Page 72 of Rescuing Nathaniel

“I’m going outside to get some fresh air. I won't move out of sight of the front door so I can still watch over the building. Don’t leave the apartment for any reason,” he told Ava as he brushed by her parents. Just because he needed a break didn't mean he was going to leave her alone and unprotected. If anyone suspicious entered the building he’d come right back.

Part of him wanted her to ask him to stay.

To ask him to talk through what was going on inside his head.

But Ava didn't speak a word as he stormed out of the kitchen and grabbed his keys and cell phone, then hurried out of the apartment so fast he almost walked right into a pair of movers carrying a couch into the apartment across the hall from Ava’s.

She hadn't asked him to talk, hadn’t asked him to stay, which meant she finally agreed with him that she deserved better than he could ever hope to give her.

CHAPTER19

March 8th

8:48 A.M.

“Hopefully,we’ve seen the last of him.” Mother huffed as though the matter was all settled because Nathaniel was apparently on her parents’ side instead of hers.

Things were settled all right.

Only not in the way the others seemed to believe.

Ava had never felt this kind of anger before. It was like a great big icy hole in her stomach, it was cold and detached instead of fiery hot. It was laced with sadness and betrayal creating a curious combination she could only hope she never experienced again.

Whether or not Nathaniel would be allowed back in, Ava wasn't sure yet, but she did know one thing for certain.

Her parents had to go.

Bentley Jones too.

She never wanted to see any of them again in her life. Whatever last little thread of hope that had her clinging to the idea that one day her parents would be actual parents was gone now. Snapped.

Like she was about to.

Clinging to the cold detachment, that she knew sooner or later was going to fade into just pure emptiness, she made the most of it while it lasted.

Strolling over to her mother she held out her hand. “Give me the key.”

For a second her mother faltered, clearly expecting theatrics as she would call them. But Ava wasn't going to scream and cry, she was just done. Ready to get them all out of her life and move forward.

When her mother didn't immediately comply, Ava shrugged and headed back to the kitchen table where her cell phone was sitting next to the plate of untouched pancakes Nathaniel had cooked her for breakfast. What could have been such a wonderful morning after had turned into a disaster and she honestly wasn't sure whether there was anything left to salvage.

Or whether she even wanted to try.

Nathaniel had issues and trauma, she got that, she truly did. The problem wasn't that he had problems, it was that rather than discuss them and talk to her about his fears and anxieties, he made massive and hurtful assumptions about her.

Never once had she implied that she needed tons of money to be happy.

Yet he’d never asked. If he had, he would have learned her parents had removed her from their wills. Would have known she went without a lot to afford her passion. And the bracelet that they were all so concerned about was important to her not because it was worth a lot of money, but because it was her grandmother’s. She would have loved it just as much if it was worth fifty cents as fifty thousand dollars.

With her phone in her hand, she brought up Raven’s name.

No.

Wait.

She should go right to the top.

While all six of the Oswald siblings owned Prey, everybody knew that Eagle was top dog, not just because he was the oldest but because Prey had been his baby. He’d started it himself, and he was the one in control even if he delegated a lot of that power to his brothers and sisters.

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