Chapter 19
Ava
Two days later, Owen, Liam and I, were sitting in headquarters, watching Emerie and Marshall on the big screen, as they filled us in on what they could find out from Grayson’s art informant.
They were still in Paris, and by the looks of it, enjoying every moment of their time together.
But only I seemed to notice the twinkle in their eyes.
Liam was under the impression that the two of them were probably at each other’s throats all day.
“We think we might have found something big. And I mean huge,” Emerie remarked, barely able to keep her excitement under wraps.
She shifted impatiently in her seat. “The informant is a dead end. He refuses to give them up. Loyal to a fault. But something he said had me wondering about the identities of the Apparitions.”
We all frowned.
“We know who they are,” Owen pointed out.
“Do we really?” Emerie hinted, a smile tugging at her lips.
“Out with it, Emerie,” Liam said impatiently.
“I think they might be the Collectors.”
“No fucking way,” Owen mumbled, a scowl on his face.
“Can someone please explain?” I asked, feeling just as impatient as Liam.
Owen turned his head slightly towards me.
“The Collectors. Or so everyone calls them. They are an underground, black market group that illegally acquire and sell art, historical artifacts… any rare and expensive thing you can think of. They hold these auctions, now and again where all the rich and shady people get together to buy these items. It’s perceived as an honour and an ultimate testament of your wealth to receive an invite to an auction.
It’s so well organised, authorities have never been able to intercept.
.. Fuck! Of course, it’s them!” Owen stood from his chair, pacing the length of the room.
“Do you remember about two years ago when they caught that billionaire Mark Strudaux with a stolen Picasso, and he confessed to buying it from the Collectors? But in the file, you theorised that it might have been stolen by the Apparitions. Now, the Apparitions could have sold it to the Collectors, or…” Emerie trailed off dramatically, grinning like a fiend.
“My God…” Owen looked like he’d seen a ghost. “Why haven’t I thought of that?
Emerie. Marshall. You don’t breathe a word of this to anyone.
The Collectors are technically Interpol jurisdiction.
They will snatch the Apparitions right out from under us.
I’ll go talk to the director. Get his permission to view the files on the Collectors.
” He came to a standstill, a grin slowly spreading across his face.
“You’re right, Emerie. This is fucking huge. ”
Emerie gave an excited laugh, Marshall only smiled, which meant he was practically bursting at the seams with excitement.
“Imagine that! We might’ve been hunting the Collectors all this time!” Emerie mused.
“If that’s true, we’ve come closer than anyone has ever been able to.” Marshall’s lip was tucked up at the corner with pride. “What do we do now, boss?” he asked Owen.
“We need to be sure that the Apparitions really are the Collectors. Is there any way we can flip the informant? Make him a double agent?”
Emerie sighed in frustration. “Slim to none. But we’ll continue to hound him. Everyone has a price.”
I shook my head. “That’s a dangerous game.” If Grayson found out that we were trying to flip his art informant… We couldn’t lose him. We had nothing else.
Emerie leaned closer to the camera. “And if we play it, what’s our chances of winning?”
I thought about it for a while. Grayson was a clever bastard.
But there was no way around it. We had to risk it.
“We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we? You should threaten the informant.
Grayson likes to keep the people on his payroll scared.
Use it to our advantage. Make him think that Grayson would kill him if he knew the FBI had asked him questions.
Make him feel like he can’t trust Grayson anymore, like we are his only hope left. ”
Emerie gave me an appreciative grin. “Clever.”
Owen and I exited the FBI building on the hunt for lunch. We walked in silence through the nearby park, until we spotted our favourite food truck.
“The usual?” the owner of the truck hollered when we approached.
When our order was ready, we went to sit under my favourite willow tree.
New growth was showing at its tips after another brutal winter.
I touched its trunk in greeting and lowered to the ground with a sigh, resting my back against it.
Owen followed suit. One of its hanging branches brushed against my cheek with the breeze, and I smiled up at it.
“Do you really think they’re these Collectors?” I asked Owen, before taking a bite of my wrap. It was the best chicken wrap I had ever tasted.
“Ava. You’ve literally seen their storeroom, remember?”
I blinked.
The underground bunker in the forest. That must have been where they had operated from. Gods, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. The more I got to know these people, the less I felt I knew them. And I’d been na?ve enough once to have called them my family.
How stupid I was.
The ever-present ache in my chest had morphed into something else entirely ever since we walked out of the Russian’s club. It was now a cold, burning fury.
“Do you regret letting them go back at the club?” I asked Owen. I sure as hell did. We should’ve stormed in there, guns blazing while they were still there.
Owen shook his head. “No. Gemma saved your life. As much as it pains me to say, I don’t regret repaying the favour. I’ll do it again. But Varon. I do regret not punching him in his smug face when I had the chance. A pen in the neck would’ve felt good too.” He gave me a sly smirk.
That had me thinking. “Did you gather any more intel from Volkov and his men?”
Volkov, it turned out, had more than just ties to the Russian Mafia. Information we gathered from Grayson when he called him pakhan, which meant Volkov was more like a high ranking general in the Bratva.
I hadn’t seen much of Owen since. He’d been busy interrogating them for two days straight.
“Not much on the Apparitions. One of the employees did confess to seeing Grayson there before, but she wasn’t able to give us much else. Volkov and his goonies are silent. But that’s expected from Russian mobsters. If they turn, their families get tortured to death.” Owen shrugged.
I shivered. “That’s brutal.”
“Yeah, but watching them almost kill you, killed off any sympathy I might have towards them.” Owen leaned closer. “I might have told Vlad that the rest of his buddies were under the impression that he’s cooperating with us. He was shaking when I left him,” Owen whispered, satisfied.
I chuckled. “Good.” I moved to lay my head on his shoulder but midway through, I decided against it. I cleared my throat instead.
“And how are you doing? That was pretty fucking traumatic, Ava.”
I swallowed hard, then lifted my hand for Owen to see. “Well, I haven’t stopped shaking since that night,” I admitted on a chuckle. “But Doctor Aspen has helped a lot. Thanks for arranging with her to come see me.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there. In the aftermath. I should have stayed with you.”
“You had stuff to do. Mobsters to break. And I wasn’t alone. I had Rachel… and Doctor Aspen. I’m fine, Owen. You worry too much.” I tried to reassure him.
His shoulders sagged. “It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have let you climb through that window with me. My carelessness almost got you killed.”
I laced my fingers with his. “O, you can’t blame yourself. I gave you no choice, remember? And I’m here. I’m alive. With nothing more than a little bruise on my cheek. How lucky are we?” I pushed him with my shoulder.
He glared at me, but his mouth quirked up. “A little bruise?”
I laughed. “Okay, a medium-sized bruise.”
He gave me another incredulous look, reaching up and poked at it.
I flinched.
“That’s a big-ass bruise, Ava,” Owen said dryly, shaking his head, then continued eating.
We were quiet for a moment while I tried to gather the nerve to talk about the elephant weighing on my chest.
I cleared my throat. “Now that I have you for a few minutes, should we talk about what happened? I mean… what you said that night.”
Owen shifted uncomfortably. He knew what I meant and clearly wasn’t very comfortable talking about it. But we needed to address it, before it festered into a sore. I wasn’t prepared to lose him.
“I wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t been under the impression that we were going to die.” He turned to me, his eyes weary as he watched me for a while. “But I meant it. I’m in love with you, Ava. Have been for a while now.”
I closed my eyes and swallowed against the pain in my throat. I had been fearing losing Owen to Grayson. Not once did it cross my mind that I might lose my friend because I couldn’t return his feelings.
I opened my mouth, trying to find the right words to say, but Owen took my hand, squeezing lightly.
“You don’t have to say anything. I know you don’t feel the same way.
You’re not ready. But someday you will be whole again.
Someday you will be able to trust someone with your heart again.
And just maybe, that someone could be me.
” He smiled down at our hands and my heart bled.
“I will be patient, Ava. I won’t force anything on you that you’re not ready for.
You’re my friend, first and foremost, after all. ”
I felt a tear run hot down my cheek. “You shouldn’t waste your time on me, Owen.
I’m damaged goods. And you deserve better.
What if I can never be whole again?” I whispered brokenly.
Maybe Owen and I would have been perfect for each other, once upon a time.
It would have been easy to love him. As easy as breathing.
But that was before Grayson. Before he corrupted and infected my very being with his sickness.
Yet another thing Grayson had taken from me—Owen.
Maybe Owen was supposed to be my forever.
“Impossible. I made a wish, remember? They always come true.” Owen had an easy smile on his face as he reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “You will be okay, Ava. I know it. You’ve already come so far.”
I wished it was true. “Is that why you turned down Claudia and her strap-on?” I tried to joke, tried to ease the bricks from my chest.
Owen scratched at his neck. “Sure. Definitely. It wasn’t the strap-on that scared me, at all.” He chuckled as if nervous. “I don’t scare that easily,” he added in a flustered tone.
I laughed soundlessly, taking a bite from my wrap and letting my head rest on his shoulder. “What if I have a strap-on too?”
“Like I said, I’m not scared. But unfortunately, your history with tarantulas is already pushing it, so…” he trailed off.
I snickered. “So, it’s a no on the strap-on. Got it. But have you ever heard of spider play? It’ll do wonders for your arachnophobia. I’ll even let you have a safe word.”
Owen gaped at me, making the laughter bubble up my throat. “I guess this is over before it even began.”