“Oh come on, you’re a world-class liar,” Alex shot back.
Ava nodded. “Yeah, didn’t you totally lie to Julia right from the start.”
“That was before. Never mind. I just…don’t want to be the one to blow it. Especially with Shadow here waiting in the wings to claim my spot.”
“No way, Doc. Shadow isnottaking your spot. This guy is never going to be Ava’s back-up husband. Not ever.”
“He’s right,” Ava said. “Shadow is only sort of on the team.”
Kyle offered them a soft smile. “Gee, thanks, guys. I appreciate that. And it looks like you’re all finished, Mav. Now, I just need to get this blood going into Shadow.”
Kyle removed the needle from Alex’s arm, squeezing any blood from the tube into the bag before he set it up to trickle into Sebastian’s arm using gravity.
“Okay, that should do it.”
“Anything I should watch out for as he recovers?”
“Ava, we can’t leave you,” Alex said.
“Of course, you can. And you will. You need to get home and play grieving widow. And work on getting Chris out of the way.”
Alex heaved a sigh as he thought about the man who had nearly stolen Ava from him. He’d also oddly brought them back together. He didn’t know how he felt about the fact that the man’s big mouth had nearly cost Ava her life. “How are we supposed to do that?”
Ava pressed her lips together. “Go yell at him. Blame it all on him.”
“Oh, I bet that’ll do it.”
“I’m serious. Chris doesn’t like to think he’s done anything wrong. My death should already be eating away at him. You need to give him a little nudge further toward the guilt.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Kyle said as he performed another check of Sebastian’s vitals, “do we need to be concerned that he could like…off himself over this?”
Ava shook her head. “I’ve never known him to be suicidal.”
“You’ve also never known him to be a part of a criminal organization,” Alex pointed out.
“I know. But I think this may be what makes him see the light. Look, just…go needle at him a little bit, and see if he’ll confess to anything or maybe agree to leave The Board behind.”
“He can’t just leave them,” Alex said with a shake of his head. “I doubt they’ll allow that.”
“Then help him,” Ava said. “I know you hate Chris, but…Alex, we need him out of this so we can focus.”
Alex heaved a sigh, wrapping his arm around Ava as herose on shaky legs after the blood draw. “Fine. Whatever it takes to bring you home.”
He kissed the top of her head. Leaving her behind after all of this would be hard, but he had to make it safe for her to return. He couldn’t live without Ava.
“All right. You need to watch for, uh, fever, racing heart or slowing heart, labored breathing. When he wakes up, if he’s confused or disoriented at first, that’s normal, but once he’s acclimated, those are signs something is wrong.” Kyle ticked the warning signs off on his fingers. “Excessive bleeding from the wound, coughing up blood, pain beyond what’s tolerable.”
“Got it.”
“Ava, don’t hesitate to call me. We’re an hour away. Don’t wait until it’s too late.”
She nodded at him. “Hopefully, there will be no issues.”
“With any luck. Now, let’s go bag us an angry architect.”
“I am not looking forward to this at all,” Alex said with a shake of his head.
Kyle shrugged as he packed up his things. “I kind of am. You be good cop, I’ll be bad cop. You know, you go in with the whole poor me, my wife is dead act. And I’ll slam him against a wall.”
