Chapter Twenty-Two
Ava
I am not snooping.
That’s the lie I cling to while pacing the kitchen for the third time, searching for the grocery receipt that absolutely existed when I unpacked the bags.
Violet left for school an hour ago, the fire crackles softly, and my brain refuses to settle.
I check behind the toaster. Inside the drawer. Under the fruit bowl. Nothing.
Frustration pushes heat into my chest. Fine. Maybe I left it somewhere else.
Maybe the workshop.
Jax is in the shower—steam hissing faintly down the hall—so I take my chance. The door to the workshop yields easily, unlocking a room built of order and precision. Everything has a place. Tools hung in perfect alignment. Workbench spotless. No clutter—just intention.
Except for the thin black binder shoved tight against the underside of a shelf, its corner poking out like an invitation.
I hesitate.
Then I pull it free.
Inside are neatly organized pages of printed articles—old headlines, carefully trimmed and taped.
UNSTOPPABLE: Tech Prodigy Jackson Hale Debuts Crisis-Response Innovation
A smiling, clean-shaven version of him onstage with a laser pointer in hand, introducing a snow-sensor technology designed to save lives.
My stomach tightens.
Another article:
TRAGEDY IN SEATTLE — Fiancée of Tech Innovator Killed in Multi-Car Collision
Emily Turner, CFO of his company, pregnant at the time. Never made it to the hospital.
A photo shows her laughing beside him—radiant, expectant.
My fingers tremble as I turn to the next page.
brILLIANT MIND LOST — Jackson Hale Presumed Dead After Mountain Crash. No Body Recovered. Investigation Ongoing.
The date. The location. The fresh grief stamped into every paragraph.
He was gone. Loved. Mourned. Headlines screamed his loss to the world.
But he didn’t die. He ran.
The articles blur as tears crowd my vision. The ache inside me shifts—fear mixing with betrayal, compassion tangled with shock.
Carefully, I return the binder and shut the cabinet.
The room feels smaller now, thick with secrets. I escape to the living room and practically collapse at the table, phone in hand before I can think better of it.
This time I type Jackson Hale into the search bar. A former alias? A legal one?
The loading bar spins.
Then article after article overwhelms the screen:
Jackson Hale — Tech Visionary Dies at 36. Innovation Prodigy Lost in Tragic Crash. Questions Remain: Where Is the Body?
My breath catches.
The same man. Same eyes. Same hands. Same brilliance. Different name.
A father-to-be whose family was ripped away. A genius whose invention saved lives. A public figure expected to shoulder the world’s admiration—and a grieving man who let himself vanish into a mountain to bury what was left of him.
Suddenly every odd thing about him rearranges itself into a chilling picture.
The way he flinches from a camera lens, as if he might be dragged back into the spotlight by a single photograph.
The nightmares that tear the air from his lungs at night.
The security system in this cabin, too advanced to be called a hobby.
The panic that takes him by the throat whenever anything starts to feel like home.
He didn’t just hide.
He vanished into the mountains and tried to bury the man he used to be.
My pulse trips into a sprint. Because if he can fake his death… what else can he do? What is he running from? Who is he running from? And what does that mean for Violet and me sleeping under his roof?
I turn off the screen with shaking fingers, sliding the phone face-down as though that might trap the truth inside. My palms are damp. My throat tightens. I don’t know whether to scream or run or lock the door behind me.
The shower shuts off.
Water drips through the pipes, each sound sharp as a countdown. Footsteps approach, slow and heavy.
Jax appears in the doorway, dressed in a worn thermal shirt and sweats, hair damp and pushed back from his forehead, a towel slung loosely around his neck. Steam-soft skin. Bare feet. He pauses the second he sees me.
“Hey,” he murmurs, voice careful, like he’s approaching a wounded animal. “You okay?”
I stare at him. At the man who is both stranger and savior. Both dead and horribly alive. Both the person who saved my daughter… and someone whose past might swallow us whole.
Do I know him at all? Have I ever?
I nod. Because lying is easier than opening the floodgate. Because the truth is a knife I’m not sure how to hold without cutting us both.
His gaze lingers—suspicion sharpening—but then he turns toward the kitchen, unaware that every step he takes now echoes with a different meaning.
I rise slowly from the chair, the phone still clutched in my hand like a lifeline.
“We need to talk,” I say.
The words fall into the room like a crack in the ice.
He stops. Doesn’t turn.
The silence between us isn’t soft anymore.
It’s a storm.