Ava is missing

NATHANIEL'S POV 

The Tokyo skyline was a jagged tapestry of neon, but inside the hotel room, the world was reduced to the rhythm of two people breathing. For the first time since the crash, the static in my brain had gone quiet.

I was adrift in a heavy, lightless sleep, the kind that usually only comes with heavy sedation. But I wasn't sedated. I was simply… safe.

But even in the safety, the ghosts found me.

In my dreams, I was back in the car.

The steering rack snapped, the world tilted, and I was screaming for someone to pull me out of the wreckage. But it wasn’t Elena or Ryan standing at the edge of the track.

It was Ava. She was walking away into a wall of white light, her honey-brown hair flowing behind her.

"Don't..." I murmured, my voice a dry rasp that felt like it was being pulled from the bottom of a well.

My hand, acting on a primal instinct I didn’t know I still possessed, reached out across the linens.

My fingers brushed something warm. Soft.

"Don't leave me," I whispered into the dark. The words felt like a confession, a surrender I would never have made while conscious.

"Everyone leaves… they all leave when the lights go out. Please… stay."

The warmth under my hand shifted, but didn’t pull away.

"Ava," I rasped, my heart hammering against my ribs in the half-conscious haze.

"The only one… who stayed true. I have… I have feelings… I can’t do this alone."

I felt a faint, ghost-like pressure on the back of my hand—a thumb grazing my knuckles for a fleeting second before I succumbed to the weight of exhaustion again, falling back into a dreamless, hollow void.

AVA's POV 

I didn't move. I didn't even breathe.

I sat there in the dark, my hand pinned beneath his, my heart thundering so loudly I was sure he could hear it.

The confession hung in the air like an electric charge. I have feelings.

Nathaniel King, the man who treated the world like a chessboard, had just admitted he was terrified of being alone. He had admitted he had feelings for me.

Not the nurse, not the employee, but Ava.

I looked at him in the moonlight. He looked younger when he slept, the lines of bitterness around his mouth smoothed away.

I wanted to lean down and whisper that I heard him. I wanted to tell him that I was terrified, too—that my feelings for him were becoming a fire I couldn't extinguish.

But I couldn't. Not yet. The world was too dangerous, and the people hunting us were too close. If I acknowledged what he said, we would both become vulnerable.

I gently slipped my hand from beneath his and sat back, watching the sun begin to bleed over the Tokyo horizon. I would act like I heard nothing.

I would be the professional nurse he needed. Because right now, the truth was a luxury we couldn't afford.

NATHANIEL'S POV 

The morning was a blur of high-tension briefings and cold coffee. I woke up feeling an odd sense of clarity, but when I looked at Ava, she was a fortress.

She checked my vitals with a brisk, clinical distance that made me wonder if I had dreamt the warmth of the night before.

"The SUV is downstairs," I said, adjusting the cuff of my shirt. "Miller and the secondary team are already at the plant entrance. We need to be there for the physical server bypass."

"I'm ready," Ava said, grabbing her medical bag.

We reached the lobby, the armored transport idling in the private bay. But as I was being loaded into the vehicle, Ava stopped.

Her hand went to the pocket of her blazer, her eyes widening.

"My phone," she hissed. "I left it on the charging dock in the room. I need the landlord's contact for my parents."

I checked my watch. "Ava, we’re already behind. Use mine."

"No, the landlord is encrypted, and I have the gate codes saved in a secure note. It’ll take me two minutes.

The elevator is right there."

I looked at Miller, who nodded. "Sir, we have Guard Stevens here. He’ll escort her up and bring her straight back down.

You and the lead team should head to the plant now to meet the local authorities. We can't afford to keep them waiting."

I hesitated. Every instinct I had screamed no. But the logic was sound. Stevens was one of our top-rated junior guards.

"Five minutes, Ava," I said, looking her in the eye. "If you aren't down, I'm coming back for you."

"Go, Nathan," she smiled, a small, reassuring gesture. "I'll see you at the plant."

NATHANIEL'S POV 

The drive to the plant took twenty minutes. The entire time, my chest felt tight. I kept checking my screen, waiting for the "Arrived at Lobby" ping from Stevens. It never came.

"Miller, call Stevens," I barked.

Miller tapped his earpiece. "Stevens, status report? ... Stevens?" He frowned, his fingers flying across his tablet. "Sir, Stevens’ comms are down. And his GPS is looping."

"What do you mean looping?"

"It’s showing him in the hotel lobby, but the signal isn't moving. It’s a ghost signal."

"Turn the car around!" I roared. "Now!"

The SUV screeched in a U-turn, weaving through Tokyo traffic like a predator.

By the time we hit the hotel entrance, I was already dragging myself into my chair before the car had fully stopped.

We tore through the lobby, Miller and two others with their weapons drawn but concealed. We hit the penthouse floor.

The hallway was silent. Stevens was slumped against the wall next to our door, a tranquilizer dart buried in his neck.

I threw open the door to the room.

It was empty.

"Ava!" I shouted, the name tearing at my throat.

The room was pristine.

No signs of a struggle. But on the nightstand, right where she said it would be, sat her phone. And next to it, a small, polished silver pin.

A King Corporation lapel pin.

"Sir," Miller whispered, picking up the pin with a gloved hand.

"This belongs to the internal security detail. This wasn't an outside job. Someone in our team helped them."

I felt a cold, jagged rage settle into my bones. Someone had been jealous.

Someone had watched Ava get close to me, watched the "Sun King" soften for a nurse, and they had sold her out to the Vances for a paycheck and a petty sense of revenge.

I looked at the phone. A message flashed on the screen from an unknown number.

“You talked in your sleep, Nathan. But she’s the one who’s going to scream. If you want her back, stop the servers. Give us the H.I.S. patents, or her parents are next.”

I gripped the armrests of my chair until my knuckles turned white. I didn't care about the patents. I didn't care about the company.

"Miller," I said, my voice dropping to a terrifying, quiet register.

"Yes, sir?"

"Find out which one of our guards was on the Vance payroll. Don't call the police. Bring him to me."

I looked out at the city. The sun was high now, but for me, the world had gone pitch black.

"They took the only thing that mattered," I whispered to the empty room. "Now, I’m going to show them why they should have left the King in the dark."

I reached for the phone, my fingers hovering over the "Project Icarus" icon. It was time to stop being a patient. It was time to be the monster.