Chapter 37
Ava
I pulled off my scuba mask as the waves pushed me farther onto shore.
Grayson and I were the last to reach it.
Every muscle in my body was shaking with exhaustion.
I clawed at the sand, trying to pull myself onto the beach.
We had swum for two and a half kilometres along the coastline until we reached a deserted beach at nightfall.
Grayson’s arm circled around my torso, heaving me up out of the crashing waves.
“I hate you for making me do this.” I pushed him away with the last bit of my strength. We both collapsed onto the sand. “I hate you, Grayson Varon. I hate you so much.”
I was raging at Grayson, but I knew I had no one else to blame but myself.
I did this. I did this to Owen.
If the roles were reversed and I had to watch Owen’s boat blow up like that, I would have died. Right on the spot. I would have crumbled to the floor and refused to take another breath. “He doesn’t deserve this.”
Grayson sighed, which turned into a sputtering cough as he steadied himself on an elbow. “Hey, I know how much you love him, Ava. I knew you wouldn’t want to hurt him. I made sure he would know you’re alive. He just can’t prove it.”
I frowned at him. “How?”
His grin was wicked as he wiped the hair from my face. “I might have left him a little message. To rub it in that you are mine. So he’ll know.”
Of course. The Nightingale.
My shoulders sagged, relief flooding my system, making my limbs even more boneless. “You’re the devil.”
Grayson’s laugh was silent—too exhausted to make a sound. Nonetheless, he helped me pull my arms from the wetsuit that felt like it was strangling me.
All five of us laid in the sand, catching our breaths as the stars twinkled brightly above us.
“Man! I hope my next death won’t be this painful,” Hunter groaned, stretching his calves in the air.
“Whatever you want, sweetie. Ava? Do you have any poisons that won’t hurt as much?” Gemma quipped.
“For Hunter? Nah…”
They laughed, sounding hoarse like a bunch of chain-smokers. But I wasn’t really joking.
“Just so we’re all clear, I might still poison the lot of you.”
The laughter died down.
“We know,” Gemma said quietly.
“We’ll take our chances.” Hunter smiled at me, his eyes sorrowful.
“You’re family, Ava. We’ve stood by you at all costs.” Grayson lifted an accusing brow. “Even when you shot me. Even if you try to kill us now. We’re here.”
“Stood by me? You all left me!” Grayson was fucking crazy!
“But they didn’t.” Liam pushed off the ground, stiffly getting to his feet.
“Do you know how many times I had to pretend not to see them? Because someone was always around. Do you know how many people we’ve killed to keep you alive?
Jeez, Ava, we’ve been through the fucking wringer, let me tell you.
Hunter jumped in front of a bullet for you while you were shopping. For incense.”
“Are you fucking with me, Liam? I never heard a gunshot go off.”
“A silencer, baby,” Grayson said quietly.
Hunter rolled his eyes. “Liam is being dramatic. It’s more of a flesh wound, really. But it’ll make a wicked scar.” He pulled his wetsuit down his arm and grinned at me. “See?”
There was a freshly healed, but still pink, circular scar on his upper arm.
“Doc says if I didn’t have all this muscle, it would have gone straight through me.”
“Oh my God, Hunt. We know! It was your big, big muscles that saved Ava.” Gemma laughed, rolling her eyes at Hunter.
I stared at Hunter, not sure what to think or how to feel. I still had all this anger in me. I didn’t know what to do with it.
“Don’t blame them for my fuck-up,” Grayson murmured, watching my face intently. “I didn’t really give them a choice in the matter.”
I sat up, that anger flaring again. “A fuck-up? Is that what we’re calling it? You all leaving me behind like I meant nothing… it broke me. I…” The lump in my throat choked me up. “No one has ever hurt me like the three of you. I don’t understand how you could do that to me!”
My chest constricted. And now I had done the same to Owen. I was much worse than them. I knew exactly how much this betrayal hurt. And I still put Owen through it.
I almost laughed. I was the biggest hypocrite to walk this earth. I had no right being mad at the three of them.
“I know. I’m so sorry. I was scared, Ava.
I had sat in that van and realised I had become my father.
My arrogant behaviours got the people I loved on a fucking kill list. It was too late for Hunt and Ab…
Gemma. They were already in the thick of it.
But you, I could get out. I wanted to save you from all this.
Please tell me you understand, Ava. I was scared to death that I would have to watch happen to you, what happened to my mother. ”
I flinched.
“I know I hurt you. God, I know how hard this was on you, but I was drunk on fear, baby. I was scared out of my mind.” His trembling hands cupped my face.
“I admit, I let it get the better of me. I wasn’t thinking straight…
broke rule four.” He swallowed hard, dropping his gaze.
“I see that now. It was the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever done.
I thought…” He shook his head. “I was wrong, baby. I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry, Ava. I’m…” He turned his head away to hide the emotions he was struggling to keep in check.
My heart broke, my ribs pulling inwards as the pain radiated through me. I looked away from him too. I didn’t want to see him like this. I wanted to be angry at him. I wanted to punch him in the face, not wipe his tears.
“It almost killed him too,” Gemma offered, giving me a small smile that never reached her eyes. Instead, they looked as broken as Grayson’s.
“Yeah…” Hunter stared out over the ocean. “He went batshit crazy there for a second. Mom had a shrink come check him out.” He looked at me. “You can imagine how that went. At least after that, he stopped talking to you like you were in the room with us. But I know he st—”
“Hunter,” Grayson interrupted, raising a brow at his brother. “Really?”
Hunter snickered. “I’m just filling her in.”
“About that. Why haven’t I met your parents yet?
” I turned back to Grayson. “Why did you never introduce me to Liam? Or Raina? You told me I was family but kept me away from everyone. Grayson, your parents grew up in the town next to mine. You have a vacation home there! Why did you never mention that? If I was really a part of your family, why did you keep me in the dark about your lives?” Tears were streaming down my face.
“The plan was to introduce you to Hunt’s parents after Anderson, then take it from there.”
I sighed heavily. But that plan had changed.
“If it makes you feel any better, it took Grayson a whole year before he trusted me enough to introduce me to Hunt.” Gemma tried to console me again.
It didn’t make me feel better.
“Can we maybe schedule this family dispute for another time?” Liam cut in. “We’re sitting ducks out here.”
Grayson stood and held his hand out to me. His eyes were wary, unsure, wondering if I was going to take his hand. “Just so you know, you already met them. You already met everyone important to us. Except Liam’s family.”
I’ve met Hunt’s parents?
“That does not include Raina, to be clear. We never liked her. Just tolerated her.” Gemma pulled her face.
I snorted and placed my hand in Grayson’s, letting him pull me up.
I didn’t miss the triumphant glow in his eyes.
“I like her. And you’re all going to make sure she gets out of that hell hole.
” It was because of me that she was still stuck there.
I couldn’t make things better with Owen. Or the team. But I could help her.
Grayson was the one pulling a face now. “The plan is already set. She dies tomorrow.”
I glared at him, feeling the urge to tackle him to the ground and punch him in his pretty face.
His mouth turned up in a crooked smile and I swallowed hard. “Okay.” He swiped a thumb over my cheek and pressed his lips to my forehead. “Whatever my princess wants,” he whispered.
I pressed myself against him, inhaling his familiar scent, mixed with the salty smell of the ocean.
And as he circled his arms tightly around me, I sighed out the breath that had burned in my chest from the moment he was gone.
I was still angry and hurt, but with him so close, for the first time in months, the world felt right again.
We walked farther up the beach, carrying our scuba gear until we reached a little beach shack painted in bright colours with a sign that read, Beach Bums Surf and Scuba School. On the door was another sign: Closed for the winter.
A strong whiff of chemicals came flooding out at us as Gemma threw the doors open. Inside was a reception desk and behind it, neatly stored on shelves, were surfboards, wet suits and scuba gear.
“We borrowed their equipment while they are closed. No one will suspect a thing when they get back,” Grayson explained with a wink.
He carefully dropped our scuba masks into a large tub of liquid in the middle of the floor—the origin of the chemical smell.
“So this is how you get rid of all the forensic evidence, hmm?” I turned to Liam. “And you knew all this while patiently swabbing every nook and cranny of all those buildings.”
Liam laughed. “It was a pain in the ass. This stuff eats any biological matter. Not even rat shit can survive it. So don’t touch it.”
Hunter, with a plastic suit that covered him from head to toe, sprayed a fine mist of the chemical over every surface in the shack before we locked it up and made our way up the sandy dunes to one of the beach houses. We didn’t go inside, instead going around to where three cars waited.
Liam dusted the sand from his shoes. “Well, it was nice being part of y’all’s gang and dying and all, but I’m going home to my family now. Don’t call me. I don’t want to see your faces for at least six months.”