Chapter 101 THE REAL PLAN

Chapter 101 THE REAL PLAN

Ava's POV

We went through everything twice before everyone was fully satisfied they understood it.

Kade's plan had never been direct harm. It was a disappearance, mine, staged convincingly enough that Dominic would believe it for the few hours needed, and in a completed bond, grief that deep didn't just hurt the surviving partner, it destroyed them permanently from the inside, no recovery, no reversal.

Everything Kade had done, every person placed near us, every piece of chaos engineered, all of it had been building toward one moment of manufactured loss.

"He's been patient," Elias said.

"He's been building a trap," Dominic said, "and we've been walking around inside it thinking we were hunting him."

"So we stop walking around," Adrian said from the doorway, back from Chicago with Zara beside him, "and we take it away from him. If Ava is never isolated, never unreachable, the plan can't work."

"He'll adapt," Elias said.

"Then we move before he adapts," Dominic said.

We spent two hours planning and by the time it was done everyone knew their position and the suite had the specific focused energy it got when something was finally moving toward an end instead of just continuing.

My mother made food at some point, actual food, not hotel room service, having somehow sourced groceries from somewhere, and we all ate at the big table and it was almost normal, the particular almost-normal that came from exhausted people sharing a meal and choosing not to talk about what was coming for an hour.

Zara sat next to Adrian and they didn't touch but the space between them was different from regular space and Maya noticed and caught my eye across the table and I gave her a small look that said later and she gave me one back that said obviously.

After everyone drifted off to their rooms I stayed at the table and Dominic came and sat across from me and we looked at each other.

"You went to Luca this morning," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"Alone," he said.

"Yes," I said, and held his gaze. "I needed to do that one thing by myself. I needed to look at him and determine what was real before I could let it go."

He was quiet for a moment and then said, "and could you. Let it go."

"Mostly," I said. "The embarrassment of how well it worked will take a while. But yes."

He nodded and didn't push it and I appreciated that.

"I'm still angry about my mother," I said. "I want you to know that hasn't changed."

"I know," he said.

"But I understand what fear does to people," I said. "And I understand that you were afraid of losing me. I don't excuse it. I just understand it."

He looked at me and something on his face was very open and I held his gaze and let him have it.

Then I got up and held my hand out and he took it and we went to the bedroom.

He kissed me slowly and I kissed him back and neither of us rushed anything and his hands moved over me unhurried and I let myself just be in it, no thinking, no processing, just his mouth on my throat and his hands at my waist and the bond warm and settled between us.

He undressed me slowly, stopping to press his mouth to my shoulder, my collarbone, the mark on my skin that pulsed warm under his lips, and I had my hands in his hair and my eyes closed and everything else outside the door stayed outside the door.

He laid me down and looked at me for a moment, just looked, and I looked back and didn't cover myself and he bent his head and took his time, his mouth moving over me from my throat to my chest and lower, slow and deliberate, and I said his name and he kept going and my hands gripped the sheet and I stopped thinking about anything at all.

He brought me there slowly, his mouth and his hands working together until I was pulling at him to come up, and then he pushed inside me and we both went still for a moment, forehead against forehead, breathing.

He moved slowly and I matched him and it wasn't urgent the way it had been other times, it was something different, quieter and more present, both of us just here, and I kept my eyes open and so did he and the bond between us pulsed warm and steady with every movement.

I came with my face buried in his neck and his name quiet in my throat and he followed and stayed there for a long moment, both of us still, and then he moved and pulled me against his side and I pressed my face to his chest.

"After tomorrow," I said.

"After tomorrow," he said, and his hand moved in my hair and I closed my eyes.

I fell asleep fast and slept without dreaming for the first time in weeks and when I woke it was still dark and Dominic's phone was ringing on the nightstand.

He answered it and I heard his voice go from sleep to alert in one word and I sat up and looked at him and his face was very still.

He hung up and looked at me and said, "that was Roan. He says he knows where Kade is. He's known for forty eight hours." He paused. "He says he needed to decide something first. He's decided. He wants us to come tonight and he wants you there specifically." Another pause. "He said to tell you he needs Dominic to trust him one last time.”