ALEXANDER
Still couldn’t get my mind off that woman. For the first time in my life, I was obsessing over a woman I couldn't even see clearly in my memories. The thought of marriage had always been a business consideration to me. Yet, here I was, entertaining the idea of binding myself to a complete stranger. Ridiculous.
Even as I drove to Isabella’s house, that woman was all on my mind. Not that I would have attended this dinner at all had my sister not pleaded with me to make time for it.
Shortly after arriving and Isabella chattering about what not to be, she turned her head towards the door, beaming before bouncing away from me. This was when I noticed a young woman entering the hall.
“Ava! You made it.”
Ava. Something about her captured my attention immediately. I couldn’t tell what. Was it those intense dark, stunning eyes?
“Come, come!” After they’d hugged, Isabella took the woman by the hand, soon leading her in my direction. I noticed how she was making an effort not to look directly at me, which was one thing I found strange…suspicious.
“I don't think you two were properly introduced at the wedding,” Isabella said as soon as they reached where I stood.
Our eyes met the second time, and now I was surer than ever of how quickly she looked away, before looking back at me.
“I... uh... yes,” she smiled.
“Ava, this is my brother Alexander,” then she Isabella faced me, “Alex, this is Ava, Blake's girlfriend. Isn't she just stunning?” Isabella beamed.
“I keep telling him he needs to find someone just like you,” she told Ava, who barely smiled.
I extended my hand, noting how hers trembled slightly when she took it. Her skin was soft, familiar somehow.
“Pleasure,” I said, studying her face. She was beautiful indeed.
“The pleasure's mine,” she replied and withdrew her hand quickly.
A server passed with champagne, and Ava reached for a glass with perhaps too much enthusiasm. But before she could even take a sip, the glass slipped from her fingers and shattered at our feet.
“Oh god, I'm so sorry,” she stammered.
She bent to help clean up, but Isabella stopped her.
“Leave it dear, the cleaners will take care of it. These things happen.” Isabella laughed, linking arms with Ava and leading her towards the dining room.
All drama aside, we all sat at the table for dinner. Ava took her seat with her boyfriend on the opposite side of the the table, directly across from me. Close enough for me to notice a mark on her neck…It was barely visible, but it was there, peeking above the neckline of the dress.
The kind of mark I remembered leaving on my mysterious visitor last night….
My glass froze halfway to my lips.
No, it couldn’t have been…
I swear I was going to stop staring at her, not until she started to unconsciously touch her neck, right where that mark was.
“Alexander,” Charles' voice cut my mind off.
“So glad you could join us tonight.”
“Wouldn't miss it,” I grunted dryly, suppressing the annoyance I felt when when Charles clasped my shoulder from behind before setting off to his own chair. Still didn’t know what my sister saw in this man. Eight years in the business world taught me to trust my gut, and my gut was right about Charles Montgomery being nothing but trouble.
“We really must out some time to discuss some potential collaborations. Your experience in international markets could be invaluable to our expansion plans,” Charles chimed in.
“I don't see how. Your domestic retail ventures hardly align with my international holdings,” I said, finally twisting my fork in my plate for the first time.
“Surely there's room for discussion—“
I said nothing more, instead sending a glance at Ava, who was now studying her plate with unnecessary intensity
“No business talk at the dinner table. This is a family gathering,” Isabella announced.
Right there. There was another mark on her collarbone, almost completely hidden by makeup. My mind immediately flashed back to last night when my teeth grazed that woman right there. I could still hear in my head how she gasped in the darkness.
“The wine's excellent,” Blake said suddenly, “Don't you think so, Alexander?”
Now, what’s this got to do with me?
“Indeed,” I replied, not taking my eyes off Ava. And when I saw that she stared back at me, I added. “Though I find myself partial to whiskey these days”
“Excuse me for a bit,” Ava suddenly announced, excusing herself from the table.
I watched her retreat, her steps just a touch too hurried to be casual.
I waited exactly two minutes before also standing up.
“Excuse me as well.” I pulled out my phone and pretended to take a call while I followed in the same direction she’d just left to.
Following her wasn't exactly gentlemanly behavior, but I was past caring about propriety. The mystery has been driving me mad all day, and now that I had a suspect, I needed confirmation.
She left the room door slightly ajar. So I positioned myself in the adjacent hallway, phone pretentiously pressed to my ear, in case anyone passed by. From this angle, I saw her standing in front of the table staring at her reflection in the mirror.
Ava leaned close to the glass, fingers ghosting over her neck and those nail and bite marks. She then closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath.
“Dammit,” she cursed.
Every cell in my body urged me to confront her right there. But I still waited. And when she came came out of that door, I deliberately stepped into her path so that she would bump into me.
Yes, that scent. It was the same.
She froze when she realized who she'd bumped into.
“I'm so sorry, I—“
“Where were you last night?” I asked icily, looking straight into those onyx eyes, watching color drain from her face so quickly I thought she might faint.
Just then, my phone buzzed and I had break the tension to stare down at the screen.
It was a message from my assistant.
“We’ve found the woman from last night, sir,” the text read and I locked my eyes with Ava’s again.
AVAIt had been three days of unanswered calls and texts left unread from Blake. It seemed as if Blake vanished from earth.I drummed my fingers against my desk, staring at the email I just sent to Blake's assistant, who replied me that she had resigned from the office already. But from the other information I could gather he had not been in the office since Tuesday. That was the day before we found his face in the footage. Today was Friday.I got up from my desk and paced to the window.We tried his penthouse apartment first, but the doorman confirmed he hadn’t seen Blake days before. We checked up with his friends as well, and there was nothing.I had even contacted Claire, who confirmed she was in touch with Blake for some weeks after they met at the station but then she cut off communication some days earlier because an issue came up. I went to Instagram to refresh Blake’s account showed no activity since Monday. The last post he made was a photo of the city skyline at sunset. I s
AVA“We’ve officially opened an investigation based on the evidence you provided, but I want to manage your expectations, although the recording is not conclusive from a legal perspective.”I stopped sipping my coffee. “What does that mean? You can hear them planning to kill my parents. How is that not enough?”The lawyer sighed. “We reviewed the audio file. Without any clear identification of who the speakers are or some kind of verification of the authenticity of the file, it's problematic evidence. As we both know, technology can be easily manipulated or fabricated.”“So Charles just gets away with it? Again?”“I didn’t say that," he replied firmly. “We’re pursuing multiple angles. Had this been a video recording with the original file metadata intact, we’d be in a stronger position. But we would be looking into other options like the financial records, statements, and the connection to Mrs Montgomery’s poisoning.”“What about Charles himself? Have you brought him in for questionin
BLAKEI had to stop him before anything stupid would happen. As much as I disliked my dad, I also loved him. It was a complicated emotion that defined our relationship for years. The knowledge of what my father was capable of had been a weight I carried in silence even though I wasn’t quick to distance myself from the family business and its darker underpinnings.The car I was following turned off the main road and drove deeper into the industrial district.I kept my own vehicle at a safe distance, lights off. I was only relying on dad’s tail lights to guide me through the abandoned warehouses.When dad’s car finally stopped outside a decrepit building with boarded windows and graffiti-covered walls, I pulled over several hundred yards away and cut the engine.I watched dad alight from the car with a duffel bag.I then waited until he disappeared inside before exiting my own vehicle. I made sure I was staying close to the shadows. There has been an article circulating about a crime da
AVAI sat on the edge of the bed and watched Alexander sleep before gently kissing his forehead.He opened his eyes and then focused on my face with a small smile. He’s been ill for several days now due to the stress of Isabella’s case.“Morning my love,” I brushed his hair back from his forehead.“Your fever’s down.”Alexander shifted to make room for me beside him and I slipped under the covers, letting him pull me against his chest.The warmth of his body was comforting after days of worry, worry for him, for Isabella, for everything.“I’m going to head to the hospital,” I said after a few minutes of quiet closeness. “I’m taking a few things so I can stay there for the rest of the week. That way I can keep an eye on Isabella when you can’t be there.”We had agreed that Isabella shouldn't be left alone with Charles, not until we could determine whether Alexander’s suspicions were correct. The hospital staff could only do so much and Charles had been making noises about having her tr
AVAAlexander stood rigid beside me, his attention fixed on the medical chart in his hands.“Potassium levels are critically elevated,” Alexander read slowly.“8.1 millimoles per liter. That’s fucking high.”The doctor nodded grimly.“Hyperkalemia of this severity is what triggered the cardiac arrest. We’ve administered calcium gluconate to protect her heart muscle and insulin with glucose to help move the potassium back into her cells, but we’re monitoring her closely. The next twenty-four hours will be critical.”I watched Alexander’s face tighten with worry. This was his sister lying in the ICU,“Has her husband Charles been reached? Is he aware?” Alexander asked.“We were able to reach out to his manager. They said he would be here as soon as he could.”Alexander clenched his jaw at this information, but he simply nodded.“Is there an estimation of the timeline for this buildup? This level of hyperkalemia doesn’t happen overnight.”The doctor took the chart from Alexander's hands.
AVAI headed straight home after the meeting with Claire.I poured another finger of alcohol and stared at the city lights from where I sat by the tall windows.I rested my head in my hands. Memories of my parents flooded back. They were not the happy ones from childhood picnics or holiday mornings. It was memories from the moment when I found out they were dead.I was in my final year of college. A Tuesday afternoon. I was walking on campus when my phone rang. A police officer informed me about the car accident, the brake failure and how the impact was too severe for survival.I remember dropping to the floor and wailing.My heart ached again on feeling the grief as fresh as it had been that day.But now it was compounded by anger, the possibility that it wasn’t even an accident at all.I got up from the floor and grabbed my car keys.Twenty minutes later, I was in the parking lot of my old apartment. I kept the place even after moving in with Alexander.The apartment felt smaller th