Chapter 47

That night

Rowan “What the hell happened to you?” Gabe asks looking at the ice pack that was plastered to my face.

“Ethan” I just grunt. Not in the mood to deal with my brother.

Fuck! I still can’t believe that I got into a fight with the fucking idiot. I was just so pissed and I let his words get to me.

“The cop?” He asks curiously. “Ava’s new man?”

At that I blow. I take the ice pack and throw it against the wall.

“He’s not her fucking man” I snap standing up.

My emotions were raw and close to the surface. I still don’t understand why Ava can’t see that the fucker is a fraud.

I haven’t been able to get anything deeper about him. The reports paint him as an okay guy.

Nothing out of the ordinary, but my gut tell me otherwise. There was just something about him that rubbed me wrong. Something that he was hiding. My gut has never been wrong before.

“From what I hear, he is…what happened?”

I take a deep breath, trying to cool down the fire burning inside me.

“We were helping Ava move furniture into her new house and he told me to back off. Said that she was his and he wasn’t going to allow me to ruin things” I admit finally.

Gabe stares at me like he can’t believe what I just said. Like I was trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me.

“Seriously? That’s what made you get into a fight with him”

“Yes!”

He sighs before sitting down. “In case you haven’t noticed, she’s no longer your wife and given that he is dating her, he has every reason to ask you to back off. Isn’t that the same thing you asked of Ava when you started dating Emma?”

I fist my hand in frustration. Why is it that no one saw what I saw. No one realized the truth? How “It’s not about that” I seethed. “There is just something about the man that isn’t fucking right. Why can none of you see that?”

I start pacing my home office. My fury burning so close to the surface. I was almost losing it. First I hear that Emma threatened Noah and that Travis did nothing. Then I had to watch while Ethan and Ava made googly eyes at each other.

She was so taken by him. So enthralled that she couldn’t see a fucking thing. What the hell was wrong with her? She’s the most cautious person I know, yet she let him into her life without even question anything.

“What are you talking about?” he asks giving me his whole attention.

I don’t stop pacing. I just couldn’t sit down with all the fucking emotions inside me.

“I don’t know how to fucking explain it, but there is just something I don’t like about him.

Something doesn’t feel right with him”

It doesn’t make any fucking sense, but I can’t ignore the feeling. That’s why I have my P.I investigating him.

Gabe says nothing for a while and when he does, I feel like punching the crap out of him.

“Could it be that you’re jealous of him?”

“The fuck I am” I bellow. “Why the hell would I be jealous of him? I don’t have any fucking feelings for Ava, remember?”

What he was saying was absurd. I could never be jealous when it comes to Ava. She is my son’s mother and I’m looking after him. That’s all.

“Look, you were married to her for nine fucking years, it’s hard to stay with someone for that long and not develop any feelings towards them. Especially someone who isn’t truly evil”

I stare at him in shock, before shaking my head. “There’s no fucking way that I developed feelings for her. I stayed married to her because of Noah. My heart always belonged to Emma and you know that. That’s the reason I couldn’t develop any feelings for her”

He had completely lost his fucking mind. It’s not unusual for people to stay married even though they don’t love each other. Nine years couldn’t change the fact that I wasn’t Ava biggest fan.

Especially not after the stunt she pulled to get me to sleep with her. 2 “Then explain to me why you feel so strongly about her dating Ethan?” he insists.

“I already fucking told you! I wouldn’t have cared if she dated any other man, but something is just fishy with that cop”

We were going round in circles and it was only making me more pissed. I thought at least he would understand but looks like he doesn’t. Instead he has this stupid notion that I’m angry because I have feelings for Ava and that I’m jealous.

“I’ll be the first to admit that what Ava did nine years ago was wrong. We treated her horribly for it, but what if she wasn’t lying when she said she was drunk? What if she was telling the truth?”

“That’s impossible”

“Is it? We all wanted you with Emma. We’ll except for Ava. After what happened, we wanted someone to blame. It was easier to blame the girl who had been obsessed with you for years than to accept that both of you had made a mistake” (3)

Looking at him quietly, I stand frozen. What the fuck had gotten into him?

I watch as he takes out his phone and dials a phone number.

“What are you doing?” I question him suspiciously.

“Something we should have done a long time…I’m finding out the truth about that night” he says.

We wait a bit and then someone answers the phone. I stare at him numbly as he ask the person to get him the video footage from the bar and the hotel. He then commands him to get it within an hour.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve by digging this shit up” I tell him after he hangs up the phone.

It was all in the past. We all knew what happened, so what the hell was digging up the past going to achieve?

“A part from knowing the truth? Well, it will clear things for you. Like I said, I believe you feel something for Ava and you have felt it for a long time. Your bitterness at what you believe is her betrayal is what keeps you from admitting the truth” he looks at me straight in the eyes.

His grey eyes which are similar to mine, challenging me to argue with him.

I turn on my heels and take a seat. I refuse to let him see how bothered I am by all this. I’m still his shady character led to him insisting that I was blocking my feelings for Ava We don’t speak. I was now pissed at him too, but he didn’t seem to notice or care because he was busy doing something on his phone.

I don’t know how long we sat in my office when his phone pinged I watch him closely as his face turns to shock them mortification. My curiosity gets the better of me. I now want to see what’s gotten him so disturbed.

“Gabe?” I cautiously call his name.

He looks up. His eyes haunted as he silently gives me his phone. I take it with shaky hands, knowing I won’t like what I see.

Slowly, I look down at his phone. I watch as everything unfolds. I watch as the truth I held on for so long crumbles. I watch as the real events of that night are revealed.

Cursing, I stand up. Unable to bear the impact of what that video meant.

Ava had been telling the truth the whole time. We were both drunk, meaning for the past nine years she was blamed and punished for something that wasn’t her fault.

“Fuck!” I shout, unable to contain the crushing weight inside me.