Chapter 13
Ava
“Don’t freak out,” Liam said to Owen as we walked into the hospital room, the doctors finally done with patching him up.
Owen took one look at me, eyes going wide, then launched himself upward, pulling at the pipes around him to get free. His IV line sprang free from his arm, a splatter of blood arching through the air.
Liam pushed him back onto the bed. “I said, don’t freak out,” he grunted with the effort of keeping Owen down.
“How the fuck did he get to her? How did he get past fifty fucking FBI and Interpol agents? How were you not able to keep one woman safe? Jesus, fuck!” Owen pushed Liam backwards, then flinched, clutching his shoulder.
I felt like turning around and running away. I’ve had enough of violent men to last me a lifetime. But I walked forward. I couldn’t let Liam take the blame.
“It’s my fault. I wandered where I wasn’t supposed to. But I’m fine.” My voice sounded lifeless.
But that’s what I was. Lifeless. Like a body kept going by machines and ventilators. The body still there, but soulless. Nothing left inside that makes it a person.
“You’re not fine, Ava. God, look at you!” Owen glared at the cuts on my neck. There were probably mascara runs all over my face. My hair must have been a mess. And my eyes probably looked dead.
“Honey?” A nurse slowly stepped inside the room, eyeing me worriedly. “I saw you walking in here. Will you let me take a look at that?” She pointed at my neck, talking to me like I was a frightened animal caught in a snare.
“That would be great, thank you,” Liam answered for me. “It’s superficial. I already checked.”
“She doesn’t leave this room,” Owen boomed angrily. “Where the fuck is my gun?” He yanked at the bedside table, throwing things out of the drawer, searching for it.
“No guns allowed in this hospital, Mister,” the nurse glowered at Owen as she grabbed a trolley from outside the door and ushered me to sit on his bed.
She inspected my neck, then cleaned it. Owen’s hand wrapped around mine as I flinched at the sting.
The nurse luckily didn’t ask any questions, only patted my shoulder and gave me a sympathetic smile, then reinserted Owen’s IV-line before she left.
“I have to go. I have some loose ends to tie up,” Liam said, his jaw clenching as his eyes lingered on my neck before he disappeared out of the room.
I turned to Owen, and we just stared at each other for a moment.
“Are you okay?” he whispered, his eyes looking pained.
Tears welled and I didn’t have the strength to stop them and pretend. I wasn’t. Gods, I wasn’t okay.
I shook my head, my chin trembling.
Owen pulled me down onto the bed with him, wrapping his arms tightly around me.
And I wished I could feel comfort from it, but all I felt was the void in my chest deepening as Grayson’s words echoed through me.
I turned the wood carving he had made for me, over and over in my pocket until my fingers felt numb.
The Aegis pin was gone. I had searched through the entire art installation, thinking it might have fallen, but it was nowhere to be found.
Grayson must have stolen it out of my pocket without me even feeling it. Like the heartless thief he was.
“What did he say to you? He whispered something to you. What was it?” I asked after a while.
“Nothing,” Owen answered, his body stiffening beside me.
“Tell me, Owen,” I said firmly.
He sighed. “Then I’ll just wait till she comes running up here in about three minutes and thirty seconds to put a bullet through both of your heads…
And you say I don’t know her,” Owen recited in a flat tone, shifting uncomfortably.
“That’s what he said. And I’ve never been so scared in my life.
Because I knew he was right. I knew you’d come running.
And you came running through the agents almost exactly three and a half minutes later.
” He snorted, shaking his head, watching his balled-up hand. “What did he say to you?”
I was quiet for a moment, finding the courage to say it out loud without shattering again. “In a nutshell, that I’m stupid and pathetic for thinking he ever loved me, and that I should get a life because he’s tired of me chasing him.”
Owen didn’t respond for a while, then his voice broke as he said, “I should have left you alone. You were safe in Bentley Cove.”
“But you’re not safe, Owen. You understand that Grayson was just toying with us today, right? He could have killed you before you even knew he was there. And he will kill you. When he sees you again. He told me. And Grayson might be a lot of fucked-up things, but he keeps his word. He always had.”
Except when he said he’d never let me go. Or maybe it’d been nothing more than another clever play on words.
He might have told me to get lost, but a part of me would always stay trapped in his claws. And he knew it. He’d just pointed it out to me, so smugly. “Down to your fucking soul, baby. All of you. Mine.”
“Please stop pursuing him,” I whispered thickly to Owen. But as soon as the words left my mouth, I already knew what his answer would be.
“You know I can’t do that, Ava,” he whispered back, sounding just as broken as me.
“Then I’m staying too.”
“Ava…”
“If you’re hell bent on risking your life to catch them, I’m staying. I’m helping. I can’t lose you too.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, mask them.
Owen placed his fingers underneath my chin, lifting my head so he could see my face, and it made me want to die.
“Look at me, Princess. I want those eyes on me.”
Owen stared at me, seeing every shameful emotion stirring in me, while Grayson’s face, his voice and his touch flooded through my mind.
“You didn’t lose him, Ava. You can’t lose something you never had.”
I clasped my eyes shut as Owen’s words cut through me.
Oh, gods. Why would he say that to me? Why would he be so cruel?
A sob broke loose from my chest, and I tried to push away from Owen, but he caught my arm, holding on to me, flinching at the effort.
“You point out how he had threatened to kill me, but he had done the exact same thing to you, Ava. More than once. Why do you ignore that? Have you looked in a mirror recently? You don’t do that to the woman you once loved,” he bit out.
“I would never hurt you like this. I care about you. He never did. He said so himself! Why can’t you believe him?
Why can’t you accept that? He’s a manipulative psychopath, who destroys anyone he feels like.
Who uses people to get what he wants, no matter the consequences to them.
Because he doesn't care! He never cared, Ava! He never loved you.”
“Gray?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you believe in soulmates?”
“With all my heart, little star.”
I begged my mind to stop. To stop haunting me with him.
“You weren’t there, Owen.” He didn’t see the Grayson that I knew. He didn’t see the way Grayson looked at me, touched me, longed for me.
“You know how smart the guy is, Ava. You don’t think he’d mastered the art of love?
You don’t think he figured out what to say, how to act, how to touch, to make you think he’s head over heels for you?
To make you think you’ve got something special?
” Owen scoffed. “I can tell you of two different heists where he did exactly that. And I’m sure if you ask those women, they’re still pining after him. ”
Just like you, his silence insinuated.
“I know it hurts to hear, Ava. But please! You need to snap out of it. You need to admit the truth. Somewhere deep down, you know this already,” he added quietly, pleadingly. “He’s done nothing but drain the life from you. He doesn’t deserve your love.”
With every word Owen uttered, my rage increased, boiling over till I wanted to claw at his face. How dare he? was my first instinct, but it crumbled away under the weight of his words.
A heaviness settled into my gut. A heaviness that I knew would stay with me for the rest of my days. Accompanied by the stench of death that would forever linger in my nostrils. It would linger around me, inside of me, until this body gave out.
“I know.” It was barely audible, but it was all I could muster.
Owen let go of my arm and reached up to wipe my cheek.
“He was supposed to be my soulmate,” I admitted my stupidity.
“He could never be your soulmate, Ava. He’s incapable of loving as deeply as you do.”
A flash of Grayson, driving an axe into the chopping block with the setting sun illuminating him from behind, crossed my mind. The night he had finally decided to let me go home. The night I had all but decided to stay, yet, not brave enough to fully admit it to myself.
“You deserve someone who can love you tenderly, sweetly, warmly, honestly. And I’m incapable of such things.” His hands were rough on my face, calloused, but sweet, tender. “Forget about me, Princess. Go find someone who is worthy of that magnificent soul of yours.”
Was he hiding his true feelings in plain sight?
He liked to do that. Play with words. Play with their meaning.
Twist them. Make them feel like one thing while veiling something else.
He never lied. He never had to. He was too clever with words.
A sharp weapon he wielded on unsuspecting prey.
But he never used it against his family.
And I had stupidly thought I also fell under that category.
“You’re right.”
“I’m sorry, Ava.”
I looked at Owen. His face was pained. And dreadfully tired. His words had been cruel, cutting through the bone, but it had been necessary. It was time to wake the fuck up. Before I lose my friend.
Grayson had taken enough from me.
“If you are hell-bent on still going after the devil, then I’m staying.”
Owen’s face hardened. “There’s no way I’m letting him get away. Not after tonight.” His gaze flicked to my neck, the muscles in his jaw tightening. “I’m taking him down, Ava. Even if it’s the last fucking thing I do.”
I sighed, collapsing back on the bed, feeling the last of my life force leave my body. “You mean, the last fucking thing we do.”
Owen wrapped his arm around me. “I can’t stop you from staying, can I?”
“If you stay, I stay.”
Owen scoffed. “How romantic,” he replied sarcastically. “I can always kick you off the team and force you to go home, you know?”
“Nah, I’ve got Director Devereux in my pocket. He calls me by my first name and everything.”
Owen’s laugh turned into a fit of coughs, then curses as he jostled his hurt shoulder.
“Besides, you’re in no condition to wrangle Liam into submission right now. You need me.”
“I can still take him,” Owen declared, jokingly affronted.
I pressed a finger into his bandaged shoulder, careful not to press too hard, only enough to prove a point. Owen still grunted in pain. I checked the bags connected to his IV. Nothing for pain. Why?
He let his head fall back, a smile tugging at his lips. “Okay. Maybe I’ll let you stay. Just for the night.”
I bit at my lip. I had wanted to be alone. To scream my anger and hurt at the gods. To replay today over and over again, until I could make sense of it. Until I could wrap my head around this pain. His words. My brokenness.
But I should have known Owen wouldn’t let me out of his sight again. And maybe it was better that I wasn’t alone. Maybe Owen could keep the demons at bay.