Page 76 of Six of Hearts
“I know you love Aria, we all do. We can’t just get a new nanny. What would the kids think? What would the guys think? We can’t just forget her like she was never a part of our lives.”
“You think that’s what I want?” Noah said, his voice rising.
“I don’t want to forget her, but she’s not here, Ronan! She left. She left us, she left our kids. This is why we wanted a nanny in the first place, because we need one.”
“Put yourself in her shoes,” I retorted.
“Given what she’d just learned.”
“You told us all of that shit for the first time, and we’re still here.” He stood up. “What about you? Doesn’t it hurt you that she actually believes you’re capable of something so horrible?”
The truth was, that fact hadn’t left my brain for a moment.
“It does.” It haunted me to know that in the time Aria and I had spent together, I hadn’t successfully convinced her that I was a man of honour and integrity who would never harm someone, least of all her.
“But I just try and think about how I would feel to learn that someone I loved and trusted was embroiled in something so horrendous. Even if I hadn’t done it, it was still something big that I kept from her. She has every right to feel frustrated.”
“She’s doing exactly what all of our ex-wives and girlfriends did to us,” Noah said. “Shit gets hard and she’s gone!”
I had no idea Noah felt the way he did. Just a couple of weeks prior, he was leading the search party; suddenly, he felt so jaded. Still, I knew that the situation with Aria was different, and I could feel in my heart that we hadn’t seen the last of our blond beauty. I just had to find her. I just had to speak to her, heart-to-heart, and show her my true self, and I knew she would come back home.
“We can’t just replace her, Noah. That’s not what any of us want, you included,” I said.“What about the kids?” he asked, and it was like a jackhammer to my heart. I didn’t have an answer. I went quiet, and Noah settled back down into his armchair.
“Exactly.” He looked up at me, and his eyes were serious, yet full of emotion.
“I want Aria back, and maybe if she comes back, we can figure out what that means, but the kids need a nanny. They need a woman to care for them and be there for them, regardless. I will wait 24 hours. If we haven’t heard from Aria by tomorrow night, I’m going to start arranging interviews.” I wanted to continue to argue with him, but I couldn’t. I understood where he was coming from.
The very reason we started looking for a nanny was because we couldn’t manage everything the children needed. So, I had my goal, and I just had to achieve it.
“24 hours,” I said.
Noah nodded, and I didn’t waste any more time. I left Noah’s place and got in my car, my heart racing as I came to realise I was going to have to unlock my past a little if I had any hope of meeting Noah’s deadline. Aria needed me, and she deserved the truth, by whatever means necessary.
I called Gabriel, with whom I’d left Finn, and asked him if he could keep him overnight and deal with him tomorrow, and after confirming that, I drove to a bank far outside of Dallas. I kept my eyes peeled for anyone watching or keeping an eye on me, and then I went inside and accessed my safety deposit box. In it were a few things that I’d kept from my former life.
Eva and I’s rings, Finn’s birth certificate, our old social security cards, and my case files from Eva’s death. Among a few other trinkets was a phone in which I had all of my old contacts. My absolute last resort, if there was no other option, friends, that I knew would help me if I found myself unable to complete a task on my own.
I grabbed the case files and secured the number of an old friend of mine named Travis. He was a cohort of mine from when I was still an agent of the FBI, and he himself worked for the NSA. Once I was free of the bank, I locked myself back in my car and called him with the Bluetooth speaker off and my phone volume very low.
“Hello?” Travis answered with a shaky voice.
I took a deep breath. “Hey, Trav.”
The phone was silent for a long time before Travis spoke again. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Adam?” Travis repeated. “They told me you were dead. You and Finn. You have got to be–” hisvoice trailed off. “I would hang up on you if I wasn’t so happy to hear your stupid, goddamn voice.”
“Nice to talk to you too, buddy,” I replied.
Despite only talking to one another in a professional capacity, Travis and I had gotten quite close. Whenever our paths crossed, we got along great, and we preferred to work on cases together.
We always threatened to take things outside the workplace and introduce our wives and children one day, but we never got around to it before I had to pack up and go. For my safety and everyone else’s, I wasn’t told what would be provided to my old friends and co-workers as an explanation for my sudden departure, but I figured it may be something as definitive as death. That was typically the only thing that would make people stop looking.
“God, fuck. Witness protection? Because of the stuff with Eva?” Travis asked.
“Yep,” I replied. “Travis, I swear–”
