Chapter 14 #4
My star’s mesmerising eyes were alight as they reached down, like they do, to the darkest, most depraved parts of my soul, lighting it up. Tenderly, I smiled back at her. The light that she radiated was so at odds with this dark, gruesome scene in front of her.
I did the right thing. I had been wrong to think she belonged here. She was better than this. But most importantly, she was safe now. Safe from far worse men in my sick life than Anderson.
“Don’t look, Princess,” I warned gently, then sawed Charles’ tongue off.
“Tuesday, eight-thirty p.m. A warehouse in Florence. This is now. This is real,” I repeated three times to myself, forcing my conscious out of the catacombs of my mind.
I let the crippling pain in my chest anchor me in the present. I pushed off the ground with my fists and all but fell into the car.
Everything I’d tried to prevent by leaving her was threatening to happen.
My clever fucking girl was too close. If she continued on like this, it was only a matter of time before that evil son of a bitch found out about her.
And I couldn’t let that happen. I was already having a hard enough time keeping Gem and Hunt out of his clutches.
And I would destroy this world if he found her. If he took…
No! I shook the dark thoughts from my head. I won’t let it get to that.
The car’s engine roared to life, the sound echoing off the building’s walls, but not loud enough to drown out my incessant thoughts.
I willed the shaking in my limbs to subside.
God, she’d been doing so well. She was moving on with her life. She was smiling again. Until that fuckface Becket dragged her back in. Right back into danger.
I wanted nothing more than to see his brain splattered on the museum wall. My own masterpiece. It would have soothed my broken fucking soul.
But Ava would never forgive me.
I laughed at my own stupidity as the car whipped into the street.
After what I’d just said to her, how I had hurt her yet again, there was no chance of her ever wanting to see my face again, anyway. I should have just killed the ignorant fucker.
The phone underneath my seat started ringing. I ducked down to retrieve it, contemplating just throwing it out the window when I recognised the number.
I answered it instead, staying silent. I wasn’t going to get a word in anyway.
“You shot an FBI agent!” Hunt’s father boomed through the phone.
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. He could be such a stifler sometimes. “Calm down. It was just a flesh wound. And he deserved it for dragging her back into this mess.” Anger still seared beneath my skin. I had to suppress the urge to turn around and go finish Becket off. And go get my Ava.
“Then I should shoot you for bringing her into this mess in the first place!”
I flinched at his words. “Maybe you should.”
Hunt’s father sighed loudly. “What the hell were you thinking, son? You knew they were waiting for you. Why would you go back there? Alone?” He bit out the last word, clearly frustrated with what he assumed had been a lack of self-control.
Or self-preservation. Maybe he thought it was both.
I had been acting all kinds of lunatic these last few months.
And if anyone was aware of how close I’d always been to losing my goddamned mind, it was Hunt’s father.
The one who’d taught me how to keep it in check.
But I wasn’t losing my mind. Not yet. Their lives depended on me keeping my focus, keeping sharp. “She needs to stay away from me. I had to try one last time. And I wasn’t going to lead Hunt into that shitshow with me. I’m already on thin ice with Gem.”
“I know. I know,” he mumbled.
It was so unlike him to mumble. The stress of the situation was getting to him too. We were all fucking wired.
“The girl was already so broken,” he whispered.
I slammed on the brakes, stifling a scream, doing my best to breathe through it. In through your nose, out through your mouth. My head fell forward into my hands. My fists balled into my hair, pulling at it, but there was no pain. I couldn’t feel anything over the burn in my chest. It consumed me.
Breathe. In. Out.
“You both were,” he added quietly. “Do you think it worked? Will she stop chasing you now?”
“I hope so,” I whispered back. Or I would have said all those vile things for nothing. Have the forever memory of the moment the light died behind her eyes. For nothing.
Not nothing. It was best if Ava hated me. She was better off without me.
But God, we were fucking magic. We were heaven in this hell.
But she was more important than us. I had burned our heaven to the ground so she could walk free while she was still unscathed. God knows, my world would fuck her up to the point where she wouldn’t recognise herself in the mirror.
“How’s Gem doing?” I changed the subject as soon as I could speak again. I pushed the pain aside, focusing my blurry vision back on the road. I could lose my mind later.
“She’s bored and cranky.”
I hadn’t seen Gem in a month. And I missed the pushy little brat. She’d gone into hiding, staying with Hunt’s mother in one of their safe houses. She wasn’t happy about it, but she knew it was for the best. Hunter still refused to leave my side. I had to find a way to shake him too.
“I can tell she misses you by the way she keeps cussing you out. And just a heads up, she’s not staying put any longer. Your mother is trying everything she can, but you know Gem.”
God, everything was a complete fuckup. “I’ll find him. I’ll end this,” I vowed.
“I know, son. I have faith in you to protect this family. I always have.”
Guilt slammed into my gut, my throat closing up, choking off the words I wanted to say.
It was because of me that we were in this predicament in the first place.
Because I was always chasing a high I could never quench.
Going after prized objects of powerful, depraved men to satisfy my self-destructive lust for danger, for excitement.
It was bound to come bite me in the ass.
I was no better than my father. “I’ll fix this,” I swore again.
“I’ll figure it out. I’ll keep them all safe. ”
Hunter. Gemma. My Ava. I would die before I let anything happen to them.
“You keep me updated on what you’re planning. No more going rogue on me, Grayson.”
“Yes, sir,” I answered.
“And for God’s sake! Don’t shoot any more agents!” The line dropped.
The car suddenly felt deathly quiet, the air oppressing.
I weaved through the streets, not ready to go home yet. Not ready to face the reality of what I had done. What I’d been forced to do.
“Remember when I pinkie promised to not tell mom and dad that you broke the sculpture in the hallway, Abby? And then I told on you anyway? You said I was going to be cursed for the rest of my life. You were right, Ab. I didn’t believe in curses, but you were right.
I am cursed. Everyone I love ends up…” I laughed hoarsely.
But it died down just as quickly as it started, the air sucked from my body.
“I’ve lost my everything tonight, Mom. I’ve lost her,” I whispered into the quiet.
To save her I had to lose her. How fucked up was that?
It burned in my chest. This had been the final blow.
There were no more delusions that we could be fixed.
I saw the death of us in her eyes. “I’ve lost my princess now too. ”