Her nostrils flared as her eyes fell to a sliver of exposed skin. She used her other hand to grab his sleeve and yank it up.
A familiar tattoo graced his wrist. Her lower lip trembled, and a lump formed in her throat. She shifted her gaze to the mask, yanking it from his face and staring into the eyes of the man she’d know as Raven.
Her heart plummeted, and her eyes went wide. “You.”
CHAPTER 11
ALEX
The words continued to scroll across the screen at the bottom, barely registering as Alex tried to process the shock. The woman on the screen, her features pinched with concern, reported about the in-air explosion of a private plane hired by the Department of Homeland Security. Details were few, but the passenger manifest indicated that Ava Collins, wife of billionaire tech genius Alex Stone had been among the passengers.
A picture of Ava flashed onto the screen, and Alex’s features twisted with disbelief and upset. “Ava?”
His voice broke, barely above a whisper as he spoke her name.
“Alex,” Julia said, her voice soft. “I’m so sorry. Why don’t you sit down?”
Alex ignored her, barely able to hear her words as he reached a shaky hand to trace the contours of Ava’s face on the screen.
“Ava,” he whispered again. “No.”
A warm hand slid onto his shoulder, and he twisted to find Julia standing next to him, her features pinched. “Alex, I think you should sit.”
“Sit down?” he asked, his voice shaky.
“Yeah,” she said with a slight bob of her head. “Come sit down.”
“Sit down?” His voice turned incredulous. “Are you kidding me?”
“Alex, this is a shock, and you need to process everything,” Julia tried.
“A shock…” He huffed out a harsh laugh. “Yeah, you could say that. It’s a shock, all right.”
Alex ran a shaky hand through his hair as he paced the floor. “Ava was on a plane that exploded. That’s…a shock. But…she’s…”
His voice trailed off as his mind tried to make her okay. Ava was always okay. Ava was so vibrant and full of life.
He recalled her smile, her coy winks, the way her lips felt when she kissed him, the way it had felt when she held him close. All of those things couldn’t be gone. Not yet.
Julia cleared her throat. “Of course, it is. That’s why you should sit down.”
Kyle rose from his seat and crossed to the doorway, disappearing through it as Alex continued to pace. “She’s…fine. She has to be fine.”
Julia stopped him from pacing as she stepped in front of him, her hands held in front of her. “Alex, please. Please, sit down.”
“I can’t sit down. We should go.”
“Go where, Alex?” Julia asked.
“To find Ava. We need to find Ava. Because she’s fine. She’s okay. Ava couldn’t be dead because…”
Julia leaned forward, her eyebrows raising as she waited for his answer. “Because?”
“Because…” His voice trailed off as his mind searched for a reason that Ava would still be alive. His features twisted as tears filled his eyes. “Because I can’t live without her.”
The tears spilled onto his cheeks as he sank to his knees and doubled over.
With her own eyes misting with tears, Julia joined him on the floor, gently rubbing his back as he wept over the news. His mind connected the dots, finally giving in to the two words that shook him to his core.No survivors.
