Page 45 of Lost to Thievery
I let the crippling pain in my chest anchor me in the present. I pushed off the ground with my fists and all but fell into the car.
Everything I’d tried to prevent by leaving her was threatening to happen. My clever fucking girl was too close. If she continued on like this, it was only a matter of time before that evil son of a bitch found out about her. And I couldn’t let that happen. I was already having a hard enough time keeping Gem and Hunt out of his clutches. And I would destroy this world if he found her. If he took…
No!I shook the dark thoughts from my head. I won’t let it get to that.
The car’s engine roared to life, the sound echoing off the building’s walls, but not loud enough to drown out my incessant thoughts.
I willed the shaking in my limbs to subside.
God, she’d been doing so well. She was moving on with her life. She was smiling again. Until that fuckface Becket dragged her back in. Right back into danger.
I wanted nothing more than to see his brain splattered on the museum wall. My own masterpiece. It would have soothed my broken fucking soul.
But Ava would never forgive me.
I laughed at my own stupidity as the car whipped into the street.
After what I’d just said to her, how I had hurt her yet again, there was no chance of her ever wanting to see my face again, anyway. I should have just killed the ignorant fucker.
The phone underneath my seat started ringing. I ducked down to retrieve it, contemplating just throwing it out the window when I recognised the number.
I answered it instead, staying silent. I wasn’t going to get a word in anyway.
“You shot an FBI agent!” Hunt’s father boomed through the phone.
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. He could be such a stiflersometimes. “Calm down. It was just a flesh wound. And he deserved it for dragging her back into this mess.” Anger still seared beneath my skin. I had to suppress the urge to turn around and go finish Becket off. And go get my Ava.
“Then I should shoot you for bringing her into this mess in the first place!”
I flinched at his words. “Maybe you should.”
Hunt’s father sighed loudly. “What the hell were you thinking, son? You knew they were waiting for you. Why would you go back there?Alone?” He bit out the last word, clearly frustrated with what he assumed had been a lack of self-control. Or self-preservation. Maybe he thought it was both. Ihadbeen acting all kinds of lunatic these last few months. And if anyone was aware of how close I’d always been to losing my goddamned mind, it was Hunt’s father. The one who’d taught me how to keep it in check.
But I wasn’t losing my mind. Not yet. Their lives depended on me keeping my focus, keeping sharp. “She needs to stay away from me. I had to try one last time. And I wasn’t going to lead Hunt into that shitshow with me. I’m already on thin ice with Gem.”
“I know. I know,” he mumbled.
It was so unlike him tomumble. The stress of the situation was getting to him too. We were all fucking wired.
“The girl was already so broken,” he whispered.
I slammed on the brakes, stifling a scream, doing my best to breathe through it.In through your nose, out through your mouth.My head fell forward into my hands. My fists balledinto my hair, pulling at it, but there was no pain. I couldn’t feel anything over the burn in my chest. It consumed me.
Breathe. In. Out.
“You both were,” he added quietly. “Do you think it worked? Will she stop chasing you now?”
“I hope so,” I whispered back. Or I would have said all those vile things for nothing. Have the forever memory of the moment the light died behind her eyes. For nothing.
Not nothing. It was best if Ava hated me. She was better off without me.
But God, we were fucking magic. We wereheavenin this hell.
Butshewas more important thanus. I had burned our heaven to the ground so she could walk free while she was still unscathed. God knows, my world would fuck her up to the point where she wouldn’t recognise herself in the mirror.
“How’s Gem doing?” I changed the subject as soon as I could speak again. I pushed the pain aside, focusing my blurry vision back on the road. I could lose my mind later.
“She’s bored and cranky.”
