Chapter 118
I feel as ay anger starts rising to the surface. I know what Brian said, but I still haven’t
ruled out Reaper
from my list of suspects.
I mean, come the fuck on, he had Ava kidnapped. You just don’t do that unless you have
an ulterior motive. Plus, what Brian says just doesn’t make sense. Why would he kidnap
her and then force me to
make a decision if he really didn’t want her to get hurt?
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I snarl at him.
His eyes sweep over me to the rest. They’ve all stood up in guard, but that doesn’t seem
to faze him at all.
One thing that makes Reaper really dangerous is the fact that he was maniac. Sure, I am
cold, but Reaper
takes that to a whole new level. He is a sociopath and a psychopath, all wrapped in a
pretty ugly and
deadly bow.
“I’m here to see, Ava. Why else do you think I would be here? To see your sorry ass?” he
asks with a
devious smirk.
I grind my teeth, willing myself not to start a fightin
kicked out, and I couldn’t have that.
a fucking hospital. It would be the sure way to get
“And you honestly think we believe that? Gabe asks him. “You kidnapped her a few
months ago.”
He turns those deadly eyes towards my brother. I’m not easily fazed, but Reapers eyes
radiate a kind of
coldness that had you feeling chills down your spine.
His eyes were dead and cold. Almost like the man didn’t have a fucking soul. Maybe he
didn’t. Who the
fuck knows anyway?
“I personally don’t care what the fuck you think because I am not here for any of you.” he
doesn’t lose his
composure at all. “Now are you going to tell me how she is or should I find her doctor
myself?”
His condescending tone, not to mention his attitude was grating on my nerves. I don’t
even understand
what he is doing here in the first place.
“Why would we tell you that? For all we know, you’re the bastard that put a hit on her” I
tell him through
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt
clenched.
He stares at me with wide eyes, before throwing his head back and laughing. It rings off
the walls of the
waiting room, leaving goosebumps all over my skin.
1/5
+15 BONUS
He suddenly stops and his gaze fixes on me.
“Trust me, if I wanted Ava dead, she’d be dead” he says in that same icy tone.
“Then if you’re not the one responsible, then why are you here? I don’t really see how her
health is any of your concern” Nora speaks.
His gaze leaves mine before it sweeps over the rest. They finally rest on someone behind
me. I slowly turn to check who he was looking at. It’s Corrine.
He lingers there for a while. He looks enraptured while Corrine looked like she couldn’t
keep her eyes of him. He finally pulls his gaze away with what I am damn sure is great
difficulty.
Interesting.
He focuses on Nora. “Well she’s carrying my niece, of course I will be concerned about
her”
He delivers the line smoothly, but leaves us shocked.
The man must be delusional or something. There is no way I just heard him right. How the
fuck could he be the baby’s uncle. I don’t think he is related to Ava in anyway. Unless he’s
a long lost brother of hers.
“Th–that’s impossible” Letty stammers.
By Nora and Theo’s reaction, Reaper couldn’t be their son, so if he was telling the truth
then he is related
to the baby some other way.
I study him and that’s when it clicks.
“You’re Ethan’s brother” I announce as the similarities ring in my head.
“Bingo”
“But how?” Nora whispers. “When we adopted Ethan we were told that he had no family
left”
“I was in juvie then, word got back to me from one of my father’s men that Ethan was in
foster care. I told
them to mess with his records so that it seemed like our dad was the only family he had.”
He pauses.
Like I told Ava, I wanted him to have a chance at a normal life. So that’s what I gave him. I
didn’t want
him to turn out a criminal”
“And yet he still ended up in prison,” I tell him sarcastically.
He laughs, but this time it isn’t chilly. It’s sort of warm. If you can even call it that.
“Ava said the same damn thing”
”
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+15 BONUS
We are quiet for a while until Theo speaks.
“From your tone of voice, it seems you’ve been around my daughter”
“I can’t say round…we’ve been communicating.” He begins.
He then tells us everything. His plan when he kidnapped Ava and how he went to her
afterwards and
asked her if he could be in the baby’s life. Ava, bless her kind soul which will one day
probably get her in trouble, accepted.
“You do realize that if the police ever find out you were in contact with her, she’ll be in
trouble?” Corrine
asks.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got to a plan in the works” he gives her a mischievous smile,
but doesn’t say anything more.
“Since you were in communication with her, did she ever mention anything to you? Maybe
she felt unsafe
or threatened? Anything at all” I plead with him. We needed something to give us a start
on where to look.
Reaper tells us about when Ava first got the note and proceeds to tell us about the two
more that came
after. She got the last note yesterday. The same day she was short.
I get this ugly feeling when I think of her going to Reaper instead of me. Before it can
consume me, I push
it away. Right now that didn’t matter. Not when she was lying in a coma.
“I hate that I wasn’t able to protect her. I should have dug deeper, maybe I could have
prevented all this”
I recognize an emotion that I never thought I would see reflected in his eyes. He was
struggling with it
because he has never had to feel guilty about anything.
No one says anything because we are all struggling with something. We all think we could
have prevented
this somehow.
I sit down and sigh just as Emma walks into the waiting room.
The moment Reaper sees her, all traces of warmth and guilt disappear. Before any of us
can do anything,
he storms over to her, wraps his hand around her neck and shoves her against the wall.
“What the hell are you doing?” Travis shouts at him, but he doesn’t stop.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmEmma releases a strangled cry. Fear masking her entire face.
I look to the ceiling and sigh. “Let her go, Reaper”
He doesn’t listen. In fact he squeezes her neck.
3/5
+15 BONUS
Travis tries to get him off his sister, while the rest stand frozen, but he doesn’t budge.
“If I find out that you had anything to do with hurting Ava, I swear I will gut you. I will make
the serial killer documentaries you like watch seem like a fucking fairytale as compared to
what I will do to you, am i understors?”
I don’t know how the hell he even knows she likes watching serial killer documentaries.
Then again, this is Reaper we’re talking about. Nothing he does or knows surprises me.
She nods with wide eyes and tear stained cheeks.
Reaper gives her one more squeeze before letting go.
“You bastard” Travis snarls and swings at Reaper, but he sidesteps him.
“Try to hit me again and you’ll be buried next to your father within a week” he warns him.
2
That seems to sober Travis up pretty quickly. He back away from Reaper. He knows that
it’s not an empty threat. If reaper says he’ll do it then that’s exactly what he’ll do.
A nurse comes out and cuts the tense atmosphere.
“Hi, I’m Mary the head nurse in NICU…”
Before she can finish, I cut her off.
“Is the baby okay?”
She gives me a small smile. “She’s in an incubator which you already know, but so far
she’s doing okay.
We’ll have to keep a special eye on her within the next few days to make sure what
happened to her
mother didn’t leave any permanent damages, but we’re confident that she’ll survive”
I breathe a sigh of relief and I feel the same from Reaper who’s standing next to me. 1
“I’m here because we need to name her. Do you know what name her mother chose for
her?”
No one speaks. For a while until a small voice behind answers
“Iris”
I turn and find Noah. He was with my parents.
He immediately leaves their hand, takes a few strides and takes mine before looking up at
the nurse.
“She didn’t know if the baby was going to be boy or girl, but she told me that if it’s a boy,
we’ll name him
Kaden and if it’s a girl then she’ll be called Iris.”
4/5
Mary gives him a small smile. “And what’s her last name?”
Noah answers confidently.
“Howell.” He pauses. “She’s called Iris Renee Howel