My wife pulls a face, but she gently sets the two baggies down on the counter with care.
“My baby photo,” Ava whispers as she takes the small thumbnail out and hands it to her father. “Mom said I was born with a head of hair and the brightest emerald eyes. Used to tell me it was like looking at one of the fairies.”
“It’s genetic.” Liam smiles down at her. “The only person not to be born with green eyes was your grandmother. She’d been born with brown eyes.”
Ava nods absently before taking a few more trinkets out of the box that Liam explains are gifts he’s given her over the years. Many from when they were small children. The last thing in the box is a folded-up sheet of paper with Ava’s name on it.
She purses her lips, her hand shaking as she lifts it from the confines of the box. A photo slips out, but she doesn’t pay it any mind. Her entire focus is on the letter. Slowly, she starts to peel back the pages when a sudden noise catches our attention.
“We need to go,” Sully yells from the front of the house. “Now.”
Gunshots echo around us, windows exploding as bullets surge through them. Ava gasps and tucks the note away in her jean pocket before throwing her mother’s trinkets in the box and snatching it up from the counter along with the one in my hand.
“Head down, baby,” I remind her as we dash out of the kitchen to the front door where Sully’s men fire off round after round from their ARs at the bypassing cars. I recognize the make and model.
Platinum Security.
Fucking idiots. They made themselves easily identifiable and that’s a mistake.
“Get us to the helipad,” I order our driver as we slide into the SUV.
“My stuff,” Ava says.
“The men will grab it,” I tell her. “We need to get back to Seattle. I don’t have the manpower here to take on Cartwright and O’Neill.”
Ava spins her head to look at me. “How did you know about Cartwright?”
“You think I didn’t keep track of everything while I was gone?” I ask her incredulously as I pick up my phone to make a call. “I was in constant contact with Vas and my other men. So was Dima.”
“Dima was with you.” It isn’t a question. She knows he was. It’s all starting to come together for her. How much we’ve all kept from her. “Motherfuckers.”
“Dima,” I bark into the phone. “Grab my father and get to the airstrip. We’ve been compromised.”
“Father?” Shock spreads across her face. There might be anger there too but I’m ignoring that.
“We’ll take the helicopter with Liam,” I tell him. “Grab Kenzi, too.” Then I hang up.
“You wanna fill me in on what the hell is going on?” My wife huffs. Liam chuckles beside her. I narrow my eyes at him.
“Don’t pretend like you’re innocent in all this, Kavanaugh,” I snarl. “This was, after all, your idea.”
“What?” Liam grimaces at her sudden shriek. That one breaks the sound barrier for sure.
“Matthias told me about his umm…other father?” He shoots me a questioning look before continuing. “When we got word about the hit put out on him by that very man, we came up with a plan to make it look like Kenzi succeeded to draw him out.”
“Other father?” She looks over at me.
“It’s a long story,Krasnyy,” I tell her. Ava’s response to that is to stare up at me expectantly, arms crossed, and snarl, “We’ve got plenty of time.”
There won’t be any moving forward if I can’t be honest with her. I know that.
“Okay,” I begin. “Let me start from the beginning.”
twenty-one
Matthias has a family.
Archer’s name is really Ivan, and he is Matthias’s brother.