Chapter 24
Ava
The boardroom had gone quiet as Owen explained what had happened an hour earlier. The shock that one of our own had been one of the people we had worked so hard to catch, had rippled through the room, leaving everyone stunned into silence.
Emerie was the first to talk. “God-fucking-damn it! We’re completely screwed! He knows everything we do. This investigation is fucked! Those fuckers know everything!”
Marshall frowned, rubbing his jaw. “Maybe not everything. He wasn’t in the boardroom when we got the Collector’s invite. Have any of you mentioned it to him?”
We all shook our heads, but Owen just stared at a notch in the wooden table.
“O?” I prompted.
His eyes fell shut as his shoulders dropped an inch lower, but he shook his head. He hadn’t briefed Liam on the invite.
Sighs of relief flooded through the room. Emerie’s eyes were trained on Owen. She reached for his hand. “Owen, I’m…”
He pulled his hand from beneath hers and pushed his chair out. “Don’t, Emerie. I don’t want your sympathy. I want everyone on a fucking polygraph, that’s what I want.” He stormed out the door.
I followed him into the men’s bathroom, and locked the door behind us, then checked the stalls to make sure we were alone.
Owen pressed his palms against his eyes and sagged down against the bathroom wall.
My heart broke seeing my friend so devastated.
I dropped down in front of him and brushed a thumb over his hand still covering his eyes.
He caught my hand and silently pulled me into him, wrapping his arms around me and burying his face in my hair.
His body was shaking as he held me on his lap, his fingers clasped tightly onto my torso.
I stroked his hair, counting each of his ragged breaths.
After a while, he pulled away, resting his head on the bathroom wall and wiping at the tears on my cheeks. We sat like that for a moment longer, just watching each other.
“I want him in an interrogation room. I need answers,” his whisper sliced through the silence.
I nodded and swallowed. “Okay. I’ll be right beside you.”
An hour later, we stared at Liam Taylor through the one-way window, both unable to speak, both mustering the courage to go in there.
The other members of our task force were momentarily detained and separated until they were polygraphed and questioned by the director himself.
Everyone went willingly, but there was a shift in the air—betrayal and mistrust lingered like a sickening stench between us.
A fundamental trust had been shattered amongst us.
Where there once was easy camaraderie, now were weary eyes and guarded smiles.
Liam sat perfectly still. The shaking in his hands the last time I’d seen him, was gone. He showed no emotions whatsoever as he stared at the wall—so unlike the Liam I’d come to know and love.
I clasped my hand around Owen’s, and he jolted a little, like he had forgotten I was there. “You ready?”
He squeezed my hand a little tighter and gave a heavy sigh.
“No. Where do I start? What questions do I ask? What if he lies to me? Would I still be able to tell if he lied to me? Or was his tells just an act too? Jesus, look at him, A! That’s not the Taylor I know.
That’s a fucking robot in there. That’s… ”
I clasped my hands around his cheeks. “Look at me, Owen. Look at me.”
He lowered his gaze to me, his chest heaving.
“Let me help you, okay? Let me ask the questions. I’ll take the lead on this. But you have to go in there. You have to face him, or it’ll haunt you forever. Not knowing will kill you even more, trust me.”
Owen’s breath came out in a woosh as he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were soft and pained as he stared at me. “I’m sorry, Ava. I see now I had been a little harsh on you.”
I frowned, not understanding.
He brushed a thumb over my cheek. “In the hospital. In Florence. I shouldn’t have said what I said. It was cruel. And insensitive. I thought I was helping, but…” he rubbed his thumb over my cheek again, “it must have hurt like a mother-fucker.” The smile tugging at his lips were pained.
My heart swelled with hurt and love for my friend. “It was necessary. I needed to hear it. You snapped me out of the insanity, Owen. And I never thanked you for it.”
Owen swallowed hard and took a step closer to me. Our bodies touched, ever so lightly and my heart skipped a beat. “Isn’t that what friends do?”
My mind went a little hazy with his proximity.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t been this close to him before, but this felt different somehow.
I lifted my chin to find him staring down at me, his gaze flickering between my lips and my eyes.
There was a desperation hiding behind his stare that clawed at my insides.
Friends? Friends wouldn’t look at each other this way. Friends wouldn’t be standing this close.
Owen’s hand slipped underneath my hair, his gentle caress on the back of my neck making a shiver run down my spine. He lowered his face to mine, ever so slowly, like he was afraid to startle me.
My heart was pounding against my ribs and my limbs locked in place. One half of my mind was screaming at me to run, to push out of his hold and run for the hills. The other half was mesmerised by the look in his eyes, curious to where it would lead, how it would feel.
But none of it mattered. I couldn’t move—paralyzed by the battle in my mind.
His shuddering breath fanned over my face and my mind went still.
I lifted my chin just an increment more, and our noses touched.
Owen closed the distance and with the soft brush of his lips against mine, the tiniest of flutters bloomed in my stomach—something I never thought I would feel again.
A sensation I was certain had been ripped away along with my soul.
I pressed up on my toes, hungry for more, but a sound behind me had me spinning around, my breath caught in my throat.
The director cleared his throat, pinning me with a disapproving glare. He stood in the door, still holding it open with one hand. He took two slow steps into the dark room and released the door behind him, never taking his eyes of me.
“I suggest the two of you get your heads in the game before you go in there. Or do I have to question Taylor myself?” He pursed his lips into fine lines.
Owen was the first to regain his voice. “No, sir, we’ll do it.” He gave me a light nudge towards the door to get me moving.
The director stepped to the side to let us pass. “I’ll be watching.” It was a warning. To get our shit together.
I sighed a breath of relief as soon as the door shut behind us, grateful to be out from under Director Devereux’s eyes.
There were two agents stationed outside the interrogation room. They swiftly moved to the opposite side of the hall to give us access. One of them looked at Owen with a brief flicker of pity. Luckily, Owen didn’t notice it.
Owen paused with his hand on the handle of the door. He took in a deep breath, steadying himself, before looking at me, his eyes softening as they flickered over my face. “Are you ready?” There was triumph in the small smile he gave me, making my stomach flutter again.
What the hell had just happened in that room?
There was no time to think about it. I straightened and nodded, feeling my face reassemble into hard lines. “Yes. And I’m taking the lead.”
When we walked into the interrogation room, Liam didn’t bother to look who it was. When Owen and I were both seated, he finally pulled his gaze from the wall.
His face was perfectly blank. It reminded me so much of Grayson’s emotionless mask that I had to look away. Grayson was probably where he learned it from.
Lifting my eyes to Liam agony twisted in my gut as the realisation of his betrayal slammed into me again.
The pain shot up through my body and choked off my air supply.
When I finally swallowed it down, I dared a look at Owen, and it turned to ice-cold rage pooling in my belly.
Owen’s hand was trembling where he clutched it around his leg.
His jaw was tight and his back rigid as he fought against his own emotions.
How could Liam do this to him? Owen didn’t deserve this.
I cleared my throat, and my thoughts. I couldn’t save Owen from the hurt, but I could get him the answers he needed to get through it. “Did the hangover kick in yet?”
Liam turned his gaze to me. “Yes,” he answered flatly.
At least he was talking. “Good.”
I caught the slight twitch of his mouth. The tightness in my chest eased the tiniest bit. The Liam we knew was still in there. And he hadn’t mastered the mask quite like Grayson had.
“How long have you known Grayson Varon?” I started.
Liam’s jaw tensed up. “I want my lawyer.”
Owen slammed a fist on the table, making me jump. “Three fucking years, Liam! Three years I’ve called you my best friend. And you’re gonna sit there and ask for a lawyer? Answer the goddamn question!”
Liam was quiet, but pain flickered across his face.
I homed in on it. “Owen trusted you, Liam. He loved you like a brother. The least you can do is tell him why.” I kept my voice gentle. “It will eat him alive if you don’t.”
Liam snorted, but the mask had slipped. “You’re fucking ruthless, you know that, Ava?
You’re more like Gray than you think.” His words were cutting but his eyes flicked to Owen, and sorrow practically oozed from his pores.
He breathed deeply and straightened in his chair. “I’ll answer whatever questions I can.”
Gray.
Liam was so close to Grayson, that he called him Gray.
Owen had heard it too. He was clenching and unclenching his fists beneath the table, and I reached out to him, not caring that Director Devereux was watching. I curled my fingers into his, and he squeezed them tightly.
“Then tell me how long you’ve known Grayson,” I asked again.
“Four years.”
Owen gave a cold laugh. “So, what? You transferred to this station to be a spy for Varon?”