Chapter 38 Ava
Chapter thirty-eight
Ava
My eyelids flutter open, but I can’t see much—just blurred shapes, dark walls, maybe a ceiling. My head pounds like it’s been stuffed with cotton and filled with bricks at the same time. My mouth is dry. My tongue feels too big. I try to swallow. I can’t.
I blink hard. Once. Twice. The blur sharpens into a flickering overhead bulb, its buzz slicing through my skull. Cold. The floor beneath me is cold. Concrete? My shoulder screams when I try to shift. I’m lying on my side, one arm twisted under me, completely numb.
Panic flickers at the edges of my brain—dull at first, then sharper.
Where am I?
The last thing I remember is being in my office, about to leave with the papers I needed to work from home.
Then… the hand. The one that came out of nowhere.
The crackle of calloused skin against my face.
The stench—God, the smell of old tobacco and sweat.
And the sting in my neck. I remember dropping the papers.
I remember trying to scream, but breathing nothing but his hand.
Then—nothing. Like someone turned off the lights inside my brain.
Now I’m here. Somewhere.
Not anywhere I know.
I inhale too fast and cough. The air is damp, metallic, like rust and mold. My arms are sluggish, but I move one—slowly, painfully. My fingers brush concrete. Chains?
No. No, not chains. A metal pole, maybe. I try to sit up, but the nausea slams into me like a wave. I drop back down.
My heart is pounding.
I was taken. I know it. Someone took me.
I force myself to breathe—shallow, slow. Focus. Think. But all I hear is the thrum of my pulse in my ears and the faint creak of something above me.
Footsteps?
I’m not alone.
There—again. That sound. Slow, deliberate. Heavy boots on concrete. They’re close.
I freeze, muscles locking up, breath caught somewhere between lungs and throat. The bulb overhead swings slightly from the ceiling, its flickering light twitching shadows across the room. The footsteps grow louder. Closer. Not rushed—measured. Calm.
They know I’m awake.
I tense as they approach, heart hammering. I try to make myself as small as possible on the bed, curling inward, pressing my back into the cold metal frame. There’s nowhere to hide, but I press against the edge anyway, willing myself to disappear into the shadows.
The bulb hums above me, casting a sickly yellow glow. It flickers again. The room slowly reveals itself.
No—it’s not a room.
It 's like a cell.
The walls are concrete, cracked in places, stained in others.
Dampness clings to everything. The corners curl with what might be mold, or something older.
There’s a smell—of decay and neglect, of air that hasn’t moved in years.
There’s a small window on one side of the room, with the glass broken in one corner and just as dirty as the rest of the room. So dirty that daylight barely gets in.
The bed beneath me is little more than a metal frame with a thin, sagging mattress that feels damp and worn.
The sheet draped over it is threadbare and stained, barely holding together.
The pillow is flat and rough, the kind that looks like it’s been used by too many before me—too many who never left.
But what really turns my stomach is in the corner.
A toilet. Too clean compared to the rest of the room, like it’s the only thing someone bothered to scrub. Above it, a chipped sink, bolted to the wall. But no mirror. Just bare, cracked cinderblock where my reflection should be.
No face. No identity. Just blank stone.
Whoever brought me here didn’t just want to take me.This isn’t a holding cell. It’s a cage. A long-term one.
I shift again, slower this time, and that’s when I feel it—a hard tug at my ankle. I glance down. There’s a shackle around my right leg, cold against my skin, a chain bolted to the wall. Not long, maybe just enough to reach the bed and the toilet.
I swallow the panic rising in my throat.
The door creaks open.
Light spills in behind a figure—tall, broad. A silhouette in the frame. The stench hits first: stale tobacco, sweat, something else. Something human and wrong.
He steps in. Calm. Like he’s done this before.
The light catches his face, and my heart drops.
Henry.
The man from that terrible date. The one I told Elijah about—the night that started everything between us. The one I thought I’d never see again.
His voice is low, rough, like gravel and rot when he says, “Took you long enough.”
I press harder into the wall. My heart’s trying to escape my chest.
“Why am I here? What do you want from me?” I manage, my voice cracked and small.
He takes a few more steps, the door easing shut behind him with a final, heavy click. The bulb flickers again, catching the scar slicing across his brow, the gray stubble on his jaw, and those cold eyes that don’t blink enough.
I don’t remember that scar. Did he have it that night?
“You ask a lot of questions,” he says, crouching just out of reach. “For someone who should be grateful she’s still breathing.”
I swallow hard, forcing myself to think past the fear.
Elijah. Mia. They’ll notice I’m gone. Mia will see the empty office. Elijah will know. They’ll look for me.
Elijah will come.
“You’re going to do something for me, Ava.”
The sound of my name in his mouth makes my skin crawl.
“And if I don’t?” I whisper.
He tilts his head, a smile barely there.
“Then this little room will start to feel like home.”
And that's when I realize, deep inside, this isn’t the beginning.
My stomach flips. I want to scream, but I don’t. Not yet. Not while he’s this calm. That’s what he wants—fear, begging, a scene he can control.
“I need you to behave,” he says. “Be a good girl, and everything’ll be fine. Nobody has to get hurt.”
I freeze.
Something sharp and primal rises in my chest.
“Don’t call me that,” I say through clenched teeth. He laughs, deep and slow, like I just told the punchline of a joke only he understands.
“Oh, I’ve seen what a good girl you were for Elijah,” he says, eyes narrowing with something darker. “So obedient. So quick to please. Such a good little whore.”
My stomach churns.
“I can make you be one for me, too. If you know what’s good for you. If not… well, let’s just say that your lover boy and your friends will be the ones who suffer the consequences”
The threat hits like a slap, cold and disorienting.
“You stay away from them,” I hiss, the fear morphing into something harder. “You don’t touch him or my friends.”
Henry just smiles again—casual, patient, like he has all the time in the world. Like he already owns it.
“Then do what you’re told.”
For a second, he just watches me. I think he’s waiting—for me to break. But I don’t. I won’t. Not for him.
He walks to the door, heavy boots scraping the concrete.
And just before he leaves, he says, “Think about what kind of girl you want to be in here, Ava. It’ll go easier if you make the right choice.”
The door clicks shut behind him, louder than it should be. Final.
I sit perfectly still, not blinking, not breathing. This is not a test.
This is not a mistake. This is what he planned.
But I am not the girl he thinks I am. Not anymore.
Elijah
It took me less than fifteen minutes to reach Kingston Security. Kade had told me to head there—where they have the tech and the team ready to coordinate the rescue as soon as the tracker pings again.
On the way, I called Asher and asked him to keep an eye on Mia. The last thing we need is for something to happen to her too.
Sebastian and Gabriel are on their way as well, even though I told them to stay at their offices. They're coming anyway. And honestly, I’m grateful beyond words. I don’t know what I’d do without them right now.
The moment I stepped into Kade's office, they show me who they believe is behind Ava’s disappearance. To my shock, it's the same guy she had that awful date with.
“We’ve got something,” Kade says, spinning his laptop toward me. “It’s him. Henry Barrett. That’s your guy."
I’d never even considered him a possibility—and I’m sure Ava hadn’t, either. But what I still can’t wrap my head around is why. They barely exchanged a handful of texts and had one awkward dinner. A few days later, Ava deleted the app, and we both forgot he existed.
Maybe that was exactly how he slipped under the radar: we never imagined he could be the one behind the notes—not even when they started showing up right after she bolted from her car that night.
I step in close. His DMV photo stares back — bland, forgettable. But I remember him now.
Kai speaks next, scrolling through documents. “Worked IT at a failing startup. Let go of last year. Drug history—meth, benzos, maybe harder stuff. No convictions, but a couple of court-mandated treatments.”
“Here,” Keller says. “Protection order filed by an ex-girlfriend. 2019. Emotional abuse, threats. She dropped the charges before the case went to trial.”
I don’t even feel my jaw tighten anymore. It’s been clenched since I realized she was gone.
Kaleb walks in, holding a thin red file.
“He bought burner phones,” Kaleb says. “Cash, prepaid. We pulled store security footage from one of the gift deliveries. He wore gloves, hoodie, but same shoes and gait pattern as the alley footage behind Ava’s shop.”
I look up.
“And?”
“We ran facial recognition. It’s a 94% match.”
That’s enough for me.
“He has her,” I say, low and cold.
Kai looks at the clock. “Thirty minutes until the next ping. If he stays in one place, we’ll have her exact location.”
I exhale once. “If he hurt her in any way, I’ll fucking end him.”