Chapter 23
“Un autre s’il vous plait.” I gestured towards my empty glass for the bartender. She blushed beautifully as I watched her work, creating a mesmerising gold and black cocktail, that matched my dress.
“Sur la maison. On the house,” she repeated in English when she saw my puzzled gaze.
I thanked her with a dazzling smile. It wasn’t fair of me to lead her on like this, but I needed a distraction from my thundering heart.
I looked around the extravagant room, taking another sip of my virgin drink.
It was an effort to keep my expression bored, careful not to make eye contact with the hungry faces that watched me as I searched again.
I’ve been sitting at the bar of this high-end Persian lounge for almost half an hour.
The only thing keeping the tremble from my fingers was the fact that Grayson, Hunter and Gemma were sitting outside the building in an unmarked van, watching me on the security cameras.
Grayson and I had fought for days about me coming here, helping him.
And I’d been losing, slowly but surely, until I decided to change tactics.
He’d been sitting on the edge of the bed, his hair messy from all the times he’d pulled his fingers through it in frustration, but his face was hard, determined.
“There is no fucking way, Ava,” he repeated the words for the millionth time.
I took a calming breath and took the photo from the secret compartment in the bedside table, then climbed onto his lap, straddling him.
Winning at a game of wills with Grayson was impossible.
He snaked his arms around me, holding me so tightly to him, it almost unbruised my heart.
My hand ran over his hard chest and around his neck, my fingers feeling the tension fall from his shoulders.
I held the picture up between us for him to see.
He slowly and reluctantly turned his head to look at it, his jaw clenching and unclenching.
“The night I found this photo in the drawer, I didn’t know who they were, but I made a vow to this woman and little girl that I would get justice for them.
” I took his face in my hands. “This is my fight too. Let me keep that promise, Grayson. Let me see it through. For you, but most of all for them. For Dianna and Abby.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his cheek into my hand. My soul shattered as I watched a tear fall from the corner of his eye. My strong, ferocious Grayson. My broken Grayson.
“It’s been a whole decade since you started this, Gray. You’ve never been this close. Let’s finish it. So they can rest in peace.”
“You cannot expect me to send you into that viper’s den. You don’t know the real Anderson. You don’t yet understand the depravity that…” He shook his head, sounding ragged and oh so tired. “I cannot lose you too.”
“You won’t.” I kissed him softly. “Because you’ll be there. In the shadows. My guardian devil. The monster other monsters fear.”
His lips quirked up the slightest bit.
“You’re not a helpless, ten-year-old boy anymore, Grayson. You can protect me. I know you will. Besides, I already know everything will go smoothly. My gut tells me so. You should trust my gut.”
Grayson sighed. “You will be my death, brave witch.” He buried his face in my neck, inhaling deeply.
I knew then that I was winning. The scales finally tipped in my favour. My body shuddered as his lips brushed against my skin. I pulled back, lifting the shirt over my head. “Then I’ll make it a sweet death, Gray.”
I shifted involuntarily on the barstool as the memory of what had happened next, flushed hot through me.
That was three weeks ago, and we’ve had many inseparable nights since.
In the relatively short amount of time that I’ve known him, Grayson had become the centre of my universe.
I had never been so completely and utterly absorbed with another human being.
So much so, that I had torn myself from his grip and was about to seduce a killer. For him.
Charles was more than a killer, I’d found out.
He was the head of a very old, very brutal crime family.
One that had escaped public notice for three generations, preferring to work in the safety and leniency of the shadows.
Gemma had shown me the very long list of misdeeds that Charles and his people had done, witnessed by her, Hunter or Grayson, while surveiling them.
The very reason Grayson and Gemma had met was because of Charles’s business dealings.
It was enough to solidify my decision. Charles was a monster, and he had to be stopped.
I felt him before I heard him.
“Ava?”
Needles crept up my spine at that voice, and I spun around. It wasn’t difficult to change the fear into shock spreading over my face.
Charles Anderson was standing a few steps from me, dressed in a tux, his face also adorned in shock. The pretty young woman on his arm was alarmed by his reaction, her big brown eyes bouncing nervously from me to him.
“Oh, gods. Charles,” I said his name breathlessly, then pivoted back to the bar, as if coming to my senses, grabbed my clutch off the counter and tried to make a run for the exit.
He quickly stepped forward, blocking me as planned, and I did my best to look like a deer caught in headlights.
“Ava,” he said again, as if testing reality. “You’re alive.” His eyes still swam in a mixture of confusion and shock.
I shook my head, as if dazed by the sight of him myself. “Please don’t tell anyone. Please, Mr. Anderson,” I begged in what I hoped was a panicked voice.
He took another unsteady step forward and clamped both his hands around my shoulders. There was no need to fake my recoil as I tried to step away from his grip, but he held firm. I had forgotten how strong his aftershave smelled.
“How are you here? You were kidnapped!” he whisper-yelled at me, then looked around the room to see if we were attracting any attention. We were, so he straightened a bit, but didn’t let go of me, afraid that I might run.
“I… I…” I stammered, but he gripped my wrist tightly and turned from me.
“Wesley, take Charlotte home,” he addressed a large man in a black suit that was eyeing me suspiciously. I hadn’t noticed him before, but I knew all about him. Wesley was Charles’s head of security, according to the books, but he was really a Capo, charged with Charles’s safety.
Charles turned to the girl, whose mouth was hanging open in disbelief.
“My apologies, Charlotte. I will make it up to you, sweetheart. Go with Wesley.” He closed the distance to her with me in tow and kissed her on the cheek while she flashed me a despising glare.
I was afraid that she would cause a scene, but it seemed that she knew better.
After she’d stomped through the large golden doors, Charles turned to me, showing me to a half-hidden leather couch in the back of the lounge.
“You are going to tell me everything, young lady,” he hissed, as he dragged me across the floor.
My heart was racing. Had I not gotten to know the real Charles, I would have been glad to see him. But now that I had seen behind the mask, the masquerade, there was no unseeing it. This man was a monster.
I took a few steadying breaths as we dropped onto the couch, his knee touching mine as we sat facing each other. He still hadn’t let go of my wrist, which was shaking in anticipation. Was this going to work? Could I go through with it?
I thought of Grayson outside. He must be squirming in his seat.
“How the hell are you here, Ava?” Charles still looked shocked. Like he had seen a ghost. Maybe he had already thought me dead. Maybe the men he had searching for me were looking for a body.
“I… I needed someplace to lie low. And you know I always wanted to see Paris. So…” I watched his face wearily.
“Were you in on it? The bank robbery?” He shook his head, as if answering himself. He couldn’t believe that I would be.
“No. I wasn’t. I was taken, but...” I shook my head and covered my face.
“Please, Mr. Anderson, you cannot let anyone know I’m here.
I will be in so much trouble. They’ll find the gold and think…
” I quickly took hold of his hands, hoping I looked desperate, knowing there was a trace of fear on my face also.
“You cannot tell anyone you saw me, please.”
Charles shook his head in confusion but gripped my hands tightly. “Tell me everything. Start from the beginning, Ava. What happened at the bank?”
I nodded slowly, trying to gather my thoughts.
When I’d decided to do this, I knew it would be difficult, but it was terrifying having him so close.
I couldn’t see the calloused but cultured businessman anymore.
Now I could only see the depravity sweating from every one of his pores.
The niggling unease I always had around him, but quickly brushed off, was now full-blown fear.
Images of all the things he had done flashed through my mind, always circling back to that photo of Grayson’s mother and sister.
I had to get a grip, reel in my emotions. Grayson’s Rule Number Four—Don’t let the fear or adrenaline overpower you. If you keep control of your body, you keep your wits.
I had to do this for Grayson. He was counting on me, and I would rather die than let him down.
“It was terrifying. I was so scared.” I sank back into the couch, letting my shoulders slump.
“There were three of them, dressed in complete black. They decided to take me with them. The police were close, and they were scared. They needed leverage in case they couldn’t make it out in time.
” I looked up to see if he believed me. Grayson and I decided that staying close to the truth would be the best option.
Charles was many things, but dumb he was not.
He had always had a knack for spotting a lie.
Something that frustrated Shaun to no end.
He did believe me, concern was in his eyes.
Was it true concern? Was he capable of feeling something like that for another human being?
“They drove around in a van for a few days. I think they were trying to confuse me. It worked. I still don’t know where they held me.
” I shuddered. Not at my lie, but his thumb that had started to caress the back of my hand. Intended to comfort me.
“What happened then? Did they hurt you?”
I shook my head. “Yes. No.” I sighed. “They held me in a room, tied me to a bed. It was awful.” I swallowed at the memory.
It had been awful. “But one of them, the leader, he…” I stammered, “he started to like me. Their plan was to kill me, but he couldn’t go through with it. He wouldn’t let the others do—”
“Did he touch you, Ava?” Charles interrupted. There was a sort of possessiveness in the way he said it. Not so much concern for me, but that someone had taken something that was his. Grayson was right. Charles did view me as his possession.
I shook my head, looking down to hide the lie.
He had touched me. Every part of me. “No, he wanted me to like him too, so he wouldn’t do anything like that.
That’s how I convinced him to let me go.
I pretended to like him too. Got him to give me some of his gold and promised that I would return to him when the dust settled. ”
“He gave you gold?” There was a crease between his eyes.
I nodded, still looking at our hands. “The gold they stole from the bank. He gave me money and six bars.”
He let out a breath. “Wow, Ava, that’s…”
“Insane,” I finished his sentence. “It’s absolutely insane.”
He was staring at me for a while, making me want to get up and run, but I held still.
I tried not to squirm. “Why are you here? Why haven’t you gone back to your parents?
To that friend of yours?” His eyes glided over my body, my dress.
“Are you meeting him here?” He looked around the lounge, searching the room.
“Oh, gods no!” I exclaimed and hoped it sounded real.
“I’m hiding. From him, and also… I don’t know,” I sighed.
“When he let me go, I bought a crappy car and went straight home. To my parents’ house.
But when I got there, I couldn’t make myself get out of the car.
I don’t know, Mr. Anderson, I can’t explain it.
I couldn’t go back to that life. It wasn’t a life.
I wasn’t living. I just… existed. Did what everyone expected of me.
Was the good, faithful daughter. I couldn’t do it anymore.
No one knew I was still alive. I had a chance to break free, so I took it.
I got my passport, took the money and the gold and ran.
Am I crazy, Mr. Anderson? There’s something wrong with me, right?
” I looked up to meet his gaze, looking to see what he made of my story, my babbling.
He had a small, knowing smile. “I always knew there was more to you. That you couldn’t possibly be happy with your… lacklustre life.”
Of course, my life seemed lacklustre to him.
To all of them, it seemed. But Charles was projecting.
He didn’t want me to be content with my life, because then I wouldn’t possibly fit into his.
And I could see it now. The way he looked at me.
How he struggled to keep his eyes from drifting to my breasts.
He wanted me. Grayson had been right. Of course, he was right. He was never wrong.
“And please. Call me Charles.”
I smiled warmly at him, hoping I could muster a blush, but it wouldn’t come—a thing that was so common around Grayson.
So instead, I inched a bit forward, leaning into him, smiling down at my lap.
It would have the same effect. “I won’t lie, Charles,” I said his name with a small, tentative smile.
“It’s good to see a familiar face. And I’m glad it’s yours.
I’ve been so lost, and you’ve always been so understanding. ”
He brought one of my hands up and kissed it. “I’m just glad you are okay. I’ve been worried sick.”
“You have?” I blinked.
“Of course, my dear. You know you’ve always had a special place in my heart. My son was an idiot for letting you get away.”
I smiled down at our hands and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. The definition of a blushing maiden.
“Have dinner with me. I want to know everything of your ordeal. In detail.”