Chapter 100 WHERE AVA WENT

Chapter 100 WHERE AVA WENT


Ava's POV

I left Maya's room at six in the morning while she was still asleep and took the elevator down and walked out of the hotel before Dominic could track me through the bond because I wasn't trying to hide, I just needed to do this one thing alone.

I texted Luca from the street.

I need to see you. One last time. I'm not angry. I just need to look at you.

He replied in three minutes: coffee shop on 54th. Twenty minutes.

I got there before him and sat and ordered and waited and when he walked in he saw me immediately and came over and sat down and we looked at each other across the small table and neither of us said anything for a moment.

"You know I know," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"Your name isn't Luca," I said.

"No," he said.

"How long have you been watching me," I said.

"Since before the gym," he said. "Three weeks. I was placed in the hotel before you arrived."

I sat with that and said, "what was real."

He looked at me for a moment and said, "the conversations. The things I said about my grandmother's apartment in Milan, about the project I've been working on. All of that was real. I wasn't performing interest."

"But you were still reporting back," I said.

"Yes," he said.

I looked at him and felt something complicated move through me, not quite anger, not quite hurt, something that was both and also the specific shame of having lowered my guard for the first time in months and handed it to someone who had been placed there specifically for that purpose.

"Why are you still here," I said. "Kade burned Sera when she was compromised. He did the same with the others."

"Because I'm not useful to him anymore regardless," he said. "And because I found something three days ago that I've been deciding what to do with."

He reached into his jacket and put a folded paper on the table and I looked at it and then at him and he said, "Kade's actual plan. Not the version everyone thinks. The real objective."

I picked it up and read it and felt the ground shift.

Kade didn't want me dead. He wanted Dominic to believe I was dead, long enough for the bond's grief response to activate and destroy him from the inside, permanently and completely, no recovery possible.

Everything — Sera, Luca, Zara, the surveillance, the messages — all of it had been designed to create separation and chaos so that staging my disappearance would be convincing for the few hours Kade needed.

I put the paper down and looked at Luca and said, "why give me this."

He was quiet for a moment and then said, "because I wasn't supposed to like you. That wasn't part of the brief. And I did anyway, and I can't sit on information that would get him killed while pretending that's acceptable to me."

I looked at him for a long moment and then I stood and picked up the paper and said, "I need to go."

He stood too and said, "Ava," and I stopped and looked at him and he said, "I'm sorry. I know that doesn't fix it."

"No," I said. "It doesn't."

I turned to leave and he reached out and pushed a strand of hair back from my face, his fingers barely grazing my jaw, slow and careful, and I stood completely still and let him and the mark on my shoulder burned warm and I pressed my hand over it automatically.

He held my gaze and said nothing and I stepped back and said, "take care of yourself," and walked out.

\---

I got back to the hotel and my mother was in the corridor outside the suite and she took one look at my face and said nothing, just held the door open and I went in and Dominic was at the window and he turned when he heard me and crossed the room and stopped in front of me and looked at my face.

"I'm okay," I said.

"I know," he said. "Where did you go."

"Luca," I said, and held up the paper. "He gave me this. It changes everything."

I told him what it said and watched his face work through it and then he took his phone and called Elias and Adrian and my mother and within twenty minutes everyone was in the suite and I went through it again and the room went very quiet.

"He was never going to touch you," Elias said slowly.

"No," I said. "He just needed Dominic to believe it."

"For how long," my mother said.

"A few hours," I said. "That's all the grief response needs to activate."

Dominic was very still and I looked at him and he looked at me and I crossed the room and took his hand and he held it and said nothing.

"We end this now," he said finally, not loud, just certain. "Before he gets another opportunity to manufacture a disappearance."

Everyone agreed and the planning started and I sat next to Dominic and he kept his hand in mine the whole time and I thought about Luca's fingers on my jaw and what it had cost me to stand still for that one second and step back and thought that sometimes the right choice and the easy choice were very different things and that was okay.

That night after everyone had gone to their rooms I went to Dominic and he was awake and I got into bed beside him and he turned and looked at me and I looked at him and I said, "I'm still angry about my mother."

"I know," he said.

"That doesn't go away overnight," I said.

"I know that too," he said.

"But I'm here," I said.

He looked at me for a moment and then he pulled me toward him and kissed me and I kissed him back and his hands moved over me slowly and I let everything else sit outside the door for one night.