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Harm
Ava has withdrawn to a corner after getting a phone call from her step-mother.Her voice is smooth, like the first ray of daylight but I’m still tense. Something’s not right and I can’t put my finger on it.
Things arenotadding up.
I did in depth searches on the studio and their members and there’s a lack of a clear motive. Ava’s non-commitment to her contract was settled in court, so there are no hard feelings there. I’ve gone through boxes of fan mail, expecting to find letters from creeps but most of her fans are teenage girls and the occasional middle-aged, soccer mom.
Kicking back, I rub the back of my neck while looking out the window. I still haven’t dropped my suspicions about that little weirdo Nicky but Ava seems to trust him. The way she clasped my shoulders, bored her eyes into mine and told me he wasn’t the responsible one was so confident.
Prophetic.
Almost as if she knows something, I don’t. Alarm bells ring in the back of my head but I ignore them, before pulling her laptop closer. I check her search history but don’t find anything other than an obsession with Jimmy Choo shoes and exclusive fragrances. Her last big purchases were made two months ago. Prior to that, she was a shopaholic but these last weeks she tapered down severely.
Hmm...I narrow my eyes, wondering what made her do that. It’s not money issues, she has plenty in the bank. I do a couple of more searches, then freeze when I notice something strange. Ava has access to a separate browser.
And it’s a browser most normal people don’t need.
Fuck, that browser gives you access to the Dark Web and why would Ava need the Dark Web unless...time seems to stop and my head spins as I lean back....she was trying to find a hitman for hire. I shrug, shaking my head. This can’t be true. Blinking, I struggle to keep myself in check before blowing up.
Hell, I wish there were cameras at the postbox where the notes are dropped off but out of privacy reasons there are none. I can’t know if Ava was the one who slid her own name into the box and my mind struggles to accept this. Ava’s pure, innocent. Hitmen are hired by greasy men in suits, not angels in naughty nightgowns.
This has to be a mistake and I rub my chest when I get the need to start laughing at the absurdity. My eyes go to Ava and I can’t see her behind the high chair but I can see her reflection in the window. Her legs are up, her fingers twisting around her hair and she seems deeply invested in whatever her mother has to say.
She’s not the kind of girl that gets involved with this dirty business and why they fuck would she want to? What motive could she possibly have? I’m about to exit, telling myself I’m grasping for straws when I decide to do one last thing. Hack her email. I scroll down, looking for anything out of the ordinary when I find a message from her lawyer. Opening up the email’s attachment, I clench my fists when my suspicions are confirmed.
It feels as if I walked straight first into a brick wall.
There’s a copy of a will. She signed it a month ago, that in case of her death, her money will go to different kinds of charities. Pulling at the collar of my sweater, I slam the laptop down before tossing it to the side. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I take a couple of deep breaths. The thought of losing her makes me panic, the thought of her wanting an assassin to end her life makes me want to roar and destroy every single piece of glass in this glass house. My heart pounds in my chest, sending currents of stress throughout the rest of my body.
I feel betrayed. Panic climbs in me and I lean forward, clutching the coffee table until my knuckles turn white. I crawled into the bed of a woman I thought I was protecting from othermen. As it turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong and what I need to do is protect Ava from herself. I bite down on my tongue when my hands start shaking and I’m so fucking furious with her.
And I’ve never hated my profession more.
Is this my punishment... because if that’s the case, then I get it now? Lesson learned. I recoil when I look down at my hands and I think about them ending Ava’s beautiful life. She’s so vivacious, has everything a woman could dream of and my heart protests at the thought of her being gone. It marches in my chest, demonstrating how much it needs her. I found my humanity in her and now she wants me to take hers.
It feels like a sick joke and I snap, “Ava!”
She lets out a little squeak, murmuring that she has to go. She hangs up, then peeks out from the high chair and her eyes widen a little. “Sorry, I know that took a while.” Her lips curl in a smile. “By the way, my stomach’s rumbling. Are you up for Indonesian or Chinese?”
My shoulders start shaking at her fine and dandy tone. My temper soars and the assassin in me wants to annihilate whatever made her want to do this. Gritting my teeth, I growl, “What have you done?”
Confusion colors her face but then she picks up on my body language. Her jaw slacks, the hue of her complexion turning a shade paler and she drops the phone. Licking her lips, she shudders before murmuring, “You know...”
****
She’s not denying it, which means it’s true. The air deflates out of me and I feel like I’m being crushed against cliffs. I get up to stop my own frantic energy from consuming me and I demand answers. Ava still hasn’t picked up her jaw from the floor and she shifts, throwing her legs down and I try my hardest to not get distracted by those smooth pins.
“Harm, let me explain before you fly off the handle,” she begins breathlessly but I throw her a dark glare as I start pacing back and forth.
“Too late for that.” I’m so beyond the handle, I’m out in the universe by now. “What fucking reason could you have for hiring me to kill you?”
“It sounds so dark when you say it like that,” she squirms. “And I only did it because I didn’t have a choice.”
Stopping with the pacing, I clench my hands by my sides. “There’s always a choice. You could have told me about this earlier.”
“I was afraid you would get mad at me, or refuse to do it...”
Ava keeps talking but I’m not listening anymore. All I hear is that she thinks I’ll go through with it. The carpet beneath my boots seems to sway and I’ve never fainted in my life but there’s a first time for everything, right? I blink, shaking my head to regain my focus and Ava is now standing, wringing her hands while looking at me with eyes that demand to be understood.
