Chapter 83

Chapter 83
\[BRIAN\]

Brooke leads me to her apartment next door—apparently, that’s her name, as she told me before she allowed me to follow her.

She opens the door and steps inside. But just as I take a step in, a big, fluffy thing barks and growls at me from inside.

Alright. One thing about me: I’m not very confident around dogs. I mean, I don’t hate them, but I don’t trust them either—especially when they’re not owned by someone I know. And this girl named Brooke is surely someone who fits the bill of someone I don’t.

“It’s okay, Buddy doesn’t bite,” she says, bending down to catch his leash and dragging him to the other room.

I breathe a sigh of relief and finally move inside.

I look around the place, mostly to find the man I’m here for. But all I see is second-hand furniture and lots of empty pizza boxes. There’s a bag of dog food on the dining room table and more than a few clothes hanging in every corner and on every flat surface of the room.

Not that I’m judging. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for why this girl lives like this.

“He’s in my room,” she says and gestures for me to follow her once again.

The apartment isn’t as big as one would like to think. I know there are only two bedrooms, and considering one of them has a dog inside, I automatically turn to the other door on the other side of the hall.

I follow Brooke into the bedroom and instantly realize Ava wasn’t wrong to worry.

Max… well, I have seen him in better shape for sure.

I sigh, rushing to his side on the bed as he lies there, an arm over his eyes.

“Max? What the fuck happened to you?”

My deep voice is enough to startle the young guy. He whips his arm off his face and glares at me with wide eyes, looking all alert and no sleep. But then, as the realization of who I am dawns on him, he starts to calm down.

“You,” he says, his voice a little gravelly. “What are you doing here?”

Now that his arm isn’t covering half of his face, I can see the bruises. One of his eyes is properly blackened, and there are cuts on his cheeks, just like the ones on his arms and neck.

For all the right reasons, this attack feels personal. I so want to find the person behind all this chaos and punish him myself. I want to break his face, his teeth, and all the arrogance that makes him think he can get away with it without a single scratch on himself.

“Well, you weren’t answering any of your calls, so I had to come and check up on you. But clearly—” once again, I sweep a gaze over his face and arms and feel something furious inside me— “things have been worse than I thought.”

“Yeah,” he says, finally sitting up and flinching when he tries to touch his face. “Tell me about it.”

“What happened?” I can’t help but ask, because if this attack on Max is due to some other reason, it might make sense for Ava to calm down a little. I mean, Max is a young guy, and he’s very much capable of falling into his own dug-up problems.

“I don’t even know,” he shakes his head. “One moment, I’m on my way home, talking to Ava, and the next, someone snatches my phone right out of my hand. When I try to follow him and almost catch him, I’m cornered by some road screw-ups who beat me to crap.”

“Are you sure it was just a random beating and not something… I don’t know, something else?”

He looks up at me, frowning deeply. “What does that even mean?”

“You didn’t hear anything about the threats on Ava?” I ask, not sure if Max even knows about this whole matter with Ava receiving threatening messages and the people around her being attacked.

The way Max looks—baffled, confused, and angry all at once—clearly shows he had no clue.

“Someone has been threatening Ava?” He stands up so fast it almost makes me dizzy. “Who the fuck would do that? And why? What did she do?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I say, shaking my head and running a hand through my hair, already tired of this whole messed-up situation. “I don’t know why she hasn’t kept you in the loop—maybe for your own good—but things have been pretty tense lately.”

“I can’t believe she would keep something like this from me.” Max doesn’t look very pleased, and he sure has a good reason for that. He shakes his head, sitting back down and grabbing his shoes. “I have to see her. I need to know what the fuck is going on. No one threatens my sister and gets away with it. I need to talk to her.”

I watch as Max fumbles with his shoes, his hands shaking slightly—not from fear, but from sheer frustration. I get it. If someone were threatening my sister, I wouldn’t be sitting around either.

“Slow down,” I say, stepping forward. “You’re still a mess. You look like you just crawled out of a damn car wreck. If you go like this in front of her, she’s going to get even more worried. Maybe we should stop by a clinic and get you checked up.”

“I don’t need a damn clinic,” he mutters. “I just need to see Ava.”

“Yeah? And what are you gonna do if you pass out halfway there? You’re barely keeping yourself upright, Max.”

He glares at me, but I can see the hesitation in his eyes. He knows I’m right.

Brooke, who’s been standing quietly by the door, finally speaks up. “Maybe Brian’s got a point. You look like hell, and Ava’s already on edge. Showing up like this isn’t gonna help.”

Max presses his lips into a thin line, his jaw clenching like he’s weighing his options. Then, with a frustrated sigh, he drags a hand through his hair. “Fine. But make it quick.”

I nod, already reaching for my keys. “There’s a 24-hour clinic a few blocks from here. Let’s go.”

————

By the time we make it to my penthouse, I have Max by my side, looking much better than when I found him.

Well, good for him, because if Ava had seen what I saw in Brooke’s apartment, she would have thrown a huge tantrum over this whole thing. She would have once again blamed herself, and that would have been absolutely useless.

We reach the door, and I take out my key card.

But just as I’m about to swipe it, I realize the door is already cracked open.

What the hell? I clearly remember asking Ava to keep the door locked while I was gone.

Why would she not listen to me? Especially when she knows how dangerous and unreal our lives have become in the last few hours?