Chapter 29
29
After one of the most joyful moments I’ve experienced since I was a kid, I would have expected Ava to stay on one of her bright high-noon moods for the rest of the day. Instead, I peek over; her jaw has dropped, and she stares at her cell.
I watch her out of my peripheral vision, both not wanting to interrupt whatever moment she’s having, yet wanting to observe her reaction. I chose to believe her story after the fair but I haven’t stopped wondering if that was foolish.
The cell was the source of her last freak out. And after what Rio told me… it leaves me unsure I ma de the right call. Still when I mentioned the hacks in the kitchen, she didn’t flinch.
It takes every bit of self-control not to snatch the phone from her hands, see who or what has made her darken like that, and seek out to destroy it.
“You okay?” I ask, dipping my gaze to her cell.
She searches for a response, and her pause sets my senses on high alert.
“We can talk about it later.”
She slides her phone back in her pocket, and though we’ve shared many silent moments, this one is louder than any I’ve ever had before.
“Are you sure about that? Is later a good time?” I don’t mean to allow accusation in my tone, but it’s there.
My mind swirls with the various options of how to deal with the and pros and cons of anything I do. My instinct is always to grab everything in my life by two hands, take the wheel, and drive it to where it needs to go. But Ava has a delicate history with control…
Still, it’s not my style to relinquish. And sometimes, I hate to admit, I’m not sure she understands just how bad these people are who kept her. In fact, she’s been so traumatized, I’m not sure she’s even considering it. The way she defended her uncle was unhealthy.
She grits her teeth. “Yeah. You only get an hour or two of free time today. Me, too. Let’s enjoy it.”
I offer a brief nod and let it rest.
Working in silence, I tack up the horses for us, not wanting one little bit to go out on the trails anymore, but I don’t want to raise hairs. It still could be nothing. Moreover, if I want to get her talking, there might be no better place than out on a hack. There’s something about the meditative sound of clopping hooves that gets a person confessing all sorts of things.
The silence grows louder once Ava is settled in, her round, peachy hips swaying on the saddle, reins loose in her hands, finally reassured that she remembers how to steer, stop, and lean into and out of hills. We’re hardly a hundred yards from the stable yard. Despite my attraction to her on that horse, I’m reeling.
Did she lie to me? Not only just now but that night after the fair? Was her number hacked, too, and she didn’t report it?
The only sounds between us are birds chirping, the occasional sneeze from my mare, and dust crunching under horse hooves. Nature usually calms me with its gentleness, grounding me into the present. But today, the sounds grate in my ears like nails on a chalkboard, because the longer Ava waits to talk to me about that text she received, the more I realize there will be no peace until I know.
I’m wound up like never before thinking she’s protecting a monster. Thinking her father might be after her again. Or her uncle. It doesn’t seem like she’s going to be forthcoming, and I have to say, that, too, twirls my veins into even tighter coils.
She said she trusted me. She said she felt safe with me.
And like I said before, when you fall, you act out of character. Just like I do when I find myself unable to control my tongue any longer.
“Rio said the cell number breaches were only on four numbers. ”
It’s a fine line between baiting someone to tell you something and offering them an opening. I’m so wound up I’m not really sure which one I’m doing. But we need to fucking talk or I’m going to go crazy.
“Yeah?” She doesn’t make eye contact, gazing at nothing in particular up ahead.
“Yup.” I pop the p. My temper is rising.
She doesn’t miss it and spins her gaze on me. We stare at each other for what feels like a century. My eyes are almost painful with begging. I need her to open up. Willingly. Or maybe this thing between us isn’t what I think it’s becoming. I thought she was mine. Mine to support. Mine to protect.
There’s something similar between the expression on her face at the fair and the one in the stable. Her features transform as she chews on what I said. I give her time, even though I want to push. I want to tug.
Being patient with her before all this happened between us was bad enough. Now it’s stretching my self-restraint.
The relief her next words offer are less like comfort and more like the dam finally breaking.
“I should have told you.” Her chest heaves with emotion; she’s struggling to get the words out. “Uh…” She swallows hard. “My number must have been part of that hack. That night at the fair was… a hack.”
I want to reward her honesty but I can’t. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She doesn’t answer. She can’t even face me.
“Why, Ava? You said you cared about GhostEye. You didn’t think a data breach was worth reporting to a man you supposedly cared about?”
She whips her head to me with a dare in her gaze. “ Don’t put that in the past tense, Enzo. I do care about you. But it’s not that simple. ”
“I don’t need simple. I think you know that.” I want to bite back my words but I don’t because there’s no time to waste on patience anymore as dread fills my gut. “Was it your father?”
Her eyes widen, and tears immediately gloss their surface.
Fuck. Please say no…
Her jaw tightens. “My uncle.”
“Goddamn it, Ava!” I give Estrella a little kick, and she bolts, but I spin around ahead and come back toward Hector too erratically.
Ava pulls on the reins, backing him up. “Enzo!”
“Sorry… just… fuck!” My voice is louder than I want it to be and yet not loud enough to express my exasperation.
Emotion overwhelms her but I’m full steam ahead.
“What on earth were you thinking? Not telling me immediately?”
“You don’t get it, Enzo, because you refuse to believe me. You refuse to believe Anton was a prisoner, too. But he was. I worried if I told you, you’d go after him.”
I teeter on the edge of going after him now. “Damn right I would. And I will.”
Her words are impassioned, full of equal parts anger and hurt. “He was kept there, too. I worried that maybe, he was forced to possibly commit crimes. I just… I needed some time to think.”
“You mean to let him get away…”
“No.” She’s shaken. “Maybe. Enzo, I don’t know what I was thinking. I needed time. I believe him being safe means I am, too.”
“How on earth do you figure that?”
“Because nobody could reason I’m here but him. If he’s away from Father, Anton can’t be tortured into giving information.”
A humorless, out-of-control laugh leaves my lips. “How do you even know it was him? How do you know it wasn’t your father?”
She stills. Uncertainty passes over her features. “He called me Menace. Nobody knows he called me that.”
I take my hat off and tug at my hair. “This is bad. You have to admit it. Do you know if Anton is capable of a data breach like this? On his own?”
She says the word like she wishes it was a different answer. “No.”
“Ava, you’ve given dangerous men who are after you two days’ lead by not telling me. Or Rio. Or fucking someone, anyone in cybersecurity would have done!”
I jump down off my horse and stride over to snatch Ava off hers, too.
She smooths hair behind her ears, features somewhere between bursting into tears and sinking her claws into me.
“You think I’m being silly when in actual fact you’re basing everything off assumptions. You don’t know Anton like I do. You don’t understand my situation. It’s complicated.”
I hold her in my arms and stare her dead in the eyes, hoping I can burst through some of this power her past has over her.
“That’s just your problem. It isn’t complicated. Men do not keep little girls locked up away from the world unless they are very bad, Scottie. I know you’ve seen things and I feel for you. You know if anyone offers you empathy it’s me. But at the same time, you don’t have the first clue just how evil people are. The things we’ve unearthed here at GhostEye? The atrocities? The depraved, disgusting scum of humanity is what I learn about day in and day out. Your father, your uncle, are not complicated. They’re evil.”
She’s fuming and matches my thunder. “That’s just the problem with you, Enzo. You want to tell me I’m gullible? Maybe you’re the simpleton! You think the world is perfectly arranged in opposites. Good and evil? Black and white? This perfect symmetry doesn’t exist, and I’m goddamned smart enough to know that, and you’re not. This world and people are shades of gray. You’re telling me you’re perfect? You have some lily-white reputation? No, we’re all a little fucked up.”
“There’s a big difference between making mistakes and torturing people.”
“That’s true. And I hate my father.” She pauses, unable to continue, choking up with emotion. “But my uncle?” Tears flood her eyes.
“Don’t say it…”
Please, Ava. Don’t protect him.
I desperately don’t want her to think good of a man who kept her captive, because if she’s truly been brainwashed by her uncle, that will break me into a million pieces.
A tear escapes down her cheek. “He deserves freedom. I know he does. I’ve clung to that as my beacon of hope in this world, Enzo. I have to believe he’s good or my anchor pulls up.”
Her cheeks are completely tearstained and flushed, and my throat tightens with compassion. I haul her into my chest. Her words are muffled against my neck.
“Can’t you understand that?” She sobs. “Don’t we all have things we believe, things we can’t prove are true but we use faith to survive? Is that really na?ve? Or am I just human?”
I hold the back of her head, hoping my comfort will help her. Her pain radiates beneath me. Up till now, Ava has been so brave. She lived her tragedy. Escaped it. Told me her story with her head held high, and now, she unravels. Years she’ll never get back pour out onto my shoulder, wetting my t-shirt with agony, loss, confusion.
And her pain makes me forget about myself for a moment. All I want to do is heal her and make sure she’s safe.
But then, she suddenly leans away from me. She takes a few deep breaths and wipes away her tears harshly, as if they have no place in her life. She’s trying to pull herself together. Jesus, my woman is strong.
She thrusts her cell into my hands and I read the message Anton just texted.
She composes herself. “Now you know everything.” Tears bubble up, and she shakes them, but hardly gets the words out as she breaks again. “I don’t want to lose you over this.”
“No…” I scoop her up in my arms. “Never. I got you.” I stroke her soft hair and kiss it. “I got you.”
She cries a little, sniffling hard not to.
I grip the sides of her face. “You don’t have to be strong when you’re with me.”
At that, more sobs unleash. I want to soak them all up for her. Soon, they’ll be the fuel for my vengeance, but now, I yearn to make her whole. It’s hard not to let my own pain for her slip past the knot in my throat. The injustice she’s experienced. The Stockholm syndrome. Never knowing what’s real and what isn’t. She didn’t deserve this, and I ache for her deep in my bones. I ache to give her something good and real that will never let her down.
Finally her crying subsides. She snuffles into my shirt. “What am I going to do? ”
I ease her back to see the fierceness in my eyes. “We. What are we going to do?”
For the first time since the stable, I see a glimmer of that beautiful smile again. “What are we going to do?”
“We need to involve law enforcement. FBI or CIA.” I’m firmer than I intend to be. “I’m not letting you go and meet with him alone.”
“ Let me?” She’s getting feisty again but not quite all the way to fury. “I don’t need your permission to do anything.”
It’s true. Unless I want to betray her now and report this all behind her back, Ava is a free woman. Free to figure out a way to meet him. Free to never come back. I have no control.
“I care about you deeply.” She chokes up. “But you can’t keep me behind these walls.”
Heat blazes off me; an inferno rages inside. This is madness. If I support her going to meet Anton, what does that say about me? If I couldn’t forgive myself after Diego, I would never come back from losing Ava. Not twice in a lifetime. And not with her. I need her in my life.
I speak low and steady, sensing I’m at the tipping point, balling up my fists. “Don’t you know by now how hard it is for me to open that door?”
And in this moment, our souls collide. Our losses, our traumas, our fears and wounds come together in one big mess because she knows which door led to my fear for her safety. My need to protect her.
The one I foolishly opened that day in Mexico.
Her whole aura shifts with compassion for how different yet how similar we are. There’s nobody in the world I feel can understand me. Except her. My emotions fight each other. The bridge of my nose stings, and this feels like an impossible stalemate. I’ve reached a place where my head and my heart will never agree on what to do right now. The weight of this is paralyzing.
She considers me for a long time, wind blowing her hair, and I catch sight of a wood chip lost in the soft fiery strands. She’s too important to me. I don’t know how I could ever risk losing her.
Yet this woman defied the impossible. The longer someone is missing, the lower the odds of finding them alive. But here she is, beautiful, shining, and more vibrant than anyone I’ve ever met.
I’ve been waiting a long time for a feeling like redemption to swallow my shame and guilt from years of self-blame. With every chance I’ve had to take down a criminal at GhostEye, I’ve asked God to relieve me. But it never came. And it will never come if she’s harmed under my watch.
She takes my hand, that fierce courage blazing in her eyes. I don’t know who’s leading whom anymore.
“Enzo, we’ve both been in chains for a long time now. You’ve never forgiven yourself, locked up behind some sort of self-loathing over a tragedy that was beyond your control. And me?” She pauses, maybe not wanting to reflect any more on what’s behind us. “It ends now. I have to face my past. I’m ready for this to be over. I’m not willing to choose one prison over another.”
I swallow hard. Everything inside me is tight and burning.
She laughs, and it brings tears back up to glisten in the rims of her eyes. “Maybe we were meant to meet each other.” She takes my hand. “So we could let go of our pasts together.”
My head spins, and my heart stops gazing into her soulful amber eyes. Before she came along, I was scared of nothing. Now, I’m scared to death, and that can only mean one thing…
I love her.
And love is not a cage. There is only one answer. She needs to meet Anton. If it ends up being her father, or if Anton isn’t who she says he is, I’ll be ready.
My core churns with energy. I feel fear and vengeance and love and hate all at once. Taking the risk is unbearable, but I believe we can close the door to our pasts together.
Ava is not my redemption.
She’s my healing.
There are more terrible things happening in my life at one time than most people could handle. Than I’d wish on anyone. But the company hacks, Ava’s father, her uncle… I can face it all. As long as I have her by my side.