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Any other girl would be offended if someone said that to them but after what happened, I struggled to eat and lost so much weight; I looked ill, seriously ill.

I’ve been eating better and put on a much needed twenty pounds. The gym over the last few weeks has helped me tone up and I’m in the best shape that I’ve ever been.

He puts me down, my feet finally touching the floor and spins me to face everyone.

Charlie approaches me first, placing a kiss on my head and squeezing me in the same way that Trevor had. I’m then passed on to Ty, Elena and Trevor’s middle son and then to Kay, Ty’s fiancé.

But she’s so much more than that to me, she’d been through the whole ordeal in that hellhole with me, she was the perso

n who had lead me to this amazing family and I wasn’t one who believed in fate but if I was a believer, I would’ve said that these people right here were my destiny.

After giving their son Eli a quick hug, I look up not expecting anyone else to be here.

My breath catches in my throat as I meet his brown eyes, the swirls catching me in their web, not allowing me to look away.

I’ve envisioned seeing him so many times, I’ve dreamed about him, imagined his voice in my head when I need to be grounded. It’s been eighteen months but as I look at him now it feels like it’s only been a day.

Our eyes don’t move from each other’s and all I can think is, my savior.

The one person who knows just how many scars I carry, not just on the inside but on the outside too.

I’ve been back for three days now, the mission that we’ve spent eighteen months on is finally over. The whole team has gone home for a well-deserved break; we don’t know how long we have but we’re hoping for a long one before Daley calls us back in.

You never know with this job though and for all we know we could be back at work within the next week.

Knowing that Daley is my boss makes me on edge. I knew very little about him when I was in the special forces but what I did hear was never good. Getting to know him more over the last eighteen months, I’ve realized how much I misjudged him, he’s a good person and he’s always making sure that we’re safe and taken care of, and that we have everything we need.

He climbed the ranks quickly when he was in the forces and now he owns his own private contracting firm; and I’m not talking about the kind that works with bricks.

None of us know much about Daley, as far as we’re aware he has no family but most of us keep our personal lives private, so it doesn’t surprise me that we don’t know. He’s the epitome of going dark, there’s only a handful of people who know that he’s still alive. He has more enemies than I can count, he’s fierce and ruthless but only to the people who he’s contracted to kill or bring in.

I haven’t heard from him since I’ve been stateside and I know it’s only a matter of time before he gets in touch with me.

All I wanted to do was spend time with my family so as soon as I got to the compound, I spent every minute that I could with them. It was bittersweet being here with them all, I was having a great time but I couldn’t stop thinking about the last time I had been here... with Ava.

After hearing that I was back, Elena insisted on cooking a welcome home dinner so on Friday evening, we all piled into Ty’s truck and made the drive there.

We hadn’t been there half an hour before Jackson turned up with a girl on his arm. He’d tried to be quiet when he pulled onto the property but I knew someone was there, and from the looks on Charlie and Ty’s faces, they knew he was here to. I think he was forgetting who he was dealing with.

Had it just have been Elena and Trevor, I have no doubt they wouldn’t have heard him.

After the girl has been passed around to everyone, I stand up ready to introduce myself; I am a gentleman after all.

My heart thumps harder in my chest as I meet her eyes, the almost see through blue hits me straight in the gut. That’s the only thing that I recognize about her though.

She’s changed so much over the last eighteen months. My mind flashes with images of when I first saw her face and what she was being subjected to. My jaw clenches as I remember and I close my eyes briefly, trying to get my breathing under control so that I can stay calm.

Kay told me how well she’s doing at college but she didn’t tell me how much she had grown up.

I’ve just turned twenty-seven so that has to make her coming up to twenty, if I’ve done my calculations right.

When I open my eyes back up, it’s as if there’s only me and her. All of the air is sucked out of the room and my eyes zone in on her face, scanning her and moving back to her eyes that are pulling me back in.

“Hey.” She smiles the sweetest fuckin’ smile I’ve ever seen.

For a second, I can’t move and then my brain catches up with my body and I grin at her.

Stepping forward, I open my arms wide and wait for her to step inside them. It’s been too long since I held her in my arms. Back then, I’d held a broken girl but this time is different; I can see how much she’s changed, just in the way that she carries herself.