Look After You (34 page)

As the weeks
went by, I had a few of Sebastian’s friends drop by to see Lily, and I had to play the charade of the perfect wife-to-be again. I am just thankful none of them stopped by when Ashton was here because I’m not quite sure how I would have explained it. I hate all of this lying. I hate the guilt. I hate it all. I just want to breathe freely again.

The only person who seems to be helping me from cracking up is my five-
month- old baby, and that is possibly because she doesn’t give me a moment’s peace, therefore, giving me less of an opportunity to dwell on my poor decisions and the guilt that surrounds those decisions.

As I prepare Lily’s bottle for her next feed, I take a glance at the calendar against the refrigerator and take note that it is February thirteenth today. In two days’ time Sebastian finally comes home, and then as a part of his welcome party I get to break his heart into a million pieces, just days after
 Valentine’s Day. I internally shiver at the thought, but the thought is quickly pushed to the side when I feel a warm set of arms slip around my waist and a pair of tantalizing lips press against my neck.

“You smell insanely good,” he murmurs against my skin.

“Oh that would be the smell of eau de parfum of baby vomit,” I say in my best French accent.

I can feel Ashton press his chest firmly against my back as he pulls me closer to him.
 “That isn’t it, trust me. It’s the kind of smell that makes me want to lick you all over.” I groan as I feel the shape of his erection pushing against my back. “But I can’t,” he says in mocking defeat. “I need to head into work, a woman in Olympia has given birth to twins at twenty-four weeks, and they’re being transferred from Olympia to Seattle as we speak.”

I turn to face him, my hands caressing up and down his chest.
 “That’s okay, you can lick me all over some other time,” I say with a smile. “Go, save the little babies.”

He smiles, and then presses a gentle kiss against my lips.
 “I love you.”

“I love you,” I repeat, bringing him into a hug, pressing a gentle kiss against his neck. I am the first to pull away when it becomes obvious Ashton has no intent of letting me go.
“Go.” I force him into the direction of the kitchen door. I laugh as he pouts.

“Fine
, I’m going.” He blows me a kiss then leaves.

Smiling, I finish Lily’s bottle and head into the living room to give her, her afternoon feed. Once I have fed, burped her and been spit up on again, she falls fast asleep on my shoulder.
  I take her to the nursery and place her into her crib. I turn her baby monitor on beside the crib and head into the living room. I lie down on the sofa to resume my Sons of Anarchy marathon from last night when exhaustion from the night before takes its toll and I can’t keep my eyes open for any longer.

I wake with a disorientated jolt when I hear the sound of my brother’s voice. My heart is racing at a frantic rate as I listen out for the voice again. After a few seconds of terrifying silence, I sigh with relief when I realize that it must have just been a dream. I sit up and rest my face within my hands, taking deep calming breaths, trying to calm my heart rate. I find that my clothes are soaking wet and as I get up to head to my room to change into some dry clothes, the death crippling voice echoes softly through my living room, freezing me on the spot. It is coming from the baby monitor. It wasn’t a dream. It was real. He’s here, in my home. He’s in the nursery.

Fuck, Lily!

I hastily run into the kitchen and grab the biggest knife I can find. I hurry back through to the living room, and a chill runs through my body when his voice comes through the baby monitor again, and I can’t help the gasp of disgust that leaves my throat.

“You’re so beautiful Lily-Mai, just like your mom.” As his words fill my head, recklessly, without a single thought
, I charge into the nursery, the knife held firmly in the palm of my right hand.

I physically choke as I skid to an immediate stop.
 The image I see in front of me is one I never wanted to see play out, ever. My worst nightmare is stood before me, with my daughter in his arms. I struggle to find my breath as I watch his evil eyes trace over Lily. In what seems like slow motion, he turns to face me with a vindictive smile etched along his face, and I physically have to hold myself back from charging at him and piercing this blade into his chest, directly over his heart and watch him bleed out on the nursery floor.

I become despondent when I watch him lean down and kiss my daughter against the softness of her head. The knife I held so steadily in my hand begins to shake. The ten years I have spent trying to bury him has been obliterated in two seconds flat and with two simple words he has me crumbling into pieces. Suddenly, I am no longer the twenty-eight year old Ava Jacobson who is qualified in Krav Mega self-defense; instead I am Ava Jacobson, the fifteen-year-old girl who is deemed useless against her brother’s devices.

“Hi,
Ava
.”

Chapter 24

Ashton

I slump myself against my open locker, burying my head into my hands with pent up frustration, wishing that I wasn’t the one who just had to tell the mother and father of their preemie twins, that one baby didn’t survive. The look of devastation on their face was pure hell when I explained how the genetic heart defect their baby boy was born with, was too severe that his little undeveloped body just failed on him. I did everything that was medically possible, but sometimes it isn’t meant to be.

I hastily take my shirt off and throw it into the locker. I need to get out of here. Thank God, I was only on call, and I can head on home. As I reach into my locker for my casual shirt
and jeans, I notice my phone is flashing. Before I can answer, the call ends, but worry immediately picks up when I notice I have fourteen missed calls. Dialing the number back, there is an answer after the first ring.
“Ashton, thank God, it’s Caleb. Ava’s missing.”

I stop breathing.

“What do you mean Ava’s missing?” My ears are pounding as the blood pumps vicariously through my veins.

“I mean Ava is missing,” Celeb hisses through the phone. “I came home to Li
ly screaming the place down but there was no sign of Ava anywhere. She’s not answering her phone either.”

Fuck.

“I’ll be with you soon.” I hang up, and within ten seconds flat I am dressed and out of the door. That bastard has come for her. I just know it. If he so much as touches a hair on her head, I will kill him.

I break every traffic violation known to man, and a journey that should take twenty-five minutes, takes me only ten. Caleb buzzes me in, and I bypass the elevators and take the stairs two at a time and by the time I reach Ava
’s door on the eighth floor, I am completely out of breath. I am met with a distraught Caleb at the door, with Lily in his arms.

“Is she okay, is she hurt?” I ask, the pediatric docto
r in me kicking in immediately. I stroke Lily’s little head, tracing her entire face, looking for any sustained injury, neglect or concussion, but nothing screams out at me. That’s a good sign.

“No, she’s fine. I don’t think she was left for long.”

I sigh with relief as I kiss her gently on the top of her head. I follow Caleb into the living room, and I watch as he places Lily gently into the bouncer and straps her in.

“Do you think...do you think he has her?” he asks when he eventually turns back to me.

“Yes.” I pace around the living room, anger coursing through my veins. “I should have killed him when I had the chance,” I murmur to myself but not as quiet as I hoped.

“What are you talking about?”

I look up to the ceiling, pulling at my hair with unrestrained rage. I glance back down to Caleb, pursing my lips in anger.
 
“I haven’t told Ava this, but in Miami, after she told me what he’d done to her…” I grit my teeth at the very fucking thought, “I tracked that fucker down and beat him up.”

He looks a little taken back at my admission. “Shit. How bad?”

“Felony bad.” His eyes widen, half shocked, half amazed. “If it weren’t for his wife being there, I probably would have killed him on the spot.”

“So you think he’s come back for some kind of revenge?”

I shake my head at his question.
 
“No. You didn’t see the look on his wife’s face when she found out what that monster had done. He’s come back because he has nothing left to lose.”

Caleb lets out a long breat
h. “Fuck,” he says as he slouches on the floor with his back against the sofa, his elbows leaning against his bent knees.

“What’s the plan then?”

“The plan is that we find her and then we kill the fucker.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ava

I feel disorientated. I try to move, but I am physically bound to the spot. My eyes groggily flutter open as I feel myself waking from a deep sleep. Everything is blurred. The flickering haze keeps pulling me under, keeping me in the dark.
 
I can hear a faint voice in the background, but it’s distorted, I recognize it, but I can’t distinguish whose voice it is. I try to move again, but I’m being held captive, I feel almost paralyzed.

“Ava…” I can hear my name being called, and it’s getting closer. I feel a hand linger against my face, but it feels wrong. It doesn’t feel soft like Ashton’s or Sebastian’s; it feels rough, evil…like…Avery. Terror soars through my woozy consciousness, and I desperately try to pull away, but a sharp metallic slash against my wrists pr
events me from moving, and I am brought to a stand still from sheer pain. My eyes shoot open as I scream out loud, reviving me to my senses. My vision is blurred, but with every blink I take it improves until everything becomes very clear to me.

My heart rate spikes.

I struggle to lift my head up, and when I do, I pale when I see my spread-eagled body lay on top of a dirty hard mattress, my wrists and ankles chained to a bed.

I see my brother from out of the corner of my eye and instinctively I pull against the restraints again, but I cry out in pain as the chain
s bite into my skin. I glance up to my hands and wince when I see a trickle of blood dripping down from my left wrist.

“I was wondering when you’d wake.” I shudder as I feel his fingertip run along my bare arm. My eyes fill up with fear-induced tears as my entire body quakes with terror.
 
“You’ve been out of it for a while, two hours at least.” I clench my eyes shut as his fingers travel slowly over my shoulder.

“Where am I?” It barely comes out as a croak, as the tears fall down my face.

“Where you belong, where you’ve always belonged.” I thrash my head away from him as he presses a kiss against my cheek. The wrong move. His hand flies to my throat, and he squeezes my neck tight. I splutter as my air supply is abruptly cut off.

“Now that’s not the way to greet your beloved brother, is it, Ava?” He angrily slams his lips onto mine, and I screw my face up in disgust. The moment his lips pull away, I spit aggressively into his face. Again, wrong move. I groan in pa
in as my face is whipped to the side at the almighty speed of his hand, as he slaps me. Fuck that hurt. He straddles me, gripping my mouth with forceful precision, crushing my lips within his fingertips.
“Somebody needs to learn some manners.” He shoves away from my face and in one swift movement he rips my t-shirt and bra open in one, leaving the top half of my body vulnerable and bare.

“No! Please, no, no, please!” I desperately beg, not wanting him to touch me, not wanting him to…

“I’ll be good please…I promise, don’t…not that…no…please.” His eyes linger down my chest, suddenly hungry, and I have to slam my eyes shut when his fingertips trail across my naked flesh. I brace myself for what I know will come next, but it doesn’t come. Instead, it surprises me when he pulls away from me.

“Okay, just this once I
’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but if you double cross me again, I will get angry, very angry. Do you understand me?”

My body
frantically shakes as I open my eyes, sighing inwardly with relief.
“Yes, I understand, I’ll behave, I promise,” I rasp with a tremor to my voice. I see him pick something up from the floor, and my dry mouth becomes almost unbearable when I realize it’s bottled water. He sees my eyes widen, and he holds it up for me to take a closer look.

“You thirsty?” I just
nod numbly as he inches closer to me and places the bottle to my lips, pouring a little water in my mouth. I swallow painfully as the water glides roughly down my throat.

“More?” I croak quietly.

“More what? Where are your manners?” he questions, as if I’m a petulant child. I refrain from rolling my eyes, reminding myself that I need to behave.

“Water, please.”

“Seeing as though you asked so nicely, sure.” He lifts the bottle to my lips again, and I barely manage a small sip when he hastily pulls the bottle away from my lips, causing the water to dribble down my chin. He takes the bottle to his lips, and I almost vomit into my mouth when he licks the rim of the bottle with his tongue, then takes a long swig.

“Your daughter looks just like you,” he says after a few moments of silence.

I pull at my restraints in panic when I suddenly realize Lily isn’t here, ignoring the pain that shoots across my wrists.
 
“Where is she? What did you do to her?”

He vindictively smirks at my reaction and stands up from the bed and crouches down in front of me, stroking my hair.
 
“Nothing. She is perfectly safe.”

“If-if you did anything to her I fu
cking swear to God…” I grit out venomously at the thought of anything happening to my sweet Lily.

He
’s suddenly right in front of me, his face contorted with anger.
 
“You’ll do what? What will you do?” My nostrils flair with each heavy breath I take, while anger fills my veins, consuming me with hatred for this man. “You’ll kill me, is that it? Is that what you were going to say?” I cower into the mattress as he straddles my waist, his fingertips stroking against my cheek.
 
“Good luck with that.”

Then without any warning, my jeans and panties ar
e suddenly being ripped down my thighs and my legs are being prized open by his hands.
“I’ve changed my mind; I think you definitely need to be taught a lesson.” I cry out as his mouth slams against mine again, forcing entry. I desperately try to fight against him, screaming for my life but I become lifeless when he punches me so hard in the face that everything suddenly turns pitch black…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ashton

I’m pretty sure I have covered every inch of this apartment from my constant pacing with anxious panic as I wait for Darnell, and his wife Brianna to turn up. They are the only two people on this earth that I trust, other than my family, and Darnell was the first guy I called. He is an ATF special agent for the Seattle field division, so he’s not to be messed with.

I am relieved when I finally hear the buzzer. Caleb lets them up, and I am engulfed in the arms of Brianna.
 
“Hey, boo, how you doing?” She presses a kiss against my cheek, then gradually pulls away.

“All the better now that you’re here.”

Darnell pulls me into a hug, slapping my back. “Hey, man, we’re going to find her, I promise.” I nod once.

Caleb picks Lily up from
the bouncer and passes her over to Brianna. She gushes over her instantly. “Oh, aren’t you just the cutest?” She starts to bounce her in her arms, a smile plastered on her face.

“Will you be okay with her?”

“Yeah, we’ll be fine, won’t we beautiful?” she says, speaking down to Lily with a smile.

“Her nursery is just through the corridor, the second door on the right,” I say as I point her into the direction of the bedrooms. “I know she’s just a baby, but I don’t want her to be around all of this, so can you just keep her in there, for the time
being?”

“I’ve got this, just go, find your girl, and this baby’s momma.” I give her a smile, well the closest thing that resembles a smile and press a kiss against Brianna
’s cheek and a second kiss on top of Lily’s head.

“Thanks, Brianna.”

When Brianna takes Lily to the Nursery, that’s when Darnell gives Caleb and I the low down.
 
“Okay, so I’ve put a call out to every police station within the entire Washington state area, so they are fully aware of the severity of Ava’s situation. I’ve made a call to all the local hospitals, airports, bus stations, train stations, you name it, and there has been absolutely no reports of them yet.”

“That’s a good thing right, that means they
’re still in Seattle?” I ask.

“Well not necessarily, they could be traveling by car but from the time frame since you last time you saw her to Caleb coming home it is possible that they are still in the Washington area. I’ve given the authorities a description of Ava but not of Avery. What does this dick look like?”

I explain that Avery is around six foot, thirty-years-old, olive skinned, well-built and dark hair. He radios over the information, not missing a beat.

“Are you packing?”
I ask, and like a boss, he opens his jacket, and pulls his shirt up to reveal a glock27 handgun attached to his belt.
“Did you grab mine from the range?”

With a sigh and an eye roll, he reaches for the back of his jeans and pulls out my 9mm pistol and passes it to me, on two conditions. One, my gun is for emergency use only, and two, under absolutely no circumstance, am I to shoot the bastard in the head. That was one condition I wasn’t too sure I could stick to, and he knew it.

“I’m serious bro, I can’t protect you from that shit, if you kill him, you’ll go down for a long time and where does that leave you and your girl?” He’s right of course. I just hope he gets to him before I do because I’m not too sure I’ll be able to control myself.