by Shandi Boyes
That message I left on Ava’s voicemail the day I vanished is as solid now as it was back then. I still love her. I always have, and I always will. I just hope one day she can find it in her heart to forgive me. Not just for vanishing without a trace, but for breaking her heart.
My eyes lift from the eat-in kitchen floor when Izzy says, “You can put your bag in the spare room. It’s the third door on the right.”
I nod before ambling down the hall. Photo frames ranging in size are scattered on the walls of the corridor. They’re all pictures of Izzy at various stages of her life, from a freckle-faced little girl to a stunning teen all dolled up for a school dance. In a majority of the photos, she has her arm wrapped around a large brute of a man. He would be nearly as tall as me, but double my weight. The flash of the camera bounces off his shiny bald head. Even looking like a trained killer, nothing but admiration beams out of Izzy’s eyes as she stares up at him.
Placing my black bag onto the double bed in the middle of the room, my eyes drop to my watch. It is a little after five PM local time, so it’s close to eight PM at Rochdale. Nearly Joel’s bedtime. Swallowing a lump in my throat, I pull out my cell phone and dial Jorgie’s old home number I have memorized, hoping Ava’s number is the same. I push the phone in close to my ear, ensuring I can hear her over the mad beat of my heart.
“Hey, you’ve reached Ava and Joel. We’re not home right now so leave a message after the beep,” Ava and Joel say in sync.
A grin tugs on my lips from the corniness of their message.
“Hey, it’s me… umm… Hugo. Joel’s dad.” Jesus, I sound like a moron.
“Just wanted to say goodnight to Joel. Goodnight, buddy, I hope you had a good day. And to let you know I’m thinking of you… both of you. Bye.”
I’m pulling the phone away from my ear when it suddenly dawns on me what I said. I raise the phone back to my ear in a sense of urgency. “Not goodbye. I’ll see you so--”
I stop talking when a loud clink sounds over the line. “Hey, you're home,” I greet with a smile.
“Yes, they are,” advises a male voice I don’t recognize. “Home with me, where they belong.”
My teeth grit when I recognize the condescending tone shrieking down the line. Marvin.
“Leave my family alone, Hugo,” Marvin sneers.
“They're not your family,” I snap back. “Joel is my son. He has my blood.” And Ava owns my heart.
“Joel may have your blood running through his veins, but I’m the man who raised him, fed him, and clothed him. Without me, he wouldn’t even have a roof over his head.”
Fury blackens my veins, but even fuming in anger, I can’t negate Marvin’s claims. I haven’t been there for Joel, but that is only because I didn’t know he existed. If I did, I would have done everything in my power to ensure he was looked after. To ensure he didn’t have to endure the pain Ava and I went through the past five years.
“Put Ava on the phone,” I demand, my words coming out rough as a surge of emotions flood into me. “I want to talk to Ava.”
“Do everyone a favor, Hugo. Stay away. That will be the kindest thing you could ever do for you son,” Marvin snarls before disconnecting the call.
I throw my phone onto a bed then run my hand over my head. I can’t give them up. It isn’t possible. It was hard enough staying away from Ava the past five years. Many times I’ve jumped into my car and headed to Rochdale, dying to see her again, needing to know she was safe and protected. I never made it any further than the Welcome to Rochdale sign four miles out. I couldn’t risk her life, but I also didn’t want to see the pain in her eyes knowing I was the one who put it there. So with a heavy heart, I turned around and steered my car back to Ravenshoe, back to the town that sheltered me during my roughest storm. I’ve always quoted that your home isn’t where you were born and raised; it is where your family is. For the past five years, Ravenshoe has been my family, but not anymore, the woman who owns my heart lives in Rochdale, as does the boy who has captured my soul.
I peer out the window when I catch the shadow of a figure in a room at the back of the property. Shit! I’m supposed to be here protecting Izzy. I house my firearm in the back of my jeans and rush in the direction I saw the figure.
“Izzy,” I call out when I enter the backyard.
The furious beat of my heart lessens when Izzy’s faint voice emerges from an office attached to the side of the house. When I sprint into the space, my eyes scope the room, ensuring it is free of any threats. Other than stacks of moldy boxes, Izzy is the only living thing inside the room.
“What is this room?” I ask, pacing deeper into the space.
Izzy huffs. “Years of hard work wasted. My Uncle Tobias never relied on computers. He said they were too risky. I guess he never met a cracked tile before.”
When she rolls her eyes while dragging a stack of sagging boxes across the room, I chuckle lightheartedly. I’ve never been a fan of computers either, preferring to communicate in person rather than over the internet. Perhaps if I hadn’t been so stubborn, I would have discovered Joel’s existence years ago.
Hours pass in an instant as I aid Izzy in saving years of her uncle’s FBI paperwork. I’ve never had a fondness for law enforcement officers, but the way Izzy speaks about her uncle tilts the pendulum in his favor. My lack of respect for law enforcement wasn’t engrained in me until my sister’s death. I know I made a mistake five years ago when I allowed my grief to overrule my moral compass, but in my defense, I did try to handle the situation legally. It was only when it failed did I let my anger get the better of me.
A giggle spills from Izzy’s lips when my stomach loudly grumbles. I’m not surprised by its reaction. I haven’t eaten anything since the cheeseburgers Joel and Ava’s friend brought back last night.
“I’ll climb up onto the roof tomorrow morning and patch the hole the best I can, but you might need to get a professional out to look at it,” I offer.
Izzy smiles. “Thanks. I guess I should feed you then, to make sure you don’t fade away before tomorrow morning,” she jests.
I laugh. Given the chance to meet, Izzy and Ava would get on like a house on fire. Both can make me laugh even when my mood is woeful. My stomach is still cramping from the amount of laughing I did in Ava’s office. I can’t believe how immature I acted last night. I’m nearly thirty years old, but that didn’t stop me from tackling Ava to the ground and tickling her until she begged me to stop. It’s been years since I fooled around like that. I’m not surprised, though. Only Ava has the ability to make it seem like I’ve stepped back in time. Anytime I’m around her, I once again become a teenage boy chasing his high school crush.
“I don’t think there's much chance of me fading away,” I quip, my tone playful as the memories of last night drastically improve my mood.
“Just give me a chance to get the box I originally came in here for and then I’ll order us some pizza from Maria’s,” Izzy advises, pacing toward a large stack of shelves housing document boxes.
I slant my head to the side and stare into Izzy’s eyes when she paces back toward me with a box marked O01P10. It isn’t the box gaining my attention, it is the fretful mask slipped over Izzy’s face causing my greatest concern. I follow Izzy into the main house, noticing her positive stance has also faded away.
“I’ll order in some pizza, then I’m going to take a quick shower.”
Not waiting for me to reply, she steps into the hallway. My eyes incessantly peer at the box she left sitting on the dining room table as I prepare myself a cup of coffee, hoping a good dose of caffeine will give me a boost. No matter how much I try to keep my focus off the box, my eyes consistently stray to it.
Unable to assuage my curiosity any longer, I set down my half-empty mug of coffee and amble toward the box. My eyes dart to the hallway, ensuring the coast is clear before I lift up the box flap. The air is vehemently removed from my body when my eyes zoom in on the first photo in the box. Him.
I throw off the lid with brutal force, sending it flying halfway across the kitchen floor. My hand shakes when I snatch the photo from the top of the pile. Why is Izzy investigating the man who killed my sister?
As I continue to delve through the box of photos and handwritten records, my concern grows. Numerous photos of Isaac are stored in this box, taken around the age he was when I first met him. Izzy isn’t investigating Robert Petretti. She's investigating Isaac. Why would she do this? Why can’t she just leave it alone? What’s done is done. It can’t be taken back.
“What are you doing? You can’t go through that. Those files are highly confidential,” roars across the room.
“Confidential?” I sneer, glaring at Izzy storming across the room. “You’re invading his privacy, and you’re worried about confidentiality. Is this why you came here? Searching for answers to questions he can’t answer yet?” Questions he shouldn’t have to answer.
Izzy gathers up the articles and photos spread across the table. Her face is pale, and her eyes are welling with tears.
“If you want answers, you should’ve kept asking, not go behind his back and investigate him.” He doesn’t deserve your interrogation. I do.
“I’m not investigating him,” she retaliates.
“Then what do you call it, Izzy? You’re looking into his past, digging through his personal life.”
“I’m not prying into his personal life!”
I slam a surveillance photo of Isaac onto the wooden tabletop. “You’re not prying into his personal life, hey, then what the fuck is this?” I yell, no longer able to harbor my anger. Isaac has sheltered and defended me for years, all to have the woman he loves investigate him like he's a criminal.
“He isn’t a criminal, but you're treating him as if he is one, and not the man you’ve agreed to marry.”
A tear rolls down Izzy’s cheek, calming my anger. I inhale a deep breath and count backwards from ten, a trick Avery taught me to do when I feel my anger is spiraling out of control.
“Ten seconds can be the difference between a lifetime of mistakes or a lifetime of memories,” she has often quoted.
Izzy snaps her eyes shut, battling against her tears. Her hand slips into the back pocket of her jeans to remove a folded up piece of glossy paper. My eyes roam over her face as she unfolds the piece of paper before handing it to me. Even though the blood surging through my body has turned potent, the spark of fear ignited in Izzy’s eyes sets me on edge. When she hands me the piece of paper, a freight train crashes into me. My eyes bounce between the photos of Isaac and his girlfriend before her untimely demise sprawled on the table and the photo in my hand of a girl who looks eerily similar to Isaac’s deceased girlfriend. No way, it can’t be.
“This can’t be true,” I mutter, my tone quickly shifting from angry to sympathetic.
“It is,” Izzy mumbles. “This file proves it is. Ophelia is alive, and she’s been living in Tiburon the entire time.”
She paces toward me and matches up the photos, proving without a doubt the lady in the new photo is the same girl photographed with Isaac. Everything about her is similar: her face, her eyes, and a small mole in the corner of her neck.
“I gathered she was here because that’s Old St. Hilary’s church on Esperanza Street in the background. It is a well-loved landmark in Tiburon.”
My eyes lift to Izzy. She isn’t devastated to discover the secret Isaac’s been hiding the past five years. She's devastated because she thinks she's losing him.
“Jesus Christ,” I mumble under my breath. “Does Isaac know about any of this?”
Izzy bites on her lip and shakes her head. “No, I wanted to come and see for myself. I couldn’t risk hurting him if it wasn’t true. If it wasn’t really her.”
“If it is her, are you planning on telling him?”
Izzy lifts the newest photo of Ophelia off the dining table before gently nodding. A heavy weight slams into my chest from the defeated look on her face.
“What can I do to make this easier on you?”
New tears form in Izzy’s eyes. “Just remind me that he loves me. And that I’m doing this to ease his pain.”
Fifteen
Hugo
I climb the stairs of a private jet with Izzy cradled in my arms. She hasn’t stopped crying since we left a pharmacy nearly thirty minutes ago. I’ve always been a communicator, but I’m too shocked at the events that transpired today to configure a response.
The hunch Izzy was running with was solid. She found Ophelia. Isaac’s girlfriend who was killed in an “accident” well over five years ago is alive and well. As if that isn’t shocking enough, Ophelia has a child, a small boy who would only be a year or two older than Joel. Isaac could be a father and he doesn’t even know it.
I'm honestly at a loss on how he will react. Isaac protects every member of his empire as if they're his family, as if they're his blood. Imagine how great his response will be to discovering he has a child?
A few hours into the flight, Izzy’s tears finally dry and her head lifts to me. “How old do you think Ophelia’s son is?”
I want to lie. I want to tell her there isn’t a possibility Ophelia’s son is Isaac’s, but I can’t. I can’t deceive her like that. I'm not a deceitful person.
“Five or six.”
Her hand rattles as she takes a sip from a bottle of water. “So the dates could add up? He could be Isaac’s son?”
She tries to put on a brave front, but she isn’t fooling anyone. Izzy’s eyes are very expressive. I can read her like a book. I move to sit in the spare seat next to her. A whimper escapes her lips when I wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her into my chest. Flashes of the time I comforted Jorgie in my parent’s kitchen weeks before her death come rushing to the forefront of my mind.
“You can’t fight fate, Izzy, but that doesn’t mean you should give up. Isaac gave you that engagement ring as a promise.” I peer down at the dark gray and purple gemstone on her finger. “He’s never spoken those words to another woman before, so that alone shows your importance to him. You need to have faith that things will work out the way they're meant to.”
As do I. I fought my attraction to Ava for years, using any pathetic excuse I could find. She was my sister’s best friend. My parents treated her like a daughter. I didn’t want to settle down. Only now do I realize why it has only ever been Ava occupying my thoughts.
She was the first girl I ever lusted over, the first girl I ever asked out, and the first girl I’ve ever loved. My very existence begins and ends with her, and I'm going to make sure she's fully aware of that. Even though she's wearing another man’s ring and has agreed to be his wife, I’ll fight to my very last breath. I'll never give up.
After watching Isaac participate in a charity UFC match, I understand why he is feared by his rivals. The smile he wore in the cage didn’t reflect the viciousness of his attack. I’m considering changing his nickname from Boss to the Smiling Assassin.
“Are you alright?” I ask Izzy, punching in the security code for Isaac’s private residence.
Keeping her gaze fixated on the arched window of Isaac’s house, she faintly murmurs, “Yes.”
When I pull to the side of the driveway, I turn off the engine and grasp the door handle latch. My quick exit is foiled when Izzy places her hand on my knee.
“I want to talk to Isaac alone,” she advises, her words weak. “He's a private man and wouldn’t appreciate an audience.”
Izzy’s uncle should be proud. She has grown up to be an admirable woman. Even with her heart breaking, her prioritizes remain on protecting Isaac. She harbors so many of Ava’s qualities. Even though I left her heartbroken, she has been nothing but encouraging of my relationship with Joel. For that, I'll be forever indebted to her.
“Alright. I’ll wait here until Isaac arrives, then I’ll head out, but if you need anything, Izzy, you have my number.”
Izzy nods before leaning over and pressing a kiss against my
cheek. “Thanks, Hugo, for everything.”
Not long after Izzy has peeled out of my car, the headlights of Isaac’s Bugatti illuminate the driveway. When he notices Izzy standing at the entrance of his house, he tries to keep his face passive. He fails miserably. Just like the night I officially introduced Hawke to Jorgie, anytime Isaac and Izzy are together, the dynamic between them is explosive. Like fireworks in a blackened sky.
Once Isaac joins Izzy on the porch of his home, I jump into my Chevelle and tear out of the driveway. My mind is jumbled, trying to pick between driving back to Rochdale now, or grabbing a few hours of sleep.
“You’re not going to do anyone any good if you end up wrapped around a telephone pole,” I mutter to myself.
My excessive speed down the winding roads of Isaac’s estate slows when I notice a blue BMW parked on the edge of Isaac’s property line. A snarl forms on my lips when the headlights of my car light up the number plate on the BMW. Blondie. What the fuck is he doing here?
When I pull in behind Blondie’s BMW, he climbs out of the driver’s seat. I don’t know what it is, but there's something about Blondie that sets me on edge. I can’t tell if it stems from the way he looks at Izzy when he thinks no one is looking, or if it is the cloud of secrets his wholesome eyes are concealing, but no matter how well he portrays the image of a humble Boy Scout, I ain’t buying the shit he's selling. I can’t comprehend why Izzy can’t see the darkness impinging his eyes. To me, it is as obvious as the sun hanging in the sky, but Izzy seems oblivious to it. I know Blondie is hiding something, and I’m planning on exposing his deepest, darkest secrets.
“What are you doing here, Blondie?” I ask, pacing toward him.
I’ve nicknamed Brandon Blondie. It isn’t his blond hair that has given him the title. It is the fact I don’t believe Brandon is his real name. Hunter, Isaac’s head of security, is one of the world’s best hackers—not Adrian Lamo on a good day. He's Adrian Lamo on his best day. After completing a search on Brandon that Phillip Marlowe would have been proud of, Hunter couldn’t find a trace of information on him. Not a single smidge. Brandon is even more of an illusion than I am. From experience, I know only men with something to hide keep their information locked up tighter than Fort Knox. That is why I know Brandon is hiding something, and it isn’t his fascination with Izzy. That’s even more obvious than the sun shining in the sky.