Chapter 82 THE MESSEGE

Chapter 82 THE MESSEGE
Ava's POV

We all spun around at the same time.

The elevator was empty. Just the four walls and our own reflections and the doors sliding shut behind us.

Dominic pressed the button to hold them open and we stepped back out into the corridor and checked both directions and there was nobody there, just the quiet hum of the hotel floor and a cleaning cart parked outside a room three doors down.

"He was never here," Adrian said.

"He wanted us to turn around," Dominic said, already moving back toward the suite.

We went to the location anyway because standing still felt worse, and the drive to the warehouse on Kade's address was tense and nobody spoke much and when we got there the space was cold and empty, not abandoned exactly, recently cleared, the kind of cleared where chairs were still warm and a half drunk cup of coffee sat on a folding table by the door.

"Hours," Elias said, looking around.

"He knew our timeline," Dominic said, and his jaw was tight.

Adrian was already moving through the space and he stopped near the back wall and said, "there's a phone here."

It was a cheap burner sitting face up on a crate and when Adrian picked it up the screen was already on, a voice message ready to play, and we all looked at each other and Dominic nodded and Adrian pressed play.

The voice was calm and measured and I had never heard it before but something about it made the hair on my arms stand up, the particular calm of someone who had thought every step through well in advance.

Mr. Hayes, it said. You've been looking for me and I've been letting you. I want you to know I have no interest in a fight. What I want is simple. Hand over Roan and I'll stand down. The faction dissolves, the hunters go home, Ava lives her life unbothered. You have twenty four hours.

The message ended.

Nobody spoke for a moment.

"He wants Roan," my mother said from behind us, and her voice was steady.

"Yes," Dominic said.

"And if you refuse," Elias said.

"Then we're back to where we were," Dominic said, and picked up his phone and called Roan and it rang four times and went to voicemail and he called again and got the same and I watched his face do something controlled and careful.

"He's not answering," I said.

"No," Dominic said.

We drove back to the hotel and the night had gone quiet outside, New York doing what it always did, carrying on completely indifferent, and I sat in the back next to Dominic and he held my hand and I held his and neither of us said anything for a while.

Back at the suite everyone sat down and the atmosphere was heavy and tired and my mother made tea because that was what she did when things needed processing and Maya sat at the counter on her phone and I watched her and thought about how far outside her normal life all of this was and how she'd never once complained about it.

"He's not wrong that it would end things," Elias said finally, meaning Kade's offer, meaning Roan.

"We're not handing Roan over," Dominic said.

"I'm not saying we should," Elias said. "I'm saying Kade's not wrong."

"Kade doesn't get to decide what we sacrifice," I said, and both of them looked at me and I held both their gazes and didn't move from it.

Dominic looked at me and something in his face settled.

"We find Roan first," he said. "Then we decide what comes next."

Adrian was already on his laptop tracing Roan's last known locations and my mother sat beside me and put her mug in front of me and I drank from it because arguing was pointless and the tea was good.

The night moved slowly and by midnight we'd made a plan and by one in the morning most people had found somewhere to sleep and I was sitting on the bed watching Dominic stand at the window in the dark when I heard the elevator in the corridor and then the quiet knock at the suite door.

Adrian got there first and I heard the door open and Adrian's voice go very still and then Dominic's name, once, sharp, and Dominic was already moving.

I followed into the sitting room and Roan was standing in the doorway, unhurt, completely composed, his hands in his coat pockets and his eyes moving to Dominic immediately.

"I heard the message," Roan said. "I've been thinking about it since this morning."

"You heard it this morning," Dominic said, and his voice was very quiet.

"Yes," Roan said.

"And you let us spend the entire day not knowing where you were," Dominic said.

"I needed to decide something before I talked to you," Roan said, and his eyes moved from Dominic to me briefly and back. "I've decided."

"Decided what," I said.

Roan looked at me and said, "I'm willing to go.”