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All Chapters of Avery Cole: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

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Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN THE DEVIL IN HIS POCKET WHITNEY “I have a problem.” Four words. That was all Avery gave me. Four words after eight years of wondering why he had left. Four words after watching his hands shake. Four words after noticing the strange disappearances, the exhaustion, the mood swings, the moments when his pupils looked wrong and his jaw seemed too tight. Four words after he had spent two days digging pieces of my life out of me while keeping his own buried beneath that expensive black shirt. I stared at him. “What kind of problem?” Avery didn’t answer. Again. His hand was still in mine. I could feel the tremor running through his fingers. Not fear. Not exactly. Something physical. Something he couldn’t control. Enzo remained behind us. Silent. Too silent. I looked at him. He immediately looked away. My stomach dropped. “You know.” Enzo rubbed the back of his neck. “Whitney—” “You know what’s wrong with him.” Avery pulled his hand from mine. “Lea

Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE SOMEONE INSIDE THE WALLS WHITNEY The difference between you and Avery is that I already know all of his. I read the message twice. Then I looked at the photograph again. Avery stood beside his desk. Me in front of him. My hand wrapped around his. His face turned slightly toward mine. The photograph wasn’t grainy. It wasn’t blurry. It wasn’t taken from three miles away. It was close. Too close. My heart began pounding. I enlarged the image. Window. Reflection. Angle. I knew absolutely nothing about photography, but I knew enough to understand one thing. Whoever took this had been near the house. Very near. “Avery!” My voice exploded through the hallway. The bridal chaos downstairs stopped instantly. Footsteps pounded above me. Enzo appeared first. Gun already in his hand. Avery was directly behind him. “What?” I held up the phone. “Someone took a picture.” Avery’s face changed. “Of what?” “Us.” He came down the stairs. Fast. Too fast.

Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHOOSE ME WHITNEY “That’s the man who gave me cocaine for the first time.” Nobody moved. Avery stared at the frozen security image. “And he’s the reason I left you eight years ago.” I forgot how to breathe. “What?” Avery didn’t answer. Not because he hadn’t heard me. Because something had happened behind his eyes. Something I couldn’t reach. The man on the monitor remained frozen midstep, head slightly lifted beneath his baseball cap. Older. Hard. Dead, apparently. Except very much walking through Avery’s house. Enzo was already barking orders. “Seal every exit. Nobody leaves. I want the garage manually locked. Pull every feed from the last hour.” The guards moved. Avery didn’t. I touched his arm. “Avery.” His muscles were rigid beneath my fingers. “Who is he?” His throat moved. Then he stepped away from me. “Not here.” “Avery—” “Not here, Whitney.” The sharpness should have irritated me. Instead it frightened me. Because his hands were

Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE PRICE OF HIS LIFE WHITNEY One week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. I knew because I had counted every single one. Not intentionally. At least that was what I told myself. But every morning I woke up and knew exactly how long it had been since I had left Los Angeles. Exactly how long since Avery had stood outside my bedroom while I packed. Exactly how long since I had given him a choice he couldn’t make. Exactly how long since I’d boarded my father’s jet and left the man I’d loved for eight years behind. Avery hadn’t called. Not once. That should have made things easier. It didn’t. He had texted three times. The first came the night we landed. Avery: You made it? I’d stared at it for ten minutes before answering. Me: Yes. Nothing else. The second came two days later. Avery: I’m respecting what you asked for. I just need to know you’re safe. I’d answered that one too. Me: I’m safe. Then the third. Yesterday. Avery: I’m try

chapter 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE WOMAN HE WAS LOOKING FOR WHITNEY The ballroom didn’t recover. How could it? Three hundred people had just watched my fake engagement implode, Avery Cole walk through the doors like a beautifully dressed threat, Nikolai Volkov announce that he had apparently been negotiating for the wrong woman, and then casually tell Aurora Monroe to enjoy the palace while she still could. There wasn’t enough champagne in Texas to make that normal. Nobody moved for several seconds after the doors closed behind Nikolai. Then everyone moved at once. Voices exploded. Guests whispered. Phones appeared. Dwayne barked at security. Sierra pulled Aurora closer. Enzo was already speaking into his phone. Avery stood beside me with one hand wrapped around mine. And I— I stared at the ballroom doors. Waiting. I didn’t know what I was waiting for. Nikolai to come back? Gunshots? Another threat? Maybe some part of me still expected the doors to open and reveal that the enti

chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN EIGHT YEARS AVERY Whitney was wrong about one thing. She wasn’t the distraction. She was bait. I didn’t say it. Not because I wanted to protect her from the truth. Whitney had spent enough of her life surrounded by men who decided what truths she could handle. I wasn’t becoming another one. I didn’t say it because I wasn’t sure yet. And eleven days without cocaine had taught me something I should have learned a long fucking time ago. A thought wasn’t automatically a fact just because it screamed loudly inside my head. Sometimes it was fear. Sometimes paranoia. Sometimes withdrawal. Sometimes instinct. And sometimes all four wore the same fucking face. So I kept my mouth shut. For once. Enzo continued going through the security footage while Dwayne stood behind his desk looking like somebody had finally introduced him to consequences. Whitney remained beside me. Too close. Not close enough. I could smell her perfume. That was becoming a problem.

chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN THE NAME ON THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE WHITNEY Nobody spoke. Not Avery. Not Dwayne. Not Aurora. And certainly not me. The birth certificate sat in the middle of the table like a bomb nobody was brave enough to touch. Moscow. I kept staring at that one word. It shouldn’t have mattered so much. People were born in Moscow every day. People had conflicting paperwork. Records got changed. Mistakes happened. Except nothing about Aurora felt like a mistake anymore. Not the photographs. Not the surveillance that apparently started when she was ten. Not the box her mother had hidden. Not the false passport. Not the letters. And definitely not Dwayne admitting that Aurora’s father had come to him eight years ago asking for help making his daughter disappear. Avery stood beside me with both hands planted on the table. He had been quiet for too long. That was never good. Aurora sat across from us. Her face had lost nearly all its color. She was staring at t

chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN THE MAN SHE CHOSE WHITNEY 10:53 p.m. Seven minutes had passed since the message arrived. It felt like an hour. MIDNIGHT. Come alone if you want the name of your real father. Nobody had to say Aurora wasn’t going alone. Not Avery. Not Dwayne. Not me. Even Aurora hadn’t argued. That was how I knew she was scared. Usually, telling Aurora she couldn’t do something guaranteed she would immediately start explaining exactly how and why she could. Tonight she sat at the end of the sofa with her phone in both hands, staring at a photograph of her mother standing outside a Moscow clinic with Mikhail Volkov. Her mother. A newborn Aurora. And a man who had apparently been part of her life before she was old enough to remember him. Across the room, Avery had turned Dwayne’s dining room into a command center. Enzo was on speaker. Two laptops were open. Security footage covered one screen. A map covered another. Dwayne stood beside Avery, arguing about entranc

chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN THE MAN ON THE OTHER END WHITNEY The lock clicked behind them. I stared at the dining room door long after Avery disappeared through it. For one second, maybe two, I could still hear movement in the hallway. Enzo’s voice. Dwayne saying something sharp. Then Avery. I couldn’t make out the words. And then there was nothing. Just silence. The kind that crawled beneath your skin. The kind that made every horrible possibility suddenly feel reasonable. My hands curled against the edge of the dining table. Six armed men. Julian Cross. The abandoned office. Avery walking straight toward all of it. I shut my eyes. I’ll try. That was what he had said when I told him to come back. Not I will. Not I promise. I’ll try. God, I hated him. I loved him. I hated that those two things could exist inside me at the same time. “Whitney.” Aurora’s voice pulled me back. I opened my eyes. She stood several feet away with her phone pressed tightly to her ear. Her

chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY WHAT MY FATHER BOUGHT WHITNEY Twenty-seven minutes. That was how long it took Avery to come home. I counted every single one. I counted the seconds between headlights passing beyond the windows. I counted every time Aurora checked her phone. I counted every time Aleksandr walked to the dining room door, looked down the hallway, then came back. And I counted every horrible possibility my mind could invent. Avery bleeding. Avery unconscious. Avery lying to me about how badly he had been hurt because that was exactly the kind of stupid, arrogant thing Avery Cole would do. Dwayne dead. Julian gone. Enzo hurt. Twenty-seven minutes. Then headlights swept across the front windows. I stood so quickly my chair scraped backward. Aurora jumped. Aleksandr was already moving. “Stay here.” “No.” Aurora and I said it at the same time. Aleksandr looked between us. His jaw tightened. “I’m not fighting both of you.” “Good,” Aurora said. I was already walking. Th

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