Unavoidable Chance (20 page)

My world stands still, and the screaming and the crying in the courtroom flood my ears again. The sound of helicopter blades echoes in my ears. It’s my worst nightmares playing out in full sound and color right in front of my eyes.

No, no, no, please God, no.

The screaming and the chaos are drowned out by the thudding of my heart in my chest. I rush to the judge’s bench and find Ava sitting up leaning against it. I remove my shirt and sink to the ground next to her. I hold it to her blood drenched stomach and apply pressure and gently call her name.

“Ava.”

She doesn’t look at me. Her eyes are open and fixed to the left.

“Ava, sunshine, you’re going to be alright. Help is on the way. Talk to me baby,” I say.

Her breaths come in a short, shallow, jerking motion. I’ve seen it countless times before in Afghanistan, it’s called Cheyne-Stokes respiration and it’s a telltale sign of imminent death. My heart sinks, but my training kicks in. I apply hard pressure and try to get her to stay with me.

“Ava, talk to me, baby,” I repeat in a calm soothing voice.

Still nothing.

“Tell me a story about your dad, sunshine,” I try. If anything can keep her with me, it’s to get her to talk about her dad.

Her eyes come to mine for the first time, and her hand squeezes my arm. The relief and a ray of hope slices through me. She smiles ever so slightly as her breaths continue to be short and shallow and jerk with every attempt. My shirt is quickly drenched with her blood. She’s bleeding way too much.

“That’s right. Tell me about your dad, sunshine” I say, looking in her eyes. “I need a medic over here right now!” I shout, turning my head toward the door.

Her eyes are filled with love and my own swell with tears. I wipe them on my shoulders and look deep into the eyes of the woman I’m in love with and fear that I’m losing right before my eyes in my own arms. She continues to look into my eyes, and then suddenly they shift. It’s as if she’s no longer looking into my eyes, but straight through me and into my soul. They say the eyes are the gateway to your soul, but I think in this case she sees heaven. The slight smile on her face turns into a huge bright smile as recognition fills her face.

“Daddy,” she whispers. Her body gives one more shallow jerking breath, and then the light in her eyes goes out. Her grip on my arm goes lax.

The sun in my sunshine is shadowed in the shroud of death.

5 hours later…

“You have five minutes with him,” Max says.

“I only need two,” I grit out between my teeth. I can feel the veins on the side of my neck bulging with my anger. Max is a man that knows that I would never be able to live the rest of my life if I couldn’t have two minutes alone with the man who shot Ava. Both of Max’s men, Levi and Chase, are holding down Ava’s brothers, Asher, Adrian, and Aiden. I’d never let Asher or Adrian have a second alone with him. They’re both married and have families. I have a family, too, but, I know my limits.

They all agreed to wait in the waiting room at his PI firm and let me have my two minutes. Max had to call in a ton of favors with the Seattle Police Department to even get him here. I’m certainly not going to waste a second.

“You got your shit?” Max asks.

“Yeah,” I reply, gritting my teeth.

I open the interrogation room door and pull out the metal chair from under the table. I drag it behind me over to the man sitting stone faced behind the desk. I yank him out of his chair, shove him up against the wall and put the top rung of the chair against his neck.

“I only have two minutes, so I’ll make this short and sweet. I don’t care who the fuck you are. I don’t care that you lost your daughter. But the fact that you did lose your daughter, and just how you lost your daughter, is the reason your larynx isn’t snapped in two right this fucking second. I have about six men outside that were fighting for this time with you, you’re lucky I won. I don’t think anyone else would show you mercy. You’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars for murder. You’ll have every day to sit in a six-by-six cell to think about your daughter and the wife that now has to live the rest of her life without you in it. No one takes my sunshine away without consequences.” I give the chair one final push in his throat, then remove it. He gasps for air and coughs.

Max opens the door and clips, “Time’s up.”

Two of Seattle’s best come in and put chains around his ankles, then haul him into a waiting vehicle out back to take him back to jail.

I think without my military training I would have ripped his arms and legs out of their sockets, and shoved them down his throat.

After Ava’s last breath, I laid her flat on the ground and immediately performed CPR. My heart broke when I heard her ribs breaking in her chest from the compressions. I know from all my training that it’s all part of doing CPR and fractured ribs is a very common occurrence. But that didn’t change the thought in my soul that I’m hurting her. The paramedics came and did mass triage. They prioritized the wounded and immediately put Ava on a stretcher and took her to the hospital.

I stood up from behind the judge’s bench, shirtless, and covered in Ava’s blood. I looked around at the mass confusion and casualties from his senseless act.

I didn’t think there could be anything worse than getting the news thousands of miles away that your wife passed away, never mind the fact that I got shot and lost my career. But today, Ava died in my own God damned arms. I always thought that if I had been with Scarlett that day, I could have saved her. Ava was in my arms, and I couldn’t save her.

Chapter 13

Ava

The only thought running around in my head is that I didn’t
say ‘I love you, too’
, back to Jax when he said it to me this morning, that’s all I can think. What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I say it back? I have an overwhelming urge to shout it out at the tops of my lungs from every rooftop in Seattle.

I hear people talking around me; I can make out all the voices, too. All of my family is here. Jax is sitting next to me, holding my hand. I could never mistake that big meaty hand in mine for anyone else’s. Everyone is whispering, but the combined whispers of everyone in my family are like a swarm of mosquitoes buzzing around my head.

Chloe and Kyle are talking to my mother and Jax. They’re explaining that I was clinically dead for over two minutes. Oh, my God, I was dead? That’s kind of scary and cool all at the same time. Did I see the light? Did I pass over into a parallel universe? Did someone push the return button and send me back, like that television show? Is that show back on yet? I like that show. Then the events of the day start to swirl around in my head. As soon as the verdict was read, I turned around to look at the family. I see the victim’s father and his gun as he aimed it toward the defendant and pulled the trigger. Then he just started to fire at random. I tried to duck behind the judge’s desk, but I wasn’t fast enough. It was like everything was in slow motion. I see Jax barreling down the aisle like an angry bull toward a red cape. I swear to God, I saw smoke coming out of his nostrils. Then it gets a little hazy. I remember Jax calling my name. Or, was that my dad calling my name?

The case, the verdict, I lost the case. All my dreams and aspirations are down the drain. Jax’s face, I remember Jax’s face. He was crying. Do big men like him really cry? Oh, my God, they do, because each tear that rolled down his face ripped a gaping hole in my heart. He was holding my hand, and he was crying. Then it was peaceful, so peaceful.

“Chloe, get over here, Ava’s crying. I know they just gave her pain meds; can they give her more? It’s not enough if she’s crying while unconscious,” Jax says, standing. I know he stood because I heard the chair scrape across the floor and crash into the wall. He’s definitely a bull in a china shop. His warm hands come to either side of my face, and he wipes the tears rolling down my temples.

Chloe comes to the other side and takes my hand. “Ava, are you awake, honey? Can you hear me? Open your eyes,” she says.

“Open your eyes, sunshine,” Jax says in a sweet, calm voice.

I open my eyes and see about twenty eyeballs staring back at me. I search through the sea of eyes and land on Jax’s. “I love you, too,” I choke out in a hoarse whisper. I had to get it out. I had to tell him before it was too late again. Never wait to tell someone how you feel, life can change in an instant. You never know if you’ll ever see them again to get that chance. I blew it with my dad. I’ll never let that happen again.

Tears stream down his cheeks as his face comes to mine. He kisses me on the lips, nuzzles the side of my face and repeats over and over again, “I love you, I love you.”

“Let’s give them a few minutes alone,” Willow says.

The room is cleared and the door shut. Jax sits on the edge of the bed and takes both of my hands in his. I’m connected to all kinds of wires and tubes; I’m not sure exactly why or what’s going on, or what’s wrong with me. But just having Jax’s hands in mine makes it all disappear.

“Will you marry me?” he asks, filling my vision. “I know I said that I would give you time, I lied, and it will be the only time I’ll ever lie to you. I just can’t give you another second. I can’t live another day without you by my side.”

With a lump in my throat and pressure in my chest, all I can do is nod my head yes. Jax’s massive body comes down on mine with the lightest of touch, and he gently squeezes my shoulders. Who knew a bull could be so gentle. I’d endure all the pain in the world just to have his arms wrap all the way around me, though.

The door opens and the large mass of people that is my family walks back in the room. They each shove and push their way to the head of my bed. They’re all like little kids on Christmas morning pushing their way to the Christmas tree saying, me first, no me first. Willow pushes Jax out of the way and says, “That’s enough alone time, big fella’, get out of my way.”

A million different questions are fired my way, I wish I could answer them all. I’m still a little fuzzy on all the details. I see Jax standing against the wall with a huge, happy grin on his face. It starts to get really loud in the room; a nurse walks in and shouts, “Alright, everyone out! Ava needs her rest. The doctor is next door and he’s coming in here next to talk to Ava. Go on everybody, out. You can come back for visiting hours tomorrow morning.”

“We’ll be back
before
visiting hours. I’ll try and sneak you in some Swedish Fish,” Amelia says, giving the nurse a dirty look. She kisses me on the forehead, takes Kyle’s hand and they both leave the room.

“Get some rest kid, you look like hell,” Asher says. Willow smacks him in the arm. Well, it was more like a punch, and then she pulls him out of the room, giving him a lecture on the way. Asher turns around just before he’s out of the room and gives me a wink and a smile.

“Chloe and I will stop by in the morning,” Max says. He squeezes my hand and they both leave the room.

Aiden and my mother walk to my bedside; Aiden has my mom wrapped in his arms. My mom wipes away a tear, offers a small smile, leans down, and kisses me on the cheek, then they both leave together.

I raise my hand and wave my fingers goodbye to the rest of the people as they file out of the room. My fingers are about the only part of my body that doesn’t hurt. Jax stays by my side as the doctor walks in. I don’t think I really could have, but I would have tackled him if he tried to leave.

“Ava, it’s nice to see you back with us. I’m Dr. Lopez, and I’m going to go over your injuries with you, and then we’ll talk about a few things. I won’t go into boring detail that you won’t understand, but I’ll give it to you straight. You were shot in your mid-section. The gunshot itself was minor, but the bullet fragmented and did significant damage to your spleen, liver, intestines, and uterus. We did emergency surgery and were able to repair almost everything. I’m sorry to say that there was irreversible damage to your uterus, and we were unable to save it. We’re administering some pretty heavy duty antibiotics to combat any possible infection. You have a few fractured ribs from CPR, you can thank this big guy right here for saving your life,” he says, pointing to Jax. The pained look on Jax’s face is something I never ever in my entire life want to see again. “The good news is you’ll recover nicely. We’ll keep you in the hospital for a week or so, but you shouldn’t have any medical problems once you’re fully recovered.” The doctor kept talking, but I didn’t hear anything after he said my uterus couldn’t be saved. That means I’ll never have any children. Sadness, guilt, anger, grief, and a million other different emotions all start talking at the same time in my head. I never knew just how much I really wanted children until this very second when the doctor basically said that I’d never have any biological children of my own. Having babies was never on my radar, and now they never will.

The doctor asks if I have any questions, and I do. I have about a million and one, but I shake my head no. He pats my leg then exits the room. Quinn walks in immediately after he leaves. “I’m sorry, I tried to keep them quiet, but Hope and Sky really want to see Ava. Is it alright if I bring them in now? The nurse said they can stay for five minutes.”

Jax looks at me for an answer and the pain and the sadness written all over his face feels a million times worse than any thought in my brain, or the pain in my body. Does he still want to marry me? Is this the first time he’s heard any of what the doctor just said? Did he already know that I can never carry his child? If he does still want to marry me, every time he looks at me will he just see disappointment? He holds his finger up to Quinn, but never breaks eye contact with me, and says, “Give me just one minute, then you can bring the girls in.” Quinn nods, and closes the door.

He lowers his finger, sits on the bed and takes my hand. “I can see your thoughts running around in there like a New York Stock Exchange ticker tape. You listen to me, and you listen to me good, Ava Wellington, soon to be, Ava Landry. I don’t ever want to see those thoughts cross your eyes again. I don’t ever want to hear them out loud, either. You’re alive, and that’s all that matters, do you get me?”