All Chapters of The Man I Was Meant to Hate: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

88 Chapters

CHAPTER 41 — “In Protective Custody”

Ava's Point Of ViewThe way the red and blue lights are cutting my world in pieces is tearing it up. The river is still booming along behind us, fierce and furious, but it is almost as distant as it is another life. My hands are caught in strong, yet not rough, hands, and dragged towards dry land. I slide on the rocks, and that is the hand of Liam that is firmly gripped round me that keeps me as steady as possible. I got her, I say, and my voice is rough and cold and hurt. “She’s with me.” One of the policemen comes between us. “Sir, we need to separate you.” I say no, and Liam says no. My fingers are clenching around his. I do not mind that my hands go numb or that my entire body is trembling so much that my teeth refuse to stop clicking. I have no idea whether I will ever see him again should I make him drop me now. Please, please, my voice is hardly there. “Don’t.” Liam checks me out as though I were the only good thing left on the planet. His head is stuck to his face,

CHAPTER 42 — “The One Promise I Can’t Break”

Liam's Point Of ViewThe door slams. The engine roars. And Ava is gone. The noise is thrust right into my chest, as though something essential has been torn out. I leap forward but my hands are caught in my arms and I am knocked back against the side of a squad car. The lights are too violent, red, blue cresting over my eyes, too bright, too loud, too final. “Sir, step back.” I didn't hear him at first. The only thing I can notice is the taillight of the car which took her fading away into the dark road and being swallowed by the rain. No, I say, which is like a growl. “You don’t get to take her.” I bang my fist on the interior of the squad car. Metal cracks against bone. Pain up my arm, bangs like a gun--but it does not show. Not really. My knuckles are warm with blood dripping down to the gravel at the bottom. I look at it as though it had been some other person. Ava screamed my name. That’s all I hear now. “Sir!” an officer snaps. “Enough.” I turn on him, breathin

CHAPTER 43 — “Her Mother’s Last Move”

Ava's Point Of ViewI wake up to the silence that is not right. Not peaceful. Not safe. Just… empty. The nature that is bumping your ears until your heart begins to beat, searching for something to fight.The ceiling above me is white. Too white. No cracks. No stains. No history. There is a red camera blinking in the corner and it counts my breaths slowly and steadily.I do not recall anything about falling asleep. I recall being dragged out of the river bank by hand. A blanket was strangled round my shoulders. And Liam screamed my name till he broke his voice.I sit up fast. The room is small. Clean. A single bed. A table bolted to the floor. A message in the form of thick bars pressed into the glass of one of the windows. There are two armed guards before the door with eyes straight forward with blank faces.Then I see her. This is her, sitting in the chair before the window, hands in her lap, and perfect in her posture. As though she is waiting to meet someone. Like this is her hou

CHAPTER 44 — “What I’ll Burn Down for You”

Liam's Point Of ViewA smell of dusty backpacks and old pizza boxes and some oily mystery sauce is in the storage unit. I open the metal door with a crowbar and my teeth are set, my arms shaking not only because of hard work. There is a sharp crack of the lock, which reverberates along the empty row. My pulse doesn’t slow. It has not made it ever since they took Ava out of my hands. The door rolls up inch by inch. The boxes have the handwriting of Marielle. Neat. Careful. Controlled. Just like her. I jump out and close the door behind me. The black falls upon me, and then the tiny light of my phone penetrates it. Shelves line the walls. Boxes stacked high. Labeled taped hard drives. Covered files in plastic as if they are scared of air. This is it. This is where the truth has been concealed. My hands move fast. Too fast. I rip open the first box. Documents are leaking, bank records, shell companies, offshore accounts. Names jump out at me. Judges. Senators. CEOs. Individ

CHAPTER 45 — “The Choice They Never Expected”

Ava's Point Of ViewThe courtroom is musty with cold marble and polish, a kind of place where emotions go to die.My footsteps are so very noisy as I traverse the lengthy passage. Two guards on each side. Their hands are beside each other, but not touching, yet like, prepared. As I could run, as I could shake.Maybe I already have. I am not bound by my wrists, but the burden in my breast is heavier than lead. Every step pulls at my lungs. I focus on breathing. In. Out. Slow. Might as well stop and fall on the marble floor here and never get up.The opening of the doors is accompanied by the flash of cameras. The courtroom is packed. I walk in and everyone rises. And not to pay homage--but to be hungry. They desire to see the sold girl. The girl was bound in an agreement that was not supposed to be. The girl who escaped the death which she was not meant to.I keep my eyes forward. My knees shake anyway. When the clerk calls my name my name echoes. Ava Montgomery. It sounds weird. As th

CHAPTER 46 — “After the Fire”

Ava's Point Of ViewThe room is totally too white. Not clean, just stripped. White walls and ceiling and a white metal table fastened to the floor. Even the chair is pale, being washed off all the stories that ever sat on it. My hands are wrapped in my lap, and fingers are still there as though they were touching something that has been lost.Smoke. Ink. Paper. My hands smell like all three.The contract is gone. Burned, burned, burned, and burned, and burned. I watched it happen. I watched the edges curl. The first sign I saw fading away was that of my mother. I figured that would be like freedom.It doesn’t. It is one of the sensations just being there after a blast. The type that has that ringing in your ears and your body is not quite sure what it lost.My wrists ache. Not bleeding. Not bruised. No more than sore, as the skin still recalls the cuffs when they are lost. I stroke against my thumb, one wrist gradually and steadily, as though it were a sore place and I needed to squee

CHAPTER 47 — “Selene’s Gift”

Liam's Point Of ViewThe evidence bag is heavier than it should be. Not in weight, paper weighs nothing, but in meaning. It sits on the metal table between me and the federal agent like a loaded gun. Clear plastic. Red seal. Inside, a single folded page.I didn't touch it at first. Because I already know the handwriting.The room smells like disinfectant and rain-soaked clothes. My knuckles sting when I flex my hand. The cut on my temple throbs in time with my pulse. Every sound feels sharp. Every second feels borrowed.“Go ahead,” the agent says.I slide the bag closer and break the seal.The paper slides out smooth and confident, like it was never afraid of being found. The ink is dark. Precise. Each letter carved, not written.Selene Hart doesn’t rush.My jaw locks before I even read the words.Rylan stands behind me, leaning against the wall. I feel him tense without looking back.“That look,” he says quietly, “means trouble.”“It means war,” I answered. Then I unfold the paper. N

CHAPTER 48 — “The Place He Died”

Ava’s Point Of ViewThe wind hits me first. It begins to scream up the cliff road as though it had gone crazy when we were back. It tears my jacket, whips my hair over my face, stuffs my ears that I can hardly breathe. The sky is gray and low, and it is looming over the land like it is staring at us. Such a sky with recollections of badness.I stop at the edge of the road. This is where, as they said, it happened.The metal wall remains out-of-shape, and curled in like fine wire. Stains of rust slide down it like blood. Beyond it, the cliff is falling very rapidly and very steep, shrubs cling to the rock, the river is way down below and it appears very serene in a manner that is not right.My feet go crunching through loose ground. The earth trembles beneath me, not so much, as it did not settle down in full ever since that evening.Like it really remembers.Liam slows behind me. I see him before I hear him. He sits there still, like an anchor in a storm.This is where he selected me

CHAPTER 49 — “The Offer”

Selene's Point Of ViewThey think I came unarmed. That’s the first mistake people like Ava always make. They believe weapons are things you can see. Guns. Knives. Men standing behind you in the dark.I step closer to the bent barrier and let the wind pull at my coat. I don’t raise my hands. I don’t smile wide. I give them nothing that looks like fear.Ava stands rigid, her body angled toward the cliff like the land itself is holding her up. Liam is half a step in front of her, protective without trying to look like it. His jaw is tight. His eyes are sharp. He’s ready to die for her.That, too, is useful.“You burned one contract,” I say calmly. My voice carries clean through the wind. “You made quite a spectacle of it.”Ava’s chin lifts. Her eyes don’t waver. Good. She’s learned that much. “I’ll burn every one.”I let a small smile touch my lips. It never reaches my eyes. “Then listen before you destroy the wrong thing.”Liam shifts. “You don’t get to lecture her.”I don’t look at him

CHAPTER 50 — “What I Choose”

Ava's Point Of ViewI stand between them. The wind is blowing me back, and hurling my coat and blowing up my hair against my face as though he is attempting to detach me off the road and into the dark underneath. I just stay put. The feet seem stuck to the ground, as the earth actually takes notice of me. Selene takes a couple of steps forward, all cold as ever. Liam is behind me, so that I can feel the heat of his back. I do not even have to turn around to see that he is staring at me, all alert and apprehensive, as though he would blow the world to pieces were I ever to ask him to. My heart kinda hurts. Not that crazy, panicky pain. This is slower, heavier. Similar to when you end up knowing how much love really costs. I breathe in. Then out. My hands stop shaking. It is strange how it suddenly occurs- as though fear has ceased to be interesting. I still have a sore chest, but my head is clear. Like, clearer than ever. Selene is leaning her head back and she is staring at

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