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‘You’re free now.’
And I realize in horror that he’s gone
10
SEBASTIAN
I keep to the shadows,loitering in the alleyway across from the hotel. I know I should be long gone by now, out of the country, leaving Sebastian Wolfe dead and gone, but I can’t. Not yet.
Not until I see her safely leave.
The glass door swings open, and a doorman leaps to help a guest with her bags.
Avery.
Fuck. She’s dressed simply, but I can see, she’s been crying, even from behind those massive sunglasses on her face. I can only imagine her reaction when she found me gone, leaving only that note and the fake ID I called in all kinds of favors to have messengered to the hotel, late last night.
She says something to the doorman, and he hails her a cab. I wonder where she’s heading now.
I hope it’s far. Back to New York, or even further still. Using the money I gifted as a fresh start, someplace she can forget she ever met me.
Somewhere I know, she’ll finally be safe.
A cab draws up, and the doorman loads her bags. Avery pauses on the curb for a moment, glancing up, across the street towards me, like she can sense me here, watching.
I freeze, even though I know she can’t see me, feeling her searching gaze like a bolt through my chest. I have to fight the gravity that pulls me to her. Wishing I could close the distance between us.
Wishing it didn’t have to be this way.
But it does.
I stay hidden in the shadows as she finally turns away and gets into the cab. I hear the doorman instruct the driver to take her to the airport, and then the car pulls away.
I exhale. It’s for the best, I vow, turning away. Being close to me has brought her nothing but pain since the day we met, and now I know somebody is out to kill me…
I can’t take the risk of them hurting her, too. The plane crash was too close. What if next time, we’re not so lucky?
I may have done some terrible things in my time, and learned to live with the guilt and shame, but I already know, I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to Avery.
I have to leave her, there’s no other way.
Even if it breaks my fucking heart.
11
AVERY
I head to the airport,and board my flight in a daze, too distant to even care if the airline staff look twice at the fake passport I’m traveling under.
But they don’t.
I sail through first class check-in and security, and it’s not long before I’m settled in the plush cabin, twenty-thousand feet above the earth, leaving Europe behind.
“Ma’am, may I bring you anything?” the attendant asks me.
I shake my head, my red eyes still hidden behind sunglasses. “No, thank you.”
The man retreats politely, leaving me alone with my thoughts—and the piercing ache lodged deep within my chest.
