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“I don’t need someone watching me.” Ava’s voice pierces the thick air, and I turn to find her sitting at the top of the stairs, looking wary and nervous. Her firm tone isn’t fooling me. Why the hell didn’t she mention Turner? To protect him?
“Did you leave your drink unattended at any point?” Jay speaks up, filling the horrible silence. He thinks Matt is responsible too. Is this some kind of sick retaliation after I punched him? I’ll fucking kill him.
“No.”
“When did you start feeling strange?” I ask, my body tightening everywhere, engaging, getting ready to let loose, trying to hide my balled fists from Ava.
“I had a little stagger at the bar,” she says, her eyes flicking constantly from me to Jay. She shakes her head. “But I put it down to my heels.”
“Did you speak to anyone at the bar?”
She stares at my heaving form, silent. Guilty. How much exactly has she withheld from me? What hasn’t she shared?
“Answer the question, Ava.”
“There was a guy at the bar who offered to buy me a drink.” She rushes over her words. “I refused.”
So now we have two potential culprits? Any more?
“It was fine,” she says with absolutely no conviction. “I left the bar and returned to Kate.”
It’s fine. It’s fine. Nothing aboutanyof this isfine. “Stop saying it’s fine,” I snap, louder than I mean to, but the strength required to remainfineis more than I have. She looks at me, and I see it on every inch of her. She knows that this is not good. She knows this will send me over the edge. She knows every reason why I’m so fucking protective is happening on the screen behind me. She can’t even look at me, her eyes instead on the TV. Then I catch a slight recoil before she can rein it in. What was that?
I face the screen, the turmoil within flaring, the pressure in my head building. And then I see what she’s seen.The fuck?A man, suited, tall, light-haired, is at the bar.Van Der Haus.My stomach turns as I watch him come on and off the screen, as Ava orders drinks a few meters up the busy bar, and another man moves in, talking to her. She’s on the floor again, picking something up before she staggers away.What was Van Der Haus doing when he was off the screen?What was he doing before this footage captured him?
I can hardly see now through my rage, so I turn away from the screen—I’ve seen enough—and look at Ava. My beautiful, young,careless, fiancée. The odds have always been against me but, truly, I never ever considered that someone would act so callously to exact their revenge. Never. I protect her from my past, from alcohol, from accidents, the leery eyes of other men. But this?
“Have you seen enough?” Jay asks, uncomfortable.
“Yes.”
I hear the front door close a few moments later, and the silence screams as I lock every muscle down, coiled, tense, and fuming. She’s quiet. Guilty. “You didn’t mention Matt before.” My throat hurts, the muscles there tense too.
“I didn’t want to upset you.” She can’t even look at me.
“Upset me?” This isn’t me being upset. This is me being on the edge of something really fucking dangerous. I am so far out of control, I’m scared. More scared than I ever have been, because everything I dreaded is happening. All because of me and my fuck-ups, she could have been hurt. Or worse.
“Okay,” Ava retorts, braving facing me. I hate to think what must be staring back at her. I can hardly see through the red mist. “I didn’t want to piss you off. It was a chance meeting.”
A chance meeting that she didn’t think was important after she was fucking drugged? And not only that, clearly more was said than a polite hello. What shit was he spilling about me this time? “But you had a few minutes’ conversation. What did you talk about?”
“He apologized.”
“And that took a few minutes?” Why the fuck am I so focused on Matt? A regrettable ex is the least of my worries. A scorned husband of an ex-fuck is where my focus should be. “I told you not to see him again.”
She looks insulted. Rightly so, I realize there’s nothing in it for her, but if I don’t focus on Matt, I’ll have to focus on Van Der Haus, and that shit’s gonna be messy. “Jesse, I didn’t plan on it. I told you, it was only by chance. I wanted to know how he knows about you.”
Knows about me? “Do you care?”
“No, I don’t.”
Calm. Please, give me calm.“Then leave it.” I need to get the fuck away from her before she sees the need in my eyes. Not need for her. Not even need for vengeance.
I need a fucking drink.
I need to escape this new nightmare.Shower.Cold water on me. Anything to shock me out of this spiral. “I’m going for a shower.” I climb the stairs, eyes on my feet, and pass her static, sitting form.
I flip on the spray, wrestle my way out of my running clothes and step into the cold rain, looking up at the ceiling, willing the madness to retreat.
