“I’m not meeting you, Raven. Forget it,” he muttered, his voice breaking. The phone screen dimmed, but the anger and confusion still burned within him. Alex turned away, refusing to let Raven’s games consume him any further.
He wouldn’t even bother answering. He didn’t need this. He needed to focus on dealing with Ava’s loss, with his grief. He didn’t have time for anyone else.
CHAPTER 14
AVA
Ava traced the outline of the frame on the mantel, her mind still reeling from the latest revelation. How had she not seen this coming?
How had she been fooled for this long?
It made some semblance of sense after her mind had processed the details, but the lengths Sebastian Bancroft had gone to in order to hide his identify from her had been enormous.
She shuffled to the kitchen, eyeing the table she’d sat at only days before when he’d brought her here to escape a murder charge.
Her head shook as she recalled Raven insisting she return Sebastian’s text. “Well played, Sebastian.”
No wonder “Raven”–or rather, Sebastian–had insisted she remain close. The web of lies and half-truths was unraveling, and she needed to be at the center to untangle it.
She tugged open the refrigerator door and pulled out abottle of water, unscrewing the cap before she took a long sip.
She pulled open a few kitchen drawers in search of anything useful before she shuffled back to the living room.
He hadn’t locked up the knives, but she didn’t think killing him would do any good.
While he’d locked the door and engaged the alarm when he left, she could easily escape from a window. He hadn’t even bothered to zip tie her wrists.
This unexpected level of trust from Sebastian felt strange, and while the idea of betraying it crossed her mind, she ultimately chose to stay put, curious about the man who was both her captor and, oddly, her ally.
The realization that someone had just tried to kill her hit her like a ton of bricks. The secondary recognition that it had been Chris who had made that possible made her heart ache.
She set the water bottle down on the side table and continued her perusal of the cabin. She didn’t find anything useful. No weapons and more importantly, no communication devices.
With a long sigh, she climbed the stairs and poked around in the rooms upstairs. He’d kept the cabin clean of most things that would have been useful to her like a phone or a laptop.
“This is really unkind, Raven,” she murmured to herself as she left the last bedroom behind.
The sound of the front door slamming greeted her as she hovered at the top of the stairs. Sebastian’s heavy boots thudded across the floor as she descended toward him.
He glanced up at her, his eyebrows raising. “Were you napping?”
“Not quite,” she answered as he tugged off his gloves on tossed them down.
“Seriously?” he asked. “So, you were just pawing through our stuff?”
She crossed her arms, offering him an unimpressed stare. “You’ve kidnapped me multiple times. You’re going to object to me looking around the place I’m being held hostage.”
“You’re not being held hostage, Ava,” he answered, his voice sharp.
“Oh, someone’s in a bad mood all of a sudden.”
He unzipped his dark hoodie and shimmied out of it. “Things aren’t quite going to plan.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. He was definitely more flustered than she’d ever seen him before. He leapt from his perch on the arm of the armchair and stormed to the kitchen with a long sigh.
Bottles clinked together as he yanked open the refrigerator door and grabbed a bottle of water, downing half of it.
Ava followed him, leaning against the doorjamb as she studied him. “Did you talk to Alex?”
