“By his sons,” Merrick said. “Then they obviously figured out a way to get in here and get to Avion.” He sneered at the attendant. “Probably through this mook, and now our location is compromised again.”
“What if it isn’t this guy?” Milli said. “What if…” He gave me a nervous look. “What if it’s just Avion? What if she was with them the entire time? Remember what Vincent said to us before?”
When Vincent and Anton stormed my last estate and took Avion away from me, Vincent warned me that I couldn’t trust her. “I didn’t believe him then, and I don’t believe him now.”
“What did he say?” Tamryn asked.
“He said Avion couldn’t be trusted. May have lightly suggested she was working him,” Milli explained.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Giovanni?” Merrick said.
“Come on!” I barked. “I didn’t believe them because it’s the Narzand brothers and the Narzand brothers fucking lie! Avion wouldn’t turn against me. I know that.”
“I completely agree,” Tamryn said. “Merrick I get, but Milli, that’s all it takes for you to turn on her. I thought you liked her.” She shook her head. “It’s exactly that sort of quick to fly shit that I never really liked much about you.”
Milli swallowed hard and I could see his jaw clenching with anger. “I’m just considering all of the options. We’d be stupid not to. It’s not just a coincidence that she left here twenty minutes after we found out Curtis died.”
“Maybe she overheard you.” Tamryn looked at me, straight into my eyes. “She’s in your office a lot. Maybe she came to find you and overheard you all talking about her father being killed. If I’d just heard something like that, I wouldn’t stick around for an explanation, I’d go to confirm it for myself. That’s why she told the attendant to tell you to trust her and that she’d be back. Avion isn't weak and helpless. She knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t want to be passive anymore.”
It matched my own impulse that I had been experiencing not minutes before I discovered she was missing. She just got the jump on me.
“Maybe not, but if she goes up against her brothers, she’s not going to be able to handle them both on her own,” Milli said. “Even if it’s not because we think she’s a traitor, we should go after her to keep her from getting herself killed.”
Tamryn sneered at Milli. “As much as I appreciate you trying to jump backonthe bandwagon you so rapidly jumped off of, I have a counter-argument -- we treat Avion like the adult woman that she is.” She looked at me. “You said that Avion’s not a prisoner here anymore, right.”
“Right,” I replied, taking a deep breath.
“Do you trust her?”
There was no hesitation in my answer. “I do. I don’t think she’d turn on me and I trust her to make smart decisions for herself.”
“Don’t forget that she dealt with her brothers for many years before you came along. Sure, the circumstances are slightly different, but she’s not going in blind. At least not as blind as she was when she first met you.”
“Yeah.” I had shallow nods at first that got more prominent the more I thought about it and agreed with Tamryn’s words. “You’re totally right. Avion is capable of protecting herself against her brothers. No one knows them better than her.”
“So we’re going to do exactly what she asked us to do, which is not worry and trust her. She’ll be back. I believe that deeply.”
“For how long?” Milli asked. “How long do we let her be gone before we go after her?”
“Unless she calls us and asks us for help, we don’t go after her,” I said. “She’s not a prisoner.”
“Even if she doesn’t come back?” Merrick asked.
As much as it made me nearly want to puke, I nodded in agreement. “Yes. Even if she doesn’t come back.”
49
AVION
It had been a really, really long time since I’d gone out into the world on my own. Even before I was a prisoner at Gio’s estate and unable to leave, I was constantly stuck climbing in and out of limos and town cars with my father and brothers, constantly being chauffeured to some event or meeting. Though I did go out with Lorie on occasion, I’d be with her or a small group of our friends. It wasn’t until I was out on the road alone that I realized how infrequently I got to hit the streets of New York City all on my own.
If the circumstances were different, I might have actually been enjoying myself. I’d become so emotionally unattached from my family, that though I was in disbelief about hearing my father had died, that was really the only emotion I could muster. I’d heard it for myself that my brothers were planning to kill my father, but I’d actually managed to convince myself that they would never. Somewhere inside my brothers was at least half a soul.
Or so I thought.
I didn’t want to hear it through Giovanni, or after Milli or Merrick hit the streets and got their version of the story, I wanted to look my brothers in the eyes and ask them exactly why they would do something like that. What was there to be gained by killing him. Just to coax Gio or me out? To saddle Giovanni with the murder by using the owed debt? It wasn’t like Milli, Merrick, or even Tamryn would just sit back and let something like that go unchecked.
Just like Gio was afraid that attacking the Narzands would start a war with them, so too would they be starting a war with the Raines for pulling that stunt.
