Chapter 29. Haley #2
Mark’s phone buzzed with a message. He released me and pulled out his phone as my betraying body forced me to draw in a breath. “ Fuck. Luis said someone’s coming down the road. Go check it out.”
Tom tossed the whiteboard on the couch and pulled out his gun before disappearing into the dark warehouse. Moments later I heard a thud, and then a gunshot rang through the silence.
“Tom?” Mark pulled out his weapon and stepped out of the office. I heard the crack of another gunshot and he flew backward, crumpling on the ground.
“Haley?”
I knew that voice. So deep. Smooth like whiskey. So familiar. Emotion welled up in my throat and his name, when it came from my lips, was barely a whisper. “Ace.” I drew in a deep breath and put all my effort into a shout. “Ace. I’m here.”
A figure darkened the doorway and then Ace stepped into the light. Beautiful Ace. But he wasn’t smiling. Instead, his face was a mask of horror. Was he not happy to see me? A wave of dizziness hit me, and I wondered if he was real.
“Oh God. Haley. Fuck.” He turned away and the last words I heard before the darkness took me were “Bring them to me.”
Paige arrived at the hospital shortly after the ambulance brought me in, and then all hell broke loose. She shouted, wrangled, cajoled, and threatened until she was satisfied I was being properly looked after.
“I was an idiot,” she said, holding a cup of water for me to drink. “Feel free to beat me up when you’re better. I was wrong about Ace, and I’ll regret doubting him for the rest of my life.”
“I think there’s been enough beating people up for one day.” My voice was hoarse from screaming and my lips and tongue swollen from all the blows. “I’m sorry, too. I don’t know why I went off on you.”
“Because he’s Ace,” she said. “Your feelings run deep. I just can’t help hating on someone who hurt you. I wish those dudes who kidnapped you hadn’t been shot, because I would have liked to do it myself.”
“Stand in line.” I tried to laugh but my ribs hurt too much.
“They beat me just to intimidate my mom. But the worst part was, I believed the guy was a record exec. He knew the industry. He dropped names. He knew my back catalog. When he called me, our conversation didn’t ring any alarm bells.
And when we met up, his business card looked legit.
He came up to me in the alley and we talked about how scary the whole thing had been, and then he suggested we go to the coffee shop to discuss my career.
And I said no. I said no, Paige, even though I thought it was my big chance.
I wasn’t stupid. I told him I couldn’t leave until I knew you were safe and Ace was with me, and that’s when he pulled out the gun.
I’d been so excited at the thought that I was finally going to break into the music business, I didn’t realize I was in danger until it was too late. I feel like an idiot.”
“You were an idiot for sending Ace to get me,” she said. “You should have let him stay with you.”
“I couldn’t leave you in there when someone was shooting up the bar.” My throat thickened and I sipped the water to try and make the sensation go away. “It wasn’t an option.”
Paige kept me company through the check-ups, X-rays, and splinting of my sprained wrist. She finally agreed to go home to get some sleep when Mom arrived with Steve.
“I am so sorry, darling.” Mom pressed a gentle kiss to my temple after I filled her in on what had happened. “When Ace called—”
“Where is Ace?” He had insisted on riding in the ambulance with me, but I hadn’t seen him since I’d arrived at the hospital. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine.” She sat in the chair beside my bed. “His team went through the warehouse and pieced together the kidnappers’ plan to use you to force me out of the Senate race.”
“They beat me up so the video would be more effective.”
“They didn’t need to go that far.” She gently stroked my swollen cheek. “Even if they hadn’t touched you, I would have done what they asked to get you back. I know I wasn’t the best mother after your dad died, but you are everything to me. There is nothing more important in my life than you.”
Mom had never made me feel like I mattered before, and it melted me inside.
“I wouldn’t read it, Mom. I figured they were going to kill me anyway and I didn’t want to be the reason you stepped down.
I believe in what you’ve been fighting for.
You actually want to make things better, and if you can get even one of your bills through, it will change a lot of lives. ”
“That means so much to me,” she said. “But if I had to give it all up to keep you safe, I would have.”
“You did keep me safe. You hired Ace, and he saved me.”
Mom smiled. “I knew he wouldn’t let us down.”
“Did he catch the kidnappers? Do you know who’s behind it?”
“Two of them didn’t make it,” she said. “The FBI is questioning the others, but they believe the conspirators are all accounted for. I also spoke to party leadership. They want to keep this quiet and out of the press for now. They’re worried that if word gets out, it might lead to more threats or violence.
They also want to get to the bottom of it so when it does inevitably go public, they have things under control. ”
“Will I still need Ace?” I wasn’t ready for him to leave me just yet.
Her voice softened and sympathy laced her tone. “Ace gave me his resignation after we spoke. He’s heading back to LA tomorrow.”
Ace leaving? Tomorrow? Without saying goodbye? I couldn’t even process what she’d said. “But what if someone else is involved? One of them was talking to someone on the phone. I think he should stay, at least until the election is over.”
“I thought the same thing,” she said. “But Ace said his primary concern is for your safety and he felt that someone else—someone who wasn’t close to you—would be better suited for the job.”
Her words felt like a punch in the gut. “I don’t want anyone else.”
“It was his choice, darling. I couldn’t force him to stay. He suggested Maverick take his place.”
Breathe. Breathe. You’re fine. Lock it away. But every breath was a struggle, and it hurt less not to breathe at all. “It wasn’t his fault. He told me it was a bad idea, but I made him come with me anyway.”
“But this is Ace,” she said, squeezing my hand.
“Did you know he never reported his parents to the authorities, despite all the abuse and neglect, or that he used to patrol our campsite at night when we were all asleep to make sure we were safe? He was there for all of us after your dad died, mowing the lawn, doing chores, spending time with you and Matt. His loyalty and protectiveness are why I hired him. But when the worst happened, when you got kidnapped on his watch, he felt like he’d failed you. It was more than he could bear.”
At first I thought I was dreaming when I awoke the next morning to see Ace standing at the foot of my hospital bed.
The nurse had given me something to help me sleep that fuzzed my brain, and my vision was blurry from all the swelling.
But when he touched me—a gentle stroke of his hand on my foot—I knew it was really him.
“I thought you’d gone,” I said through cracked lips.
“I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.” A pained expression crossed his face as he took in my splint and bandages, and the monitor hooked up to my chest. “This is my fault.”
“It’s not your fault. You did everything you could to stop me from going. You got me out of the bar. You saved Paige. You saved me.”
His voice caught, broke. “Look what they did to you.”
I briefly wondered if tears would change his mind, but I was so drugged up and so utterly drained I couldn’t feel anything. I didn’t even have to try to keep my emotions contained in the black box. I was the box, a cold dark void of nothing.
“What about us?” I tried to sit, but pain sheeted across my chest and I fell back on the pillow.
“There shouldn’t have been an ‘us,’” he said. “I crossed a professional line and that put you in danger. I’ll never forgive myself. Just like I can’t forgive myself for Matt.”
My forehead wrinkled in confusion. “You’re not responsible for Matt’s death. You weren’t flying that airplane. You didn’t have anything to do with the mechanics that failed.”
Ace gripped the metal rail on my bed. “He enlisted because of me. He was supposed to go to college. He was supposed to become a dentist. If I hadn’t encouraged him to join the air force, he wouldn’t have been on that plane.
I wouldn’t have had to stand there and watch him die and not be able to help him. ”
I could feel his pain slice through me like a blade, and my heart ached.
I wanted to hold him, hug him, but I was trapped on the bed by my own pain, and couldn’t move.
“Matt didn’t want to be a dentist.” I forced a laugh, trying to pull him out of the darkness that seemed to be consuming him before my very eyes.
“Mom and Dad wanted him to be a dentist. Matt always wanted to fly. He loved planes and helicopters from when he was little. The air force was his chance to do what he loved to do, and having you there, sharing his passion, made it even better for him. He made his choices and so did I. That’s not on you. ”
His gaze was dark and far away, his face creased in agony. I didn’t know if he’d even heard me. “I promised you I’d bring him back. I promised your mom I’d keep you safe. I didn’t keep those promises. I’m not worthy of the trust you’ve given me.”
My stomach clenched at his defeated tone, the self-loathing in his voice.
He released the bar and turned away. “I have to leave, Haley. I can’t give you what you need. You’ll be safer with someone else.”
“Ace!” I called out as he pushed open the door, terrified that I would lose him to the darkness or worse, that I would lose him forever. “Ace. Please don’t go.”
I wanted to tell him I loved him, that I’d always loved him, that he had my heart, but the words didn’t come, and then I was alone in the dark, with a black hole in my chest that went through to my very soul.