If there wasn’t a third party who knew they had completed the equation, the only other option was that Henry was behind all of the insanity. And that just wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible. Right?
No, she decided. The fact that some badass men were hunting her down was evidence enough that Henry was innocent.
She stared at the unlit fireplace in Michael’s imposing living room. Who needed a fireplace in the south? Did it ever get cold enough to even use? She walked over to the wall near the fireplace and switched it on. The gas logs sparked and the flames licked the air with intent.
So much had happened in a matter of days. What would have happened to her if she hadn’t met Aiden? She shuddered at the thought. She’d be dead, of course. Or at the very least strapped down right now, tortured for information. Something had brought them together.
“Ava?”
She turned away from the fire and moved over to the windows.
“Kat’s vitals are stable. They had to put her in a coma, for now, to try and prevent brain injury. They’ll wake her in a few days, and hopefully, there won’t be any damage.” He cleared his throat. “It’s too early to tell right now.”
“So there’s hope,” she mumbled before pressing the tips of her fingers against her forehead, trying to push away the massive headache that was threatening.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Aiden standing just behind her, his reflection in the glass windows that overlooked the city. She looked out onto the terrace but decided it wasn’t safe to sit outside.
She preferred to stay within the confines of the bulletproof windows. But how long could they stay there? The longer they were there, the greater the chance that Henry would . . . no, she couldn’t think like that.
Aiden touched her shoulders and began massaging them. She shut her eyes, trying to relax. What had she done to deserve this savior, this Irish knight?
“Michael managed to get a partial plate on the guy who played dress up at the hospital.”
Her eyes opened with the immediate mention of the news. “And?” She studied Aiden’s reflection in the window.
“He’s trying to track him down.”
“That’s good, right?” She spun around to face him, and he dropped his hands to his sides. “This is a real lead, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up too high. It’s only a partial plate. The camera in the parking garage was not at the right angle. But we got the make and model, so that should help. But I have to assume the vehicle was either stolen or has already been ditched.”
Ava nodded. “I don’t want this to come across as racial profiling, but the guy at the hospital, well, he didn’t look foreign.” She chewed at her thumbnail for a brief moment, before realizing what she was doing. “He looked very much American, in fact.”
“Do you know anything about the people whose research you were using? When the government tasked you with the assignment, did they tell you who they got the partial chemical formula from?” He cocked his head and rubbed a hand over his jaw.
“Just terrorists. I guess I just assumed . . .” She didn’t want to finish her sentence aloud. She hated stereotyping, but ever since 9/11 it could be hard not to associate the word terrorist with a certain group of people.
Her best friend at Berkeley, the one who had the seizure, was from Turkey. She was Muslim. And Yasemin was the sweetest woman on the planet. She really hated when people judged her—judged anyone, for that matter.
And she hated herself even more for allowing the unpleasant stereotype to rule her reasoning. “I feel like I’m losing my mind,” she said, before walking to the couch.
Aiden joined her and clasped his hands on his lap. “When I was in the Marines, which was only for a couple of years, I spent all my time in Afghanistan.”
Ava’s heart catapulted up and into her throat. She tried not to make a sound, worried he’d change his mind and refrain from opening up.
“I was young. It was just after college. A couple years post 9/11. And even though I’d only been an American citizen for a few years, I still felt like it was my duty, not just as an American, but as a human being, to help bring down terrorists. To stop the spread of evil in the world.”
She hung on to his every word, her eyes glued to his face, even though he wasn’t looking at her. His attention was on the hardwood floors.
“I met Michael in Afghanistan. We were on a tour of duty together. This was before he joined the Special Forces division.” He took in a long, slow breath before continuing. “When we were over there, what we saw changed us. I mean, we saw violence. We killed Taliban insurgents . . . but we also witnessed hope. The Afghan people in the villages were kind to us. A lot of them didn’t speak English, but they let us in their homes. Even made us food when we passed through. And, for the most part, most people I encountered were great people. It made me realize that we were looking at people all in the wrong way. We were classifying people in the Middle East as the enemy. But you can’t categorize a group of people based on the acts of a few.”
“You said Michael saved your life?”
He looked up at her for the first time in the last few minutes, his blue eyes intense and focused on her. “I decided not to sign up again for another tour, so I was completing my last month. About to go home.” His voice was gravelly as he spoke. “We were on a routine mission, but our team came under enemy fire. I was close to taking a bullet in the neck, but he shoved me out of the way. Fortunately, he didn’t get hurt either.” He paused. “But a lot of men were injured. We were too far from base, so we decided to go to the nearby village that Michael had spotted on the map when completing surveillance earlier. We carried the injured men the half mile or so, and the people—well, we didn’t know at first if we were walking into a death trap, because what if the insurgents had come from there. . .?”
“What happened?” she asked, on the edge of her seat, her nerves tumbling fast and furious.
“The people bandaged our wounded and kept the men safe while Michael went back to base to get help.” He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his hands over his face.
“What is it? That’s kind of a good story, right?” She reached up for his hands and pulled them from his face. His eyes were glossy. Wet. “What happened, Aiden?” she asked, her voice cracking with emotion.
“The next day, we heard that the village was attacked by the insurgents—punishment for helping us.” He exhaled a breath. “It was our bloody fault. They helped us, and we got them slaughtered.”
Ava’s mouth parted. There were no words.
He stood up and shook his shoulders a little as if trying to loosen a burden. “Anyways.”
She rose to her feet and, without thinking, she pressed her body against him. Hugging him. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered into his ear as she pressed up on her toes. She kissed his cheek and took a step back. “I’m sorry for pestering you about your past.”
He ran a hand through his now-disheveled hair. “I’m fine. Really.”
She didn’t believe him. “Why don’t we lie down for a bit until we hear from Michael?” She reached for his hand and guided him to the master bedroom. She pulled down the covers and slipped into the bed, feeling the sheets pull against the cuffs of her jeans as she wriggled down. She held her breath as the weight of the bed shifted.
His strong arms wrapped around her body, pulling her close until her back was pressed against his chest. Although curiosity continued to nip at her, and she wondered what Aiden had done between his time in the military and opening the bar, she pushed the thoughts aside and just allowed herself to relax against him.
The last thought on her mind, before she drifted to sleep, was safe.
Chapter Eleven
“The car was reported stolen about an hour before the incident.”
Ava rubbed her forehead, crossed her arms, and stared down at the phone in Michael’s office. Michael had said the office phone was a more secure line. “N
o luck finding the car?” she asked, disappointment lacing her words.
“Oh, it was found. Ditched about fifteen miles north of Charlotte in a town called Huntersville. But it was scrubbed clean.”
Her shoulders slumped forward as she stole a glance at Aiden, wondering what he thought of it all. She watched as he leaned back in the leather desk chair, blazing a hand over his jaw.
“Was there any surveillance footage where the car was dumped?” Aiden asked. He peered up at Ava.
“No. It was abandoned off some back road. The only reason the car was even discovered was because a cruiser noticed it while on patrol in the middle of the night.”
“Why do you think he dumped the car there? What’s in Huntersville?” Ava slouched back into her chair.
“It’s probably the exact opposite direction of wherever these guys are staying. I highly doubt they’re at the Marriot in Huntersville.”
Ava heard a voice in the background and realized it was Kate. The phone was muffled for a moment. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”
Ava scooted forward on her seat, her muscles growing tense. “Yeah?”
Michael cleared his throat as keys tapped in the background. “Henry set up an offshore account in the Cayman Islands approximately six months ago. Money has been internationally wired and deposited from an untraceable account into his every month, like clockwork. Except this month. Yesterday is when the normal payment would have arrived.”
Ava sucked in a breath. “What does that mean?” Aiden’s face was a blank slate. “Could it just be payment for his job? I mean, we were working for that secret agency, and I’m guessing they have to keep their identity covered.”
“Who was paying you?” Michael asked.
“Well, my paychecks came from Homeland. Nothing changed when I took on the new assignment.” She paused. “Even though, apparently, they changed my clearance and told me on Monday that I technically hadn’t been working for them.” Her eyes glossed over as she considered new explanations for the events of the last few days. With so many options, everything was becoming a blur.
“Do you think it’s possible that this agency, or whoever interrogated you, could be behind all of this?” Aiden asked Ava, swiveling in the chair to better face her.
She thought for a moment. “When they were questioning me, I definitely got the vibe that they didn’t have a clue about where Henry was. And they were obviously suspicious of him. I think they let my coworkers and I go to follow us, hoping that one of us would lead them to Henry. Because they probably thought—still think—that Henry is a traitor,” Ava explained, her voice breaking a little with emotion.
There was silence on the phone for a moment before Michael finally spoke. “Ava, I hate to say this, but I need you to accept the possibility that Henry was being paid by someone else.” Michael’s voice slipped through the phone with careful delivery, as if he were trying to minimize the blow.
But it still hit hard—a head-jolting, edge-of-her-jaw, blood-on-the-lip blow. “No. That’s an emphatic hell no, just to be clear.” She jumped up from her chair, anger seething through her, burning her insides. “I’ve had doubts, sure. But look at the evidence. There’s no way Henry is behind any of this if people are attacking me, Kat, and Eddie.”
“Unless the deal went bad and Henry didn’t follow through with a promise,” Michael was quick to respond.
She folded her arms and stared at Aiden, begging him with her eyes to defend his uncle. But he didn’t even know Henry. How could he fight for him? “I’m sorry. I—I don’t accept that.”
“I think I should call you back later,” Aiden said as he rose to his feet.
“Aiden, do you want some reinforcements? I could call Connor and Jake.”
Aiden gripped the back of his neck and stared down at the phone. “I think the fewer people involved in this the better. It’s already spiraling out of control.”
Ava wasn’t quite sure whether she agreed. Part of her felt that they needed all the help they could get, but she also worried about putting more people in danger.
“Thank you. I’ll give you a buzz later.” He hung up and moved toward Ava, reaching for her arm. His fingers grazed her skin and, somehow, that slight touch calmed her. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. If you say Henry is innocent, then that’s enough for me.”
“Thank you.”
“Why don’t we try and relax for a little bit? We can have some wine and sit by the fire,” he proposed and strode from the room.
She hesitated for a moment before following after him. He was pressing a remote, cursing beneath his breath as he kept hitting the wrong buttons. Finally, the blinds closed, sealing out most of the light from the previously bright room. He started up the fire and threw a soft, brown suede blanket on the floor.
“Red or white?”
“Red.” She walked over to the blanket and nestled in front of the fire, feeling mesmerized by the dancing flames.
“Here,” he said as he sat down next to her, bearing two glasses of wine.
“Is Michael always like that? Sort of cold at times?” Ava took her glass and tried a sip.
Aiden smirked. “He is nicknamed the Man of Steel, and it’s not just for his looks.”
She returned his smile. “But Kate found a soft spot, huh?”
“Women do have a way of breaking men.” His mouth twisted into not-quite a smile.
With arched brows, she lowered the glass from her lips. “That’s what you call it? Being broken?”
He placed his glass on the floor next to him. “Aye.”
She set her glass down as well. “Really?” She arched her shoulders back a little and pulled her knees to her chest. She steadied her eyes on the flickering flames, admiring the burnt orange air eater. “Care to elaborate on that? What do you mean by broken?”
“Men are bloody idiots. The whole lot of us. We go around thinking we are invincible and don’t need to settle down to be happy. And then a woman comes along—the woman—and she breaks the man. She makes him see the truth—that a world without her is like drinking cheap whiskey all your life when you could be having the best of the best all the time. Top shelf.”
His soft blue eyes pulled her in as he spoke, his sweet words sending her mind to dangerous territory. Who was this mysterious Irishman? She expected him to be more bitter, as he certainly seemed gun shy on the topic of his mother. Yet, he just delivered a poetic symphony of perfect and honest words. Well, minus the “bloody idiots” part—that seemed a little exaggerated. “And do you think you’ll ever find your bottle of top-shelf whiskey?” she asked, peering up at him beneath long lashes. Her pulse quickened at the touch of his hand on her knee.
“I do.”
He removed his hand and reached for his glass. “What about you? You think your perfect man is out there?”
“I don’t know about perfect—perfection is boring. But I think there’s hope.” She swallowed, wishing she could tame the arousal that was beginning to burn inside her. How could she be turned on and thinking about sex, fairy tales, butterflies, and happy endings . . . when she was being hunted? She ran a hand through her hair and shifted on the blanket, releasing her grip on her legs, allowing them to relax out in front of her.
“You believe in fate, right?” he asked.
She didn’t want to look at him. Ever since they’d met, she’d wondered if they were brought together by fate. But what kind of person would that make her? Henry and Eddie were missing, Kat was in a drug-induced coma, and a chemical weapon on American soil was actually a possibility. And she’d been responsible for helping to create it.
How could she be thinking about the fate that brought those things as anything but terrible, even if it had brought her to Aiden? Of course, if she hadn’t found Aiden she’d probably be dead right now.
“I believe that everything happens for a reason,” she finally answered, but kept her eyes focused on the fire. “What about you?”
“I don’
t know.”
His answer had her looking up. His face was a mirror image of how she felt—his brows pulled together, his lips tight, his eyes a little lost. She wanted to erase whatever pain lurked beneath the surface. “Aiden?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think we could play pretend again?”
Aiden cocked his head to the side, and his lips twitched. He reached for her without uttering a word and pulled her onto his lap in one quick movement. “Aye.” He brushed a hand through her hair and cupped the back of her head, guiding her face closer to him.
“Can we pretend that no one’s going to die?” Pain and fear were pulling her in a different direction, but with his mouth so close to hers—his eyes so deep and full of soul . . . he was pulling her right back.
“No one is going to die,” he answered with a throaty voice before pulling her in for a kiss.
She could feel his arousal almost immediately, pressing against his jeans. She was desperate to touch him, to be touched, to experience the same kind of release he’d given her yesterday. She just needed to be someone else. Anyone but this brainiac victim she had let herself become.
She just needed to be Ava. A woman desired. And God, did Aiden make her feel all kinds of wanted.
“You’re so beautiful, Ava,” he said in a rough voice after pulling his mouth away from her. His palm cupped her face as he focused on her eyes.
Her breath caught in her throat as she stared back at him. Tingles coursed through her body and straight to her heart. She brought her lips back to his, connecting with him far more deeply than she could ever remember feeling before. Her body hummed with new tones of longing and need.
“Aiden,” she cried, breaking their kiss, as his hand slipped beneath her shirt. His mouth nipped her earlobe before tracing kisses down her long neck. Her body rocked against his, her insides coiling tight with desire.
He rose to his feet to undress, and with her back on the blanket, she looked up at him as her teeth sank into her lower lip. He removed his T-shirt from over his head, exposing his hard body. His muscles flexed, and she wet her lips. Her attention shifted from the slight dusting of chest hair to the pair of blue eyes that could potentially seal her fate.
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