12. Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Aaron
T he flowers say it all.
Someone wanted her to end up in protective custody. This knowledge has me on my feet and walking toward the kitchen in about three seconds. Edward is somehow behind this. He did this. I know he did, and I want to know why one of the only people I have trusted in years fucked me and my woman over like this.
“Noah!” Ashley calls from behind me and that name, my real name , the name she knows me as, but I can no longer use, hits ten nerves.
I lied to her.
She’s going to struggle to get by that, but I’m going to make it easier. I’m going to get us the answers we need to move on. I enter the kitchen and move the table. “What are you doing?”
I glance up to find Ashley in the doorway, once again dressed. “Getting answers.”
“No,” she says, running forward to stand on top of the basement door. “Right now, you’re angry and emotional. That’s not the time to deal with this.”
Angry and emotional.
I don’t get angry and emotional, at least not when it comes to business, and Edward was always business. He taught me that. No friends. Only enemies. That’s what being an agent is all about. That’s how you survive. That’s how I make sure Ashley survives. I pull one of my guns and hand it to her, pressing it into her palm. “I’m not going to shut the door. Shoot anyone who comes into the cabin and shout for me.”
Her eyes go wide. “How would anyone get in here in this storm?”
I stroke her face. “I’m not emotional or angry, but when I’m down there, and you’re up here, I’m paranoid as fuck. I’ll leave the door open. Stay right here where I can get to you and shout out if you need me.” I move to the stairs. “ Don’t come down here .” I don’t give her time to reply. I need those damn answers.
Two steps down, I pull my other weapon because, yes, Edward is tied up and knocked out, but I take nothing for granted. I reach the basement, scanning the area, the crates to my left and right are filled with an excess of weapons. Edward is as I left him, in a corner on the floor, chained to a bar, his body slouched over. I call upstairs. “Ashley!”
“Yes? I’m here.”
Relief washes over me that I didn’t realize how damn much I needed to feel. There is unease in me, a sense of more happening than I know, right here in this moment. “Everything okay up there?”
“Yes. Everything okay down there?”
“Yes. Stay at the door, keep the gun ready. Watch your surroundings.”
“I am. I will.”
She’s brave. She’s strong. She’s capable of more than she realizes, but I see it. I have always seen that in her. I have always been drawn to that in her. Holstering my weapon, I walk past a row of cabinets and stop at the desk next to them where I pull on the gloves I left there earlier. Next, I open a drawer and pull out a filled syringe that will shoot adrenaline into Edward and wake his ass up. Easing closer to Edward, I nudge him with my foot, but he doesn’t move. I repeat, and fuck, he’s stiff. I kneel down and check for a pulse, grimacing as I do. He’s dead. I turn him over, and the foam at his mouth tells me all I need to know. He drugged himself. I was right. He came here with a death wish. Why the fuck did this man, who was all about control, have a death wish?
I stand up and scrub my jaw. What did he know that he didn’t want me to know? And why the fuck come here if that were the case? I’d like to think that this is it. That he was our only enemy. That he’s dead, and it’s over, but that doesn’t feel right.
“Aaron?!”
“I’m fine, baby,” I call out. “Stay where you are.”
We’re sitting ducks here, but we can’t leave until this blizzard over. According to the forecasts, that’s another six hours. I scan the basement and then start a second search to backup the one I performed earlier, hoping I’ve missed something, but I haven’t. There’s nothing here that tells me anything helpful. I pull off the gloves and toss them on the ground. I’m burning this place to the ground when I leave. The gloves are irrelevant.
Ashley waits anxiously for me at the top level. “That was fast. You didn’t wake him up?”
“He took poison,” I say, taking the gun from her hands and shoving it in my waistband. “He’s dead.” I shut the basement door.
She gasps and covers her mouth. “Oh my God. You were right. He had a death wish.”
I was right, and yet, all of this feels really damn wrong. I pull the table into place. “Let’s eat and then try to get some rest.”
“Rest? How do we rest with a dead man downstairs?”
“With the guns by our sides in the living room by the fireplace.” I turn on the oven and walk to the freezer, grabbing the pizza. “Pizza and sleep, baby. We need to be fresh when the storm ends.”
She sighs and opens a cabinet, digging around. “No cookie sheet. So I guess we eat frozen pizza baked on the rack and pretend we might not die at any moment, right?” I open the box, and she grimaces. “Seriously? Frozen pepperoni pizza and a dead man in one night? I can’t take it.”
I laugh. God, I love this woman. “I promise to kiss it and make it better.”
“The pizza or me?”
“You, baby. Always you. Dig around and try to find us some extra blankets and pillows, will you?”
“You think you can handle that pizza on your own?”
I wink. “I might eat it on my own if you leave me alone too long, and this is one lonely pizza.”
“Luckily, it’s still frozen. You won’t eat it that way.”
“Want to bet on that? I’m fucking starving. You do remember how much I can eat, right?”
Her eyes soften, emotions flickering in their depths. “Yeah, I remember. I remember everything.” She turns away before I can respond and rushes into the living room. I sigh and shove my hands on the counter. Everything is a loaded word. Everything includes lies and a stupid fucking marriage proposal that should have waited, but I can’t fix any of this until I ensure she’s safe.
I place the pizza in the oven and wait for Ashley’s return. When that doesn’t happen, I don’t push her. I give her room to breathe on her own when what I want is for her to walk back into this room and tell me she gets it, that she understands everything, but that doesn’t happen. When the damn pizza is done, I pull it from the oven, silently vowing to make this cardboard dinner up to her, right along with everything else. I grab the food and two bottles of water before heading to the living room.
Ashley is on the couch, facing the fireplace, her gun in front of her on the table as the wind whistles angrily outside the cabin. She chose to stay here rather than help me in the kitchen. That’s not her. That’s not us, but that’s the problem, I decide, thinking about that interaction in the kitchen. She’s afraid to relax into us, and how can I expect her to here and now?
I sit the pizza down on the table next to her and eye the bed of blankets and pillows she’s made for us in front of the fireplace, but it’s her that I’m worried about. “You okay?”
“Are you?”
In other words, no, but she’s not a complainer. “Not until you are, baby.” I don’t wait for her reply. I load up the fireplace with more wood before walking to the window, eyeing the perimeter and high level of snow now blocking the door. “No one can get in now, that’s for damn sure,” I say, but what I don’t add is that we can’t get out either. We’re trapped, and being trapped is dangerous.
I rejoin her, and we eat, drink, and settle on the floor, where I set my gun on one side of me, and pull her close, under my arm, on the other side. To my relief, Ashley curls into me, wrapping her arms around me. I have everything I need to rest. Her. My gun. My vow to shoot anyone who comes in that door first and ask questions later.