Mia told me it helped her feel safe and secure.
Now I knew why.
It reminded her of a time when shewassafe and secure. A time before Elias and Christian. A time before me. If I could change my Little Red’s history, I would do it in a heartbeat. Even if it meant we had never met.
“Here it is.” Her voice was calm, barely above a whisper as she opened the door to the small closet hidden at the side of one of the pantries. If she hadn’t pointed it out, I would never have known it was there.
She passed the first box off to me, and my heart swelled instantly that she trusted me enough to keep it safe for her. At least I hadn’t lost that completely. Ava may not have fully trusted me in some areas, but she knew all I wanted to do was keep her safe.
The box she held in her hand now was different.
Newer.
Carved from a tree called Rowan that was native to Ireland. On the top was the same symbol as the one I held. The Celtic love knot.
Gingerly, she opened the lid and peered inside.
“That’s the promise ring I gave her when we were fifteen.” Liam’s throat bobbed with emotion as he looked at it. Respecting my wife by not simply grabbing the ring, he waited for her to hand it to him. “We always knew we were going to get married. She made me promise her after she got dumped by Mason Walsh in the second grade.”
Ava snorted a laugh as she picked up the next thing.
It was a lock of her hair and a baby tooth.
“Your mother said it was tradition to put a lock of your first-born daughter’s hair into the box and her first baby tooth. It is said to promote a healthy relationship between the mother and daughter as they move forward in life.”
My wife pulled a face, but she gently set the two baggies down on the counter with care.
“My baby photo,” Ava whispered as she took the small thumbnail out and handed it to her father. “Mom said I was born with a head of hair and the brightest emerald eyes. Used to tell me it was like looking at one of the fairies.”
“It’s genetic.” Liam smiled down at her. “The only person not to be born with green eyes was your grandmother. Hers were brown.”
Ava nodded absently before taking a few more trinkets out of the box that Liam explained were gifts he’d given her over the years. Many from when they were small children. The last thing in the box was a folded-up sheet of paper with Ava’s name on it.
She pursed her lips, her hand shaking as she lifted it from the confines of the box. A photo slipped out, but she didn’t pay it any mind. Her entire focus was on the letter. Slowly, she started to peel back the pages when a sudden noise caught our attention.
“We need to go,” Sully yelled from the front of the house. “Now.”
Gunshots echoed around us, windows exploding as bullets surged through them. Ava gasped and tucked the note away in her jean pocket before throwing her mother’s trinkets in the box and snatching it up from the counter, along with the one in my hand.
“Head down, baby,” I reminded her as we dashed out of the kitchen to the front door, where Sully’s men fired off round after round from their ARs at the bypassing cars. I recognized the make and model.
Platinum Security.
Fucking idiots. They made themselves easily identifiable, and that was a mistake.
“Get us to the helipad,” I ordered our driver as we slid into the SUV.
“My stuff,” Ava said.
“The men will grab it,” I told her. “We need to get back to Seattle. I don’t have the manpower here to take on Cartwright and O’Neill.”
Ava spun her head to look at me. “How did you know about Cartwright?”
“You think I didn’t keep track of everything while I was gone?” I asked her incredulously as I picked up my phone to make a call. “I was in constant contact with Vas and my other men. So was Dima.”
“Dima was with you.” It wasn’t a question. She knew he was. It was all starting to come together for her. How much we had all kept from her. “Motherfuckers.”
“Dima,” I barked into the phone. “Grab my father and get to the airstrip. We’ve been compromised.”