Chapter 75 Ethan #2
She swallows. “Hayes said there were others.”
That lands over the whole group like another shockwave.
Aaron’s grin vanishes.
Cal curses softly.
Jonah looks down at the tablet in his hands like he can already see the next nightmare buried inside it.
Ronan’s voice turns flat. “Then we find them too.”
Ava looks at him for a long second, then nods.
But I know what that sentence cost her.
Hayes is dead, and still the shadow of what he built might not be gone.
That realization is going to hit her later.
Hard.
It’s going to hit me too.
The bird comes in low over the clearing.
Rotor wash whips smoke and leaves and dust around us.
A medic starts guiding Ava toward it, but this time I get up and go with her.
No one tries to stop me.
No one’s stupid enough for that.
Inside the helicopter, the noise swallows everything again. Ava sits beside me, strapped in, shoulders stiff, hands clenched in her lap. For the first few minutes she says nothing.
Neither do I.
I just take one of her hands and hold it.
Halfway through the flight, I feel the first tremor go through her.
Then another.
Not cold.
Not physical weakness.
Delayed shock.
I turn toward her. “Ava.”
She shakes her head.
Bad sign.
I lean closer. “Look at me.”
This time she does.
And I see it.
The wall cracking.
Her lips part like she means to speak, but nothing comes out.
Then suddenly her whole face folds.
Not dramatic.
Not loud.
Worse.
Silent.
Like the force of holding herself together is just gone.
I unclip one side of her harness and pull her into me before she can fight it.
She comes hard.
Curled tight against my chest, shaking so badly her teeth nearly chatter.
No tears at first.
Just these raw, broken breaths she can’t seem to catch.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur into her hair. “I’ve got you.”
Her fingers twist into my shirt.
“He’s dead,” she whispers.
“Yeah.”
“I killed him.”
I pull back enough to look at her. “No. He chose his ending.”
“I helped.”
“Yes.”
She stares at me, wrecked and fierce and scared of what that makes her.
I cup her face. “He tortured you. He hunted you. He would’ve done it again. Do not turn his death into your guilt.”
Her eyes flood then.
The tears come fast and helpless.
I wipe them away as they fall, even though it’s useless because more keep coming.
“I wanted him dead,” she chokes out. “I wanted it so much.”
I nod once. “I know.”
“What does that say about me?”
The answer comes out of me without thought.
“It says you survived.”
That breaks her all over again.
She buries her face against my neck, and I just hold her while the helicopter pounds through the sky toward safety.
Not fixed.
Not healed.
But safe for this moment.
And maybe that’s enough for now.
By the time we reach the safehouse, she’s wrung out completely.
Quiet.
Boneless.
Spent.
I carry her inside.
She doesn’t protest.
That alone tells me how far gone she is.
The hallway blurs around us—medical team, secure doors, voices updating Ronan, someone taking my weapon, someone else asking about my side—but none of it matters.
The only thing I care about is getting her behind a locked door where she can finally fall apart in peace.
Inside the room, I set her gently on the bed.
She looks up at me with swollen eyes and a face I already know is going to wreck me for the rest of my life.
“You should get your side looked at again.”
“I will.”
“That means you won’t.”
“It means after I know you’re okay.”
Her mouth trembles.
God.
I crouch in front of her and take her hands.
“You don’t have to be strong right now.”
That does it.
Her chin crumples.
A tiny, broken sound escapes her.
And then she leans forward into me, and I gather her up off the bed and hold her while the last of the adrenaline finally leaves her body.
She cries into my shoulder.
Not neat tears.
Not pretty ones.
Deep ones.
The kind dragged up from years underground.
I sit with her on the floor beside the bed and let her cry until she has nothing left.
When it finally eases, she stays curled in my lap, breathing unevenly.
My side throbs.
My head is pounding.
I don’t care.
Her voice comes out rough and small. “What if I don’t know how to be okay after this?”
I press my lips to her temple. “Then we figure it out together.”
She turns her face just enough to look at me. “Together?”
“Yeah.”
Emotion flickers over her face again.
Hope maybe.
Fear too.
Like together is the thing she wants most and trusts least.
I brush hair away from her damp cheek. “You’re not doing any of this alone again.”
She studies me for a long time.
Then, very softly, “You mean that.”
“With everything I have.”
“When my memory came back, and I realized eight years had passed, I was so scared because I thought you might have married someone else. I was so scared that we would never be together again. That scared me more than anything.”
A tear slips free again.
I catch it with my thumb.
“I have only loved one woman in my life, and that woman is you.”
I hold her in my arms while she tries to control her emotions.
Outside the room, the world is still moving. Ronan is likely already building the next hunt. Jonah is probably tearing through the remnants of Hayes’s network. Aaron and Cal are no doubt making inappropriate jokes in a hallway somewhere because none of us know how to survive without them.
But in here?
In here the war has gone quiet for one precious minute.
And Ava is in my arms.
Alive.
Free.
Mine if she wants to be.
I rest my forehead against hers.
“Sleep,” I murmur.
She shakes her head slightly. “Don’t leave.”
I don’t even breathe before answering.
“I won’t.”
And this time, there is no enemy in the walls.
No command in her blood.
No ghost standing between us.
Just the woman I thought I lost.
And the life I am starting to believe we might still get.