I didn’t say shit.
He let out a slow breath. “If you hear from her, tell her to call me.”
“I will.”
Then the line went dead.
I lowered the phone slowly and stared at the dark screen for a second before tossing it back on the table.
Langford was already sniffing around. It was only going to get worse from here. Every hour she stayed missing was going to tighten the pressure on me.
I stood up and walked to the window. The whole city looked calm from up here.
Two women had turned my life upside down in different ways in less than twenty-four hours.
I rested my hand against the glass and thought about Ava again, because apparently I was a glutton for punishment.
Her face.
Her voice.
That little break in her when she realized I meant every hurtful thing I said.
I hated that a part of me cared and that I wanted to stay angry, but my mind kept drifting back to how bad I had wounded her.
I had wanted her to feel what I felt; trapped, blindsided, and cornered. Instead, I got all that shit out, went home, and realized I didn’t feel better at all. I was just more pissed and tangled up than before.
AVA REYNOLDS
After what happened with Reek, I decided I wasn’t begging that man for a damn thing. I already knew he didn’t want the baby. He had been too clear for too long about how he felt about kids, commitment, and anything that looked like a real future. So, while his response had still cut me deeper than I wanted to admit, I couldn’t act blindsided either. I had hidden it from him. He had every right to be angry.
The part I couldn’t get over was how cruel he had chosen to be with it.
Since our altercation, I had thrown myself into my hair business. It helped that the business was really moving. Thailand had changed everything for me professionally. I had the right vendors, the right quality, reliable shipping, and enough money stacking to make me feel like I could really stand on my own two feet. So, I had been on my laptop every chance I got, answering messages, checking orders, planning content, and running numbers so I could move out of Saint and Zahra’s house sooner rather than later.
I needed space, specifically space from Reek, space from his voice, his smell, and his random pop-ins.
I was sitting cross-legged in my bed with my laptop open and a notebook beside me when Zahra came into the room without knocking.
One look at her face made me sit up straighter.
“What?” I asked immediately.
She shut the door behind herself and came farther in. “Saint told me what happened Sunday night.”
“What happened?”
Her face got serious. “Sienna is dead.”
Everything in me went still.
Zahra sat on the edge of my bed, with one hand resting under her belly like it was too heavy for her back to carry. “Reek killed her.”
My mouth parted. “What?”
She nodded slowly. “She had been working with the Feds, trying to build something on the Cartiers. She was trying to save her own ass by offering them a bigger fish. She confessed all of that to Reek, and he snapped.”
I just stared at her. And then the timing hit me. All of that had happened right before I told him about the baby.
