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 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.

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”

”

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.

Emma 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.

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.”

Mary gives him a small smile. “And what’s her last name?”

Noah answers confidently.

“Howell.” He pauses. “She’s called Iris Renee Howel