Criminal Affinity [18+]

Chapter 9

Here among the stars is home away from home.

| Paint the Pictures - Of Verona |

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“Tell me about the girl. He didn’t tell me her name.”

Lily turns her head to look at her, and replies after a pause. “Her name is Sirena Reed. She’s been missing for over two months. She is Ren’s girlfriend, so we brought her to the house under a contract but she didn’t perform for us. William sent a small sum of money to Esteban to keep her here until they were prepared to marry.”

Marriage? Ava has to hide her surprise. That seems extremely serious. Ren didn’t look all that torn by his missing girlfriend. Instead he was flirting with her.

“How did she go missing?”

“No one knows. She just left one morning and didn’t return.”

Ava can hardly make sense of the situation. “What if she wanted to leave?”

“And go where?” Lily looks at her incredulously. “Her whole life is here. She is a proper part of our family. She always knew she was one of us.”

Ava swallows. “And what if she didn’t? What if she felt like she was a burden instead?”

Lily smiles sadly at her. “Sirena is a grateful, happy girl. If she wanted to leave, she would have left with Ren. She wouldn’t just leave him behind. She thinks she owes him the world.”

Ava returns the smile because she can’t help it, but it doesn’t last. If the girl didn’t leave by her own will, she is kidnapped. Possibly for information since she was in the inner circle and the easiest victim. But it also brings her to an unavoidable question.

“How do you know she is still alive?”

Lily’s silence is answer enough. Ava turns her body to face Lily but those blue eyes remain fixed on the ceiling.

They have been lying in bed for over an hour talking about nothing and everything but now the air has shifted.

Lily speaks without meeting her eye. “She’s a fox. She knows how to survive. She will keep herself alive until we can find her, because she knows we will never give up looking for her.”

Something in her tone makes Ava’s heart yearn for a nameless feeling. Ava has grown up sheltered by all her friends in Pandora, but she never felt safe.

Ava was never protected. There is no one in the entire world that would tear everyone apart for her. No one who swears that sort of fierce love, protection and loyalty. In fact, the only person who did that for her was her mother.

Whenever Ava made a mistake - or what Dale thought was a mistake - she was all alone in it. Her Agent friends never backed her up because Dale never liked his authority questioned. Instead of earning respect, he terrorised his whole team into submitting into his every command and living by his ironclad set of rules.

And because Ava wasn’t always up and ready to follow these orders, she got punished a lot. He punished her in the only way he could - isolating her from her friends. Asking her to do little jobs to hurt her ego, belittling her and highlighting her mistakes.