Beyond His Control

by Stephanie Tyler

  Ava had grown up running wild. Her mom left when Ava had been just thirteen, and in need of a mother the most.

  She’d had to turn to her father and Leo for dating advice instead of her mom—both their mantra being, you’re not dating until you’re thirty, so no, that hadn’t worked out well after all.

  For the next few years, until they moved from North Carolina to Virginia, she’d taken on a lot of the household responsibilities. Her father was away too much to do so and Leo had no interest in things like grocery shopping or cooking.

  She’d also found time to maintain a straight-A average—with a slight bit of coercion, first from Leo and later, from Justin, and have a normal social life. She didn’t want anything further to disrupt their family, and she knew enough to know that social workers would have a field day if they knew her father was sometimes away for a month at a time.

  Still, something inside always pressed her to go further and further to the edge, test the limits. It was a need she couldn’t really control, something bred into her from her father’s genes, she supposed.

  Her father had been in the army—Delta Force, then moved over to the DEA at the request of her mother, who’d somehow thought that a government agency would be a safer bet. She figured she’d have her husband home more and not taking off at a moment’s notice.

  But her mother had been wrong because her father could find trouble just as efficiently and effectively as Ava and Leo could.

  Which, of course, explained Ava’s want of Justin. At the time, Justin had been trouble—the supposed black sheep of his family and honestly more interested in keeping her out of trouble than finding it himself. Her best friend.

  She’d thought for sure they had a future together, was still haunted by that one night when she’d finally gotten through to him—or so she’d thought, the one time she’d been able to have him stop seeing her as his closest friend’s little sister and he’d actually touched her…

  The best and worst night of her young life. The night Justin kissed her…almost made love to her.

  The day before he’d announced to her that he was marrying someone else, a girl Ava hadn’t even known he was dating. A girl he’d gotten pregnant.

  Nine years had passed faster than she could’ve imagined then, when she was just seventeen and crying so hard over Justin’s betrayal she could barely breathe. Still heavily in grief over her father’s death, she’d thrown herself into academics. When Leo announced he’d been accepted into the DEA, it made her turn away from him and refocus on her own career. Something that was all hers, which no one else could ever take away.

  She told herself she’d been lucky that nothing had ever worked out with Justin. Where would she have been today? Worrying constantly about his safety? About when he’d return? If he’d return? Even though she’d been taught at an early age that you never, ever used the word if in conjunction with a military deployment. No need to tempt the fates.

  Not that she didn’t worry about him and Leo in secret, all the time, anyway.

  There had been men during the years since she’d seen Justin. Too many, probably, in some kind of strange attempt to exorcize him from her mind and her dreams. But between her job and her lack of interest in any of these guys, because she’d always been too guarded for her own good, she’d never had much more than casual relationships. Even her most recent romance, which had lasted six months, ended because it had gotten too serious for her. Instead, she put in late nights at the office and fielded hate mail and death threats and worked hard to put the bad guys in jail and tried her best not to let the past overwhelm her.

  You never even called Justin about his baby or the divorce.

  She’d been too hurt to even think about Justin’s loss. It had been wrong, selfish and, in her eyes, unforgivable enough that she’d never been able to contact him before this. And the worst part was that she knew that Justin, probably more than anyone else, understood why, and not just for the obvious reasons.

  She’d heard, through the good old grapevine, that Justin’s ex-wife had remarried, had more babies, and that Justin hadn’t gotten involved with anyone significant.

  She wondered if he’d been keeping tabs on her, too.

  She reached for the phone, wondering if this time she’d actually go through with it. But the phone rang as her hand touched the receiver, and jolted her firmly back to reality.

  She didn’t know the number on her caller ID, and answered with a wary hello.

  “I’ve got a lead for you on the Mercer case.” She recognized the deep garbled voice of an informant she’d gotten solid evidence from several times in the past, thanks to some of her connections with the New York City Police Department.

  Most informants couldn’t be trusted any farther than she could throw them, but she didn’t have much choice. “I’m waiting,” she said.

  “Not over the phone. In person. At Grandpa’s Bar. Midnight.” He hung up before she had a chance to respond. Didn’t matter—she’d be there.

  She had to find out what everyone else knew about Susie’s disappearance.

  2

  AT A TABLE in the back of the dim bar, the man Ava knew only as Sammy downed the third beer she’d bought for him. Ava, in turn, played with the label on her first and only bottle and tried to appear patient.Sammy was a good-looking, fast-talking con man whose penchant for gambling had gotten him into some bad situations. But his time spent around other recently paroled convicts afforded Ava, and the officers she often worked with, insight into cases they might never have broken otherwise.

  Finally, Sammy spoke. “They got me again. I’m going to need your help.”

  She sighed, knowing the “they” referred to his parole officer, and the help, no doubt, involved a gambling scheme gone bad. “I thought you were getting out of the game.”

  “It was a setup,” he protested.

  “I’ll talk to your parole officer but I can’t promise anything, Sammy. You might be looking at some jail time.”

  Sammy nodded, because he knew. Still, he’d give her information in an attempt to reduce his sentence. “I hear you’re looking for that Susie Mercer woman.”

  Keep it cool, Ava. He really doesn’t know anything. “Have you heard where she is?” she asked, and Sammy shook his head roughly.

  “No. I don’t know where she is, but I know who she is.” His voice was so low she could barely hear him over the music and the bar’s rowdy clientele. “You’ve heard of the O’Rourkes?”

  Everyone had heard of the O’Rourkes. The infamous family ran an import/export business as its legitimate front, which was a cover for a highly successful and illegal drug-smuggling business that seemed to grow bigger every year. The business was based out of Chicago, and even though O’Rourke also had an office in New York, the D.A. had never been able to touch him.

  “Of course I’ve heard of the O’Rourkes,” she said, pushing her beer to the side as her head began to pound.

  “Well, she’s married to one of them. Robert Mercer, Susie’s husband, is the guy’s son,” Sammy said triumphantly. He clinked the neck of his beer bottle with hers.

  “Sammy, how did you find that out?” she whispered urgently. Sammy shrugged, unconcerned. Since Susie had come forward, Robert Mercer was under investigation for more than just domestic abuse—the D.A.’s office was trying to keep his connection to the O’Rourkes under wraps until the Grand Jury convened in two weeks. If Sammy confirmed to anyone that Ava now knew the information…

  She wanted to shake him by the shoulders until his teeth rattled.

  “Now, that’s something I can’t tell you,” he said, before bringing the bottle back to his mouth and draining it.

  “You can’t tell anybody else about this. Do you understand?”

  “Don’t worry about me…well, only make sure I get out of trouble. Detective Rumson always says you’re the only one in the D.A.’s office who can be trusted.”

  She stared into the man’s eyes and wondered why she a
lways felt as if there was no one in the world she could trust. “Are you sure there’s no word on where Susie is?”

  Sammy shook his head. “But if I had to guess, the family got her. There’s no way to escape them.”

  But Susie had escaped. For now she was well hidden, safe and sound. The day after she’d pressed domestic abuse charges against her husband, Ava had helped her get away from her husband, since Susie refused to put her faith in the more conventional witness protection program. Ava had told this to no one, and wouldn’t be telling Sammy, either.

  It had been reported that Susie’s husband, a successful New York entrepreneur, was now the main suspect in her “disappearance.” Although Robert Mercer had been under investigation at the D.A.’s office long before Susie had come forward to speak with Ava.

  Something bigger was going on here. Robert Mercer’s hands were always somehow clean, his business dealings perfect. Still, Ava would make sure Susie’s case was solid, one way or the other.

  With the help of Callie, she’d also make sure Robert never got anywhere near Susie again.

  Callie was a social worker with close ties to the D.A.’s office, especially concerning domestic abuse cases, and an ally who’d helped Ava assist more women in peril than she could ever have imagined.

  Callie was part of the backbone of an underground railroad that helped women get away from their abusive mates and into a new life. A program run entirely by volunteers, including some of the most unlikely people Ava would have ever expected. And, as each woman had been helped, she’d become the next important link in the chain.

  It was the most important work Ava had ever done.

  You’ll be straddling the legal line, Callie warned her when she’d first approached Ava about helping those women the system had failed, the ones whose husbands weren’t prosecuted. The ones who’d rather escape than face their tormentor in open court.

  With this case, Ava had crossed it. There was no turning back now.

  FIFTEEN MINUTES FROM Ava’s house, Justin pulled his cell phone from his pocket and made the call he’d been dreading.

  “Where are you?” Rev, his SEAL teammate, yelled into the phone, over the sounds of loud music. Which meant he was still in the bar, where Justin had left him and the rest of the team, including Cash, earlier in the evening.

  “I’m, ah, in a situation,” he said.

  “Yeah, we saw you leave the bar with that situation well in hand.” Rev chuckled at his own wit and Justin thought about hanging up now and saving himself.

  “I had to go to New York,” he said instead, ignoring his better judgment not to give him details because it was all shot to hell anyway. He’d need his team—no, his friends—to know where he was, just in case. If he couldn’t trust them, he had nothing.

  “New York? He’s in New York!” Rev yelled, and Justin could only pray that he wasn’t telling Cash. Anyone but Cash, because if Cash heard New York…

  “Is this about Ava?” Cash demanded. Justin heard Rev grumbling in the background, no doubt because Cash mowed him down to get to the phone and dammit, Cash was supposed to be spending time with his girlfriend.

  Cash was Justin’s best friend on the team—the one Justin confided in the most. The one who Justin had watched fall in love hard last year with a documentary filmmaker named Rina. And although Hunt and Rev both knew about his past with Ava, Cash was the only one who knew exactly how many regrets Justin still had.

  “I thought Rina was in town,” he said, mentioning Cash’s girlfriend as if this was a normal, everyday conversation and he was not having to admit to being minutes away from facing his past.

  “Her flight from Botswana got canceled. Engine trouble. She’s coming in tomorrow night. And don’t try and change the subject.”

  “Turk called me. Ava’s in trouble. Big trouble,” he said finally.

  “Yeah. Always is. And now, I’m sure you are, too.”

  “Just put Rev back on the phone,” Justin said, without telling his friend that this particular brand of Ava trouble had the potential to be bigger and badder than ever. Cash did so, but Justin could still hear him cursing a blue streak. In Swahili.

  “What’s going on?” Rev asked.

  “Can you go to my house and make sure it’s tight?” he asked, because Rev was the security master of the group.

  Rev was silent for a minute. “CG?” he asked, and yes, that was the code—code green—they’d developed for when something really bad was going down and they couldn’t say much about it.

  “Yeah. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Probably by tomorrow night—late.”

  “Consider it done,” Rev said. “Once I figure out why my car won’t start.”

  Justin groaned and hung up, because, even though he knew Rev would take care of what he needed to, it wouldn’t come without a certain amount of high drama and last-minute tension Rev seemed to have a penchant for.

  Justin turned the corner slowly, parked a few houses down from Ava’s. It was nearly one in the morning. He’d been able to catch a military flight that got him here inside of an hour. But first he’d do a quick sweep to make sure everything was all right before ringing her doorbell and making contact…when Ava, still driving that same Mustang convertible Turk and her father had rebuilt for her ages ago, pulled into the driveway.

  Within seconds she was striding toward the front door of her house, dressed in a pair of well-worn but still formfitting jeans, a white, V-neck T-shirt and a pair of high-heeled black boots that were part sex kitten, part Harley mama and every man’s fantasy. Including his.

  She’d been hot enough at seventeen to make him crazy. Apparently nothing had changed if the way his pulse was racing was any indication.

  Spending any decent amount of time with her had always made him feel as if he should be hoisting the white flag of surrender, although he was never quite sure what he was surrendering to.

  He could run fifteen miles in one shot without a problem. Uphill, in the rain and carrying a pack that weighed eighty pounds or with one of his teammates slung over his shoulder. Swim in oceans so rough that drowning sometimes seemed the easier option. Been shot at more often than he cared to remember and still, seeing her could take him down at the knees every single time.

  He’d spent the better part of his eighteenth year bailing her out of various scrapes—and honky-tonks, telling himself he was doing it for Turk and Ava’s father the entire time. Gotten into more than a few old-fashioned, chair-throwing, window-breaking bar fights with guys who’d wanted to take her home. And done more than his share of locking her in her room so she could study and wouldn’t fail her classes.

  He’d only made the mistake of locking her in and standing outside her door once. He’d been so proud of her two hours of straight study, without complaint, until he’d gotten a call from the police about a woman caught speeding. On his hog.

  When he’d gone to collect her from the precinct, she’d been unapologetic. Just smiled and batted those eyelashes and he’d wanted to kill her. And kiss her, too. And she’d known it. Always had.

  He was never sure if that made things better or worse.

  Ava, with her fierce loyalty and strong sense of justice, even then, she probably could’ve helped him, but at the time…

  At the time, he couldn’t face her. He’d called her from a pay phone outside the motel where he was staying and explained why he wasn’t at her graduation when, the night before, they’d rolled together on the floor of her room. When he’d nearly taken her for the first time—her first time. A night when he’d had to tell her he was marrying someone else.

  He’d told himself that he called because he hadn’t wanted her to see the bruises on his face, to ask too many questions.

  He called because he couldn’t stand seeing the look on her face, the one of disappointment that he’d never wanted to put there. The one he’d seen when she recalled her mother leaving, and then firsthand when her father died and again when Turk announced he was trans
ferring to an out-of-state college on a scholarship.

  He’d called because he’d been leaving her, too.

  Now, from the safety of the car, he watched the sway of her hips, wondered if her hair still smelled like that flowery shampoo she used to use. Wondered if she still hated him as much as she had that night.

  He’d find out soon enough.

  AVA WAS DEEP in thought as she approached her front door. It took three tries to get the key into the lock because her mind was racing due to Sammy’s news. And, if she was honest with herself, because her hands were shaking slightly. The O’Rourkes were getting too close—to Susie…to everything.

  She’d have to let the detectives know about this development, could, in fact, since it wasn’t attorney-client privilege. And lie, the way she’d been doing for the past months when women like Susie Mercer disappeared off the face of the earth…

  Susie planned to come back into town to give her grand jury statement and what evidence she could against her husband—and now presumably the O’Rourkes, too—in less than two weeks. She had evidence of the domestic abuse she’d suffered as well as the corrupt business dealings of her husband, and she was ready and willing to testify about both matters. She’d told both Ava and Callie not to worry about getting her back into New York, that she just needed their help in getting out. Susie refused to trust the police, the FBI and the federal marshals. She told Ava and Callie that if she was putting her life on the line, she was going to do it her way.

  When Ava finally got the door open, she pushed in and noticed something by her feet.

  A plain white envelope had been slipped through the mail slot in her door. She stared at it for a moment because there was no name or address on the front. And then she slid a finger under the sealed edge and ripped it open impatiently.

  Photographs slid out. Polaroids of her in various places over the course of the last couple of days. Entering her office. Sitting with Susie. Going to dinner.