with a family searching for their missing son. That search led Anton into Sánchez’s lair.
Having fought off Sánchez’s men with incredible skill, Sánchez learned Anton was a SEAL, and of course, knew that was valuable. He held Anton as a prisoner, for use at a later time, like he did with so many of his victims.
Apparently, only days after being captured, he was assigned as my keeper.
Did he stay because of me? For me? The Anton I know from all those years would have. He was chivalrous always. Like a knight.
I place my hand on Anton’s, and it’s a familiar feeling. We haven’t held hands since I turned sixteen, but we used to when I was younger, and when I curl my fingers under his, they’re the exact shape I recall.
He opens one eye, and his voice is sleepy and emotional. “Lucy…”
My heart breaks at the sound of his voice.
I squeeze his hand. “It’s Ava…”
He opens his eyes and does that thing where he almost smiles. Anton has never been a smiley guy. Maybe that’s why it was easy to deal with Enzo’s scowls. Even love them.
“Ava suits you. Sophisticated. It’s a name for a smart cookie.” He sighs. “I guess you want to leave the past behind you.”
I do. I do want to leave it all behind. But not him. My nose stings and the corners of my eyes are wet. “How are you feeling?”
“Ask me that when they take me off the pain meds.”
I laugh.
He wiggles my hand in his. “I’ll be fine. Better when we talk. All I’ve been thinking about these past few days while holed up in this place is explaining myself.” Pain pools in his eyes. “I’m sorry for how things went in the barn. It was the only way I could think to help you was to play Sánchez’s game until the right moment.”
I’m not quite ready to think about that night with him. “I’m glad you’re free.” And I can’t stop thinking about leaving him behind. “I’m sorry I drugged you when I escaped the apartment.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You didn’t drug me.”
“Oh…” it’s still hard to know what was fiction and what was reality. “I guess I wasn’t as clever as I thought I was.”
“Oh, you are plenty clever, Menace. You’re going to do amazing things with that brain of yours… and your sweet heart.”
A stone forms in my throat.
“I can’t believe me leaving was all part of the plan from day one. When I got the letter to go for my master’s? Why did you lie? Why didn’t we take the chance to escape? Together?” My eyes brim with tears, but I steel my spine and blink them away.
“Sánchez had men on us all the time. I’ve never been allowed to be armed. From the moment Sánchez had me, I had a virtual gun at my head the entire time. We were watched always, both of us. The minute you left that apartment, they stormed in and took me back. And the tracker…” He lowers his eyes. “They tracked you the whole time you were in Echo Valley. When Sánchez decided to execute on the abduction, I just had to hope that this Enzo guy was as smart as Sánchez made him out to be. Thankfully, he is.”
I know Anton was part of what has me alive and kicking next to him today, but all of it still hurts. “You drugged me…”
He comes more alive. “Do you think I wanted Sánchez stabbing you with a needle? I didn’t want him touching you.” His body tightens, and he grits his teeth. “It was torture watching him with you in that barn. But playing his game was necessary. It was all a gamble, and throwing the dice was the only way out. I had to believe this GhostEye organization would find you when you were abducted, follow, bring trained men to take down Sánchez’s. I can’t sit here and say I knew it would all happen this way. I didn’t. I didn’t know if either of us would come out alive, but if anyone did, I wanted it to be you. So when I had the chance…”
I finish his sentence. “You took the bullet.”
His voice is thick with emotion. “There was no more waiting. I didn’t care if Enzo shot me. If Sánchez’s men shot if they were still outside. SWAT. I just knew it was time to get you out of the way.”
He gazes at me deeply. “I was thirty-three years old when I was taken in by Sánchez. I was a jaded, angry man with nothing to live for when I got thrown into a dark room at his compound. But a few days later, he gave me a job. He told me to watch you, and everything changed. You were such a clever girl, small enough to have been my own daughter. It was the most dramatic two days of my life being with you those first days. I was a SEAL for four years. I knew I could eventually make my way out of there if I worked on my own. But I couldn’t bring you with me.” Tears well in his eyes, but he makes a dry joke to stop them from flowing. “You were always too clumsy.”
The corner of my mouth quirks, but the weight of his admission pulls me right back to deep emotion. “You stayed under Sánchez’s control for me?”
“I can’t know I would have ever made it out. But I chose to keep living and before you I had a death wish. You gave me something, someone to live for. And yes, Ava, I did that for you. With you. You were the kid I always wanted to have. Hell, you’re better than anything I could have made.”
At that my nose starts running and I wipe a rogue tear off my cheek. “And you’re the dad I never had.”
He squeezes my hand. “Now that little girl is all grown up. You don’t need me anymore.”
“You’re the only one who treated me with kindness in all those years. You’re probably my only family…” Am I brave enough to ask the question? I have to. “Do you know what happened to my mom?”
His features stiffen.
“She’s dead?” I ask .
“Mules never make it out alive.” He grips my hand warmly. “I’m sorry.”
My heart hurts, and yet for years I’ve accepted she was never coming back. Sometimes, I even imagined she was dead. It’s painfully tragic she’s truly gone, and yet I grieved for her long ago.
“Then it’s true, Anton. You are my only family.”
“And you’re mine, Menace.” He makes one of his dry jokes. “But am I really old enough to be your dad? More like an uncle.”
A giggle erupts and more tears stream down. “That’s what I told Enzo you were. My uncle.”
His chest bubbles with a small laugh but he stops himself as the movement clearly causes him pain.
We sit in comfortable silence, soaking in the end of a fourteen-year history together. I’m ready to say goodbye to Lucy. But not Anton.
“I think you’d really like Echo Valley.”
He lifts his eyebrows. “Yeah?”
I nod. “I know a woman who makes some mean pierogis.”
“We never did try Polish cuisine.”
I hold my friend’s hand in silence while listening to the buzz of activity outside the room. The world around us spins, but Anton and I are still. And finally, right where we ought to be.