Chapter Six
Ash
“Tell me again how you found her,” Margo ordered, her voice filled with uncertainty.
I lifted my head, eyes narrowing. “I already told you.”
She pushed off Angel’s front door, barreling across the porch to me, finger raised. “And you’re going to tell me again, Ash motherfucking Doss!” The finger in my face swiveled back to the house, to where Grayson and Carrie were checking on her. Hayes was on his way back into town.
“I was on my way back to Portland!” I roared, my chest tight. “You know what the hell I was doing! I fucking told you, Margo!”
She tipped her chin higher, her neck tattoo fully visible to me now. “Yell at me again and I’ll knee you in the balls.”
Her threat instantly quieted my anger. My anger wasn’t toward her.
In fact, the anger swirling inside my gut, its fumes rising into my chest and suffocating my heart, was being fueled by fear.
I never expected to see Angel tonight—or any other day.
I’d only come into town to make my amends with Hayes’ firecracker of a bartender, because fuck me, she was my friend.
When Hayes told her I was back, she refused to come to the office to see me at my request.
Yes, I was still a part of Red Snake Investigations.
Grayson and Hayes hadn’t had it in their hearts to fire me, despite having every right to.
Margo told me over the phone to “kick rocks and choke on a dick.”
I waited for a week, and when Hayes told me she was standing firm in her decision, I decided I needed a beer and headed to the Buoy.
That was a few hours ago, and we’d made amends.
It happened after she pounded her fists into my chest and tried to stomp on my foot.
It was only when I wrapped her in a tight bear hug that she broke, crying a river of tears into my shirt.
That stain had dried up, and it felt like we were back to square one.
I ground my teeth, the sound nearly triggering me.
It was equivalent to nails on a fucking chalkboard, but it was the only thing I could do to get a lock on my emotions.
“What did you expect me to do?” I asked my friend softly.
“Leave her in the ditch? Drive past and head home as if I hadn’t seen anything? ”
“If it had been anyone else—”
I leaned forward, voice cold. “I had no idea who was in the fucking car, Margo. I just acted. It was instinct. Even then, when I got out of the car and saw Angel slumped over in her seat, would you have wanted me to walk away?”
“No!” she yelled. “Of course not! But you could’ve called 911!”
I stretched out my arms wide, chest heaving. “I have medical training, Margo.”
“She hit her head.”
“She refused the fucking ambulance!” I snapped. “She’s within her right to do so.”
She inhaled a sharp breath through her nose, glaring at me as her bottom lip trembled.
She was trying to hold it together, to be the strong one because she assumed that’s what I needed.
“I don’t need you out here,” I whispered and flicked my eyes to the door.
“You’re worried about Angel. Go see Angel. ”
Margo opened her mouth but closed it again when Grayson stepped outside. He let the screen door fall shut behind him as he turned to her. “She’s asking for you.”
I tried my best to ignore the pain burning inside.
With a sharp nod to him and an apologetic look to me, she went back inside. Then I braced for Grayson’s lecture. Except it never came. He focused on the rain as he crossed the porch and leaned his arms against the railing.
“You aren’t going to bite my head off?” I drawled, looking at his profile.
He shook his head, keeping his eyes on the murky view of Astoria. We could barely make out the lights through the storm.
“Look, I know I have no right to ask this,” I began, clenching my jaw, “but has she told anyone about how she got out?”
“She hasn’t mentioned it.” He paused. “She’s closest to Margo, but not that close.”
“What do you mean?”
Grayson looked down, watching the raindrops hit the steps. “She’s reserved, but most trafficking survivors are. You and I both know this. She has a routine that she sticks to, according to Margo.”
If it made her feel safe after the nightmare she’d been through, then I didn’t blame her.
“She hasn’t mentioned anything?” I pressed.
“No.”
“Is she in touch with the Safe House Project or the National Survivor Network?”
Grayson twisted his neck to look at me. “I don’t know.”
Irritation crawled up my spine. “Have you checked?”
“Ash, the woman came to Astoria to start over. How do you think she would feel if the company of the man who tried to save her kept trying to dig into her past?”
I swallowed and broke our gaze. “I just—I just want to make sure that she has everything she needs.”
He looked around the porch and gave me a small smile. “She’s good, Ash. We’ve been keeping an eye on her, but we’ve kept our distance.”
“You just said she’s close with Margo.”
His lips twitched. “Carrie says Angel comes into Rossy’s to journal.”
“Journal?” I parroted, my brows coming together.
He didn’t answer me, looking out at the rain again. For a few minutes, it was quiet. “Do you believe in fate?” he asked quietly.
My brows came together. “Excuse me?”
“Fate.”
I cast one more look at the front door before going to stand at his side, mirroring his position. “Why are you asking me that?”
“What happened between Carrie and me was fate.” He dropped his chin, studying the puddles glimmering in the grass.
In the distance, on the water, lightning struck.
I watched its veins, bright violet, scatter throughout the storm cloud as the tip touched the sea.
Thunder rolled, and before it had completely subsided, Grayson spoke again.
“You were the only one available for the Benson assignment.”
The hairs on the back of my neck shot up, my jaw snapping tight, jumping underneath my skin, every inch of it prickling at the sound of that bastard’s name. I tore my eyes from the view and focused on him. “What are you saying?”
He pondered for a long time, then rose up to his full height, turning to me.
The crease between his brows was deeper than normal and there was something swirling in his eyes.
I couldn’t make it out, because even on a normal day, Grayson was hard to read.
This wasn’t a normal day, and he was standing before me, silently challenging me to solve the mystery, to read his mind so he didn’t have to say the words aloud.
“For fuck’s sake, Gray.” I sighed, glaring at him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Angel.”
“No, you’re fucking sputtering shit about fate and staring off into the damn rain.” I shook my head and gestured to myself. “I can’t read your mind, man, and I don’t have the patience for riddles.”
Another few seconds passed. “Before, I tried brushing it off as a coincidence. Astoria is a popular place, and lots of people escape to small towns. You and I both know this.”
Suddenly, the path he was trying to pave for me became clear. My stomach twisted, piercing me with doubt. “I can’t—don’t say it.”
His head ticked to the side. “So you’re following me, then?”
I tore my gaze from him, looking out at Astoria.
I’d always liked this town, even when I came here as a kid.
It was only a handful of times, but the memories I had with Nonna were enough to make an impact.
When Carrie told Grayson she wanted to stay, which led Grayson to want to close our Charlotte offices and relocate to Portland, it was the first glimmer of light I’d seen since Devil’s Den.
“Astoria is a popular place,” I repeated through clenched teeth.
“So you don’t believe in fate?”
A rough, dark chuckle left me as I dropped my shaking head. “You know damn well I do. Everything my Nonna taught me is still,” I looked at him and tapped my temple, “in here. Etched in stone.”
“Angel stumbling into Rossy’s was fate,” he whispered.
I jerked, my throat working. “Stop.”
“I saw the look on your face when you realized it was her, Doss,” he continued, unfazed by my agony. “It was the same look I had when I saw Carrie for the first time.”
“But it wasn’t my first time,” I spat.
He brushed his nose, glancing at the door before taking a step closer to me. “Right. So tell me. Tell me how you really felt the day you found her. Underneath all the rage, of course.”
I stared at him, my chest starting to heave, my pulse racing.
“You never really told me the entire story. Just Dominic.”
“Red Snake policy says I have to tell him,” I returned.
He nodded. “Yes, but you can also tell me.”
“You giving me an order?”
“If I have to.”
I gave him my back, letting out the air in my lungs as I walked over to the far end of her porch. The wood dipped, and I snapped my head down, lifting my boot.
Shit.
Her fucking porch was rotting.
“So what was your plan?” Grayson asked my back. “Come into town every now and then, doing your best to avoid her?”
I moved back and faced him once more, making a mental note to tell Margo about that. I didn’t need Angel or anyone else falling through the porch. “What do you want me to say, Gray?”
“Does Angel mean something to you?”
I scoffed. “Of course she fucking does.”
“No. Not as a rescue. Not as a failed mission. Does she mean something to you?”
My body was on fire, the flames in my chest spreading out in every direction, destroying the walls I’d built.
My ears began to ring. The image of her, starved and bleeding, began to merge with the memory of her coming into Rossy’s.
I dropped my head and braced my hands on the railing. “I can’t talk about this.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because what difference would it make? In my life? In hers?” I clipped, looking at him over my shoulder. “I already feel guilty enough for standing here on her damn porch. She doesn’t want me here.”
She doesn’t want me.
“You don’t know that.”
“Margo told us—”
He cut me off gently. “That was over a year and a half ago. Angel is settled. You left, and now you’re back. Things can change.”