The morning air was cool and thin, laced with the faint scent of rain from the night before.
Ava slipped through the side door, her coat pulled tight around her shoulders.
The world outside Damian’s house felt too still, almost unreal, like she was stepping out of a dream she couldn’t wake up from.
She kept her head low as she crossed the courtyard, her heels barely making a sound on the cobblestones.
The security guards stationed near the gate made her stop in her tracks.
If they saw her she knew they would inform damian immediately so she took a detour and started to head towards the back of the house.
Ava had no idea where she was headed.
she just continued to walk till she got to a secluded part of the house with no one in sight.
at the far end there was a gate which looked like it was barely used.
she walked quickly to it and started to pry off all the twigs and overgrown plants on the gates.
when she was done, she let out a deep sigh and pushed the gate and it opened.
relief immediately rushed over her.
she knew they would eventually find her and it wouldn’t take long, if he had cameras in the house of course they were cameras around the premises of the estate, she just needed a few minutes with herself, without the disturbance of Clara or him staring at her through a camera.
she had no idea if her room could have been bugged.
Once she was outside, she walked quickly down the narrow path that led to a back street.
The wind bit at her cheeks, and for a moment, she almost smiled.
It was strange how even the cold felt like freedom.
Her fingers tightened around the small phone she’d hidden in her coat pocket, an old device she’d kept secret from Clara and everyone else in the mansion.
She had bought it weeks ago, before Damian ever came into her life.
Before everything changed.
When she reached the end of the block, she ducked into a small alley beside an abandoned bakery and pressed the number she had memorized months ago.
The line rang twice before a familiar voice answered, it was rough and groggy.
“Hunter Investigations.”
Ava’s breath hitched.
“It’s me.”
There was a pause, then a sigh.
“Ava? Damn, it’s been weeks. I thought you vanished.”
“I had to,” she said softly, glancing over her shoulder.
The street was empty.
“I couldn’t risk anyone knowing I was still looking.”
Hunter’s tone softened slightly.
“Yes,” she said.
“I’m… staying somewhere for now.”
Another pause, heavier this time.
“You mean with Cross,” he said finally.
“It’s all over the news, Ava. You’re really getting married to him?”
Ava closed her eyes, pressing her back against the cold brick wall.
“I didn’t have a choice,” she whispered.
“It was the only way I could keep looking for Lily.”
A silence stretched between them, the kind that filled all the spaces where truth and pity collided.
Hunter exhaled quietly.
“You sure about that? Getting close to a man like him… that’s not safe, Ava.”
She let out a bitter laugh.
“You think I don’t know that?”
He didn’t respond immediately.
She could hear faint rustling in the background, the sound of papers being shuffled.
“You wanted an update,” he said finally.
“I’ve gone through every lead, every contact. No one’s seen a girl matching Lily’s description in over two months.”
Her hand tightened around the phone.
“There has to be something,” she said.
“Anything.”
“I wish there was,” he said quietly.
“But we’re chasing ghosts now.”
Ava’s throat tightened.
She pressed her hand to her mouth to keep herself from breaking.
The world around her blurred, the air suddenly became too thin.
“I can’t stop,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said gently.
“But you need to think about what you’re doing. If Cross really is involved, if what you think about the gala is true then walking into his house is the last place you should be.”
“I know what I’m doing,” she said sharply, but her voice trembled at the end.
“He’s the only lead I have. She was seen at his gala, Hunter. That can’t be a coincidence.”
“You’re basing everything on one night,” he said.
Ava’s heart sank.
She had replayed that night a thousand times in her head, Lily smiling in the background of one of the photographs, her hand holding a glass, standing beside a man in a black suit.
The next day, she disappeared.
Damian Cross had hosted that gala.
And Ava had spent every day since wondering if that was where it all began.
Hunter’s voice softened again.
“Ava, I’ll keep looking. But you need to ask yourself something.”
“What?”
“Do you really believe he did something to her? Or are you just trying to find someone to blame?”
Her breath caught.
The question hit too close, too clean.
She wanted to say yes, to tell him that she was certain, that every instinct in her screamed that Damian was involved somehow.
But the truth was crueler.
She didn’t know.
She didn’t know anything anymore.
All she knew was that Lily was gone.
And Damian Cross was the only thread left in the dark.
Ava’s voice came out as a whisper.
“I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
There was a pause.
Then Hunter said, quietly, “Then be careful who you trust.”
The line clicked off.
Ava stood there for a long time, the silence pressing against her ears until it felt deafening.
She stared at her reflection in the cracked window of the bakery, her face was pale, her eyes hollow.
The woman looking back at her didn’t look like a bride.
She looked like someone on the edge of something she couldn’t name.
Her fingers trembled as she turned off the phone and slipped it back into her coat.
The wind picked up again, tossing her hair across her face.
Ava turned and began to walk, her steps slower this time.
The illusion of freedom had vanished.
All that remained was the weight of truth pressing harder with every step.