Page 9 of Rise By Sin

I slammed the drawer of the last filing cabinet closed with a sigh. I hadn’t found anything except what I already expected to find in Colt’s office – paperwork for his many businesses, but mainly for the club we stood in.

“I just don’t get this,” I said as I turned to face Ava where she still sat behind Colt’s desk, pulling out the contents of the drawers and going through the mountain of papers on his desk. “Even if Colt did borrow money, he knows enough people not to have gone to anyone shady. He could have borrowed from any number of his loaded mates.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking that too,” Ava agreed, and she sounded exhausted. Her voice was quiet and raspy and when I looked at her properly, I saw how pale she really was, and how dark the bags under her eyes were, even when mixed with the bruising on her face.

I hated how defeated and flat she seemed. The Ava I had known before - the Ava who I had fallen in love with from the first moment I met her, for her first shift behind the bar at Temple - she had been filled with life and she smiled constantly. She could be cutting and she always had a come back for any comment thrown at her. She had a strength that I admired and found sexy as fuck.

Ten years later and this version of Ava before me seemed worn down and exhausted. The spark was gone from her eyes, and she hadn’t once smiled the way she used to. She’d lost so much weight, all of her delicious curves gone, and she moved around so shakily and unsteadily. She’d said she was shot, and obviously it had caused some lasting damage. Judging by the way she winced with every tiny movement, I assumed she was in pain too. I wanted to do something to help her, but she’d made herself pretty clear when she told Mace and I to stay away from her. Shewas definitely pissed with us, which we’d both suspected when she disappeared a decade before with no word, but it was clear to see now. I just wished we knew what the bloody hell we’d done.

“But that guy who broke into my place was definitely a hired thug, and he told me he wanted Colt. Something’s going on,” she continued as she reached up to rub the back of her neck with a wince of pain.

“Maybe he is just lying low somewhere,” I shrugged.

“No,” she shook her head vehemently. “Colt wouldn’t just run and hide without at least warning the people he cares about. He’d have called me.”

“Would you have answered if he did?” I asked bluntly. Colt didn’t talk to us about Ava much, but lately he had been worried that she was barely calling him back anymore. I heard him leaving frustrated voicemails for her a few times.

“I checked every message from him. He said he wanted to talk to me, but nothing about any of this, and no mention of him going anywhere.” Ava lowered her eyes as she spoke and I knew she was blaming herself for not answering his calls. She was good at that – baming herself for everything. She always had been, though never on this scale.

“We’ll find him, Ave,” I sighed, feeling shitty for pushing her. It was so obvious she wasn’t up to much of anything right then.

“We have to,” she whispered shakily, and it killed me. She was terrified, I realised. Terrified she was going to lose the only family she had.

I knew how she felt on some level. I’d known Colt for almost fifteen years. He and Mace were the closest thing to family I had. I blamed myself too, if I were honest. I should have paid moreattention and been there to help Colt more. Maybe then I might have been able to do more to keep him safe.

“Where are you staying?” I asked to change the subject.

“I stayed at a hotel last night, but I’m gonna head to the apartment tonight and see what I can find there,” she told me, and there was something odd about the way she pushed her shoulders back and dropped all emotion from her face as she said it.

“You shouldn’t stay there alone. If whoever wants Colt knew where you live, they obviously know where Colt lives,” I warned her.

“I’ll be fine,” she replied firmly, her bright blue eyes meeting mine in challenge.

“How the hell will you be fine if a bunch of wankers with guns break in thinking you’re Colt?” I growled. I hated the fact she was being so stubborn and putting herself in danger. I got that she’d been a cop for years now, and that she could obviously handle herself before she was shot, but she wasn’t fully able anymore, and the idea of her having to fight anyone off in the state she sat before me in, terrified me.

“I have my gun and I’m not fucking helpless,” she bit back angrily. “Colt’s apartment is secure anyway. It’s unlikely anyone will break in there.”

“I don’t like it. I’d feel better if you came to stay at mine tonight.”

“And I’d like it if you’d just leave me the fuck alone like I asked you to. Looks like neither of us are getting hat we want, huh?”

“Ava. I’m worried about you, babe,” I admitted.

“Don’t call me that, or any of your little pet names!” She looked up at me with a hard glare. “And I don’t need your worry either. We’re nothing to each other, Jack. We never were, so stop acting like you have some responsibility for me. I don’t need it. I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”

“Now you’re talking absolute bollocks and we both know it. I don’t know what has you all pissy and angry right now, but please spare me your bullshit. We were something to each other. Me, you, and Mace – we had something good before you ran off with your fucking knickers in a twist,” I told her. I’d put up with a lot from her, but I refused to listen tp her make out the connection we all had before, meant nothing. That was not true. Just because we never had sex, didn’t mean the bond we shared when we played at the club meant nothing. I had been falling for her and so had Mace. We were planning to take things further and ask her on a date to discuss it the week she disappeared on us.

“Fuck you, asshole! You have no idea what happened and why I left!” she cried with a snarl.

“No, you’re right. I don’t because you pissed off without a word or a backward fucking glance and never reached out again!”

“Why would I? We didn’t have a relationship. It wasn’t even exclusive what we did, was it? It meant nothing to either of you, and I felt just the same. I owed you nothing.” She calmed a little, though I suspected that was because she was dead on her feet, rather than her being any less angry.

“What does that mean? Were you with other men?” I asked. She was right that we never set any rules on what we had, and we were certainly never specific about any of it being exclusive, but after the first couple of times the three of us played together,Mace and I had never touched another sub. We didn’t want to. We just wanted Ava.

“It doesn’t matter,” she sighed with a wide yawn. “It’s the past now Jack, and we can never go back. I’m too tired to fight like this anymore. There’s nothing here anyway. I think I’ll call it a night.” She sounded so weak and flat. All I wanted to do was gather her in my arms the way I used to after we did a scene in the club below, and hold her close. I wanted her to look up at me with nothing but peace in her eyes, the way she used to.

“Please just let me take you home with me. I’ve a spare room for you to sleep in. We can go to the apartment together tomorrow and check it out,” I pleaded.

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