Chapter Forty-Three - Ava

I woke up as Fletcher was carrying me out of the office. I didn’t move though, because I secretly loved that he was carrying me like a child.

Jones opened the backdoor and Fletcher slipped me inside. I opened my eyes as he climbed in. “Babe. Are you okay?”

“Have you heard from anyone on the partial license plate yet?” I asked.

Fletcher signaled for Jones to drive and shook his head. “No, I haven’t. It’ll take some time, Ava. I sent it over to my friend and he said he’d look

into it. It may be hard since we only have a partial. I'm not exactly sure, to be honest."

My stomach churned. This didn’t feel right. I was two seconds away from crying. I’d never felt as if something this bad had happened to Charlotte. Even when

we were children and she’d fallen out of a tree and broken her arm.

This was worse. She was scared. I felt it.

Fletcher slid his palm over my shoulders and pulled me toward him. “Everything is going to be okay, Ava. We can’t go beat down every door in the city until we

find her. We start with what we know. We know she got into a car with someone. We know she didn’t seem forced into the car. Freaking out isn’t going to

help.”

I nodded. “I know that but it doesn’t help my anxiety.”

“What helps your anxiety?” he asked.

“Painting helps but I’m not sure I’m up to it right now.”

“We could try. How about I paint with you?”

I gave him a sheepish look. “You want to paint? Have I fallen into a different universe?”

He laughed. “Maybe I’m good. Maybe I’m real good and didn’t want to upstage you?”

I smiled. “We’ll see about that.”

Jones drove us home. Though I still felt so much animosity in my stomach, it felt nice seeing the guards still guarding the place.

I got out of the car and shivers raced down my spine. The feeling of being watched was a heavy feeling I didn’t want to carry around. Fletcher

smoothed his hand over my lower back and guided me toward the front steps.

“Anything new?” he asked a guard closest to the door.

“Not a peep, Boss.”

“Good,” Fletcher said.

But I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. If the Capellos were pissed, I would rather them come and confront Fletcher than kidnap my sister.

I closed my eyes briefly as we walked into the house and Fletcher set the alarm behind us. He glanced over and braced his palms on my shoulders. “Are you

okay, Baby? I hate to see you this way.”

“Why did your dad take their supplier?” I asked. “Because of the restaurant? I thought buying their future investment was enough. There isn’t an ounce in my

body that doesn’t think the Capellos have her. Would they kill her?”

I was positive that I knew the answer to that question. I was absolutely positive. I’d walked in on Fletcher and Levi beating a man to an inch of his life for spying. What would they do to my sister for everything the Hines did to them?

“We don’t know if they have her…” he started.

“Don’t do that,” I said. “If they do have her, would they kill her for this?”

Fletcher dropped one palm from my shoulder and slid it into his pocket. “I’m not sure, Ava. I don’t know what they will do at this point. Do I put it past them?

No.”

I nodded, trying to be strong but my bottom lip trembled. “Hey,” he said, reaching forward and touching my bottom lip. “You’re fine. Everything is fine. Why

don’t you get into something comfortable and then we’ll go paint.”

“Okay.”

I walked down the hallway and into our closet. I took off my clothes and slipped into a comfortable lounge set. The distant sound of Fletcher on the

phone drew me toward the doorway.

“…I don’t care how long it takes you, find who she got into the car with. If the Capellos are behind this, we don’t have long before…no, I don’t know for sure,

but I can’t wait around and find out. It’s my wife’s sister. Have you spoken to Duke? Do you think he’d come back early if I paid him enough?”

Fletcher sighed frustratingly. He wasn’t relaying his stress to me or his worry. He assumed this was the Capellos, which made me scared for Charlotte.

I stepped back into our bedroom and rubbed my face with my palms. This wasn’t going to end well. Maybe Duke would come back early and help us. Maybe

the person looking into the partial license plate would find something.

Fletcher’s footsteps started down the hallway and I quickly got myself together before meeting him at the doorway. “Ready?” he asked, sliding his palm down

my arm.

I smiled at him. I wanted to be mad that he was keeping this from me but on the other hand, I couldn’t.

He didn’t want me to stress. He wanted to give me a sense of peace that I didn’t have at the moment.

“You go get the paint ready and I’ll grab us some wine.”

A glass of wine did sound nice. Anything to take the edge off. Turning on the light in my new room, which wasn’t completely finished but enough to enjoy a

night of painting.

I pulled my paints from the cabinet, grabbed two glasses of water, and found two blank canvases in the closet. Fletcher brought me a glass of wine and I sat

it beside me on the floor. Bree had made sure the tile was a material very easy to clean which I appreciated.

I sat down cross-legged and took a sip of my wine.

Fletcher did the same and watched me over the rim. I couldn’t help but laugh. “You do not have to paint with me. I won’t get mad if you want to watch some

TV or read a book. Do you do either of those? I haven’t seen you relax and watch a TV show once.”

He shrugged. “I’ve never been too big into TV. I’ll watch a movie occasionally.”

“The Godfather?” I teased.

“No,” he said with a small smile.

I placed my canvas on the small easel and stared at it. My brain raced with images of Charlotte but I didn’t want to draw her. If I did I would cry. Instead, I

began to paint my childhood home nestled into a corner lot in a small town close by.

The minutes turned into hours when I tore my gaze away from so many memories to Fletcher’s concerned face. His brows were pulled down in a frustrated

way. “How’s it going over there?” I asked.

Fletcher scoffed. “Easy peasy,” he said under his breath.

I laughed and attempted to take a peek at his painting but he pulled the easel away from me. “Not until it’s finished. You have no patience,” he said.

I eyed him for a few seconds and went back to my painting. When I finished, I turned it around and watched his gaze shift over.

“It’s beautiful. Where is that?” he asked.

“My childhood home. I grew up there most of my life until my parents passed. Charlotte and I would play for hours in the fields next door. We loved the place.

We often talked about buying it one day when we got older but neither of us wanted the memories. Plus, I was always broke. The house has been torn down

now. It was on its last leg.”

Fletcher watched my face, and I cleared my throat. “Let me see.”

He chuckled, smearing paint on his face as he wiped sweat from his forehead. My breath caught in my throat when he turned the canvas around.

There in the middle were two stick figures. It mimicked a child’s drawing, and it made me fall back in laughter. Fletcher laughed with me and crawled over me.

With one palm on each side of me, he chuckled. “What? You don’t like it? It’s me and you, ya know.”

“Yeah, I got that. Especially by the lack of a smile on your face and the boobs you tried to draw on me. I’ll keep it forever. Maybe I’ll put it in the gallery.”

“Over my dead body,” he said. He stroked a strand of hair from my eyes. “Do you feel better?”

I nodded. “A bit. Painting always relieves stress for me.”

“Good.”

Fletcher’s phone vibrated in his pocket and he dug it out as he sat back on his heels. “I need to take this. Are you finished in here?”

“Yeah. I’ll clean up.”

Fletcher left the room leaving me alone the painting of my childhood. However, I wasn’t sure if the other person who shared it with me would ever get to see it.