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I normally keep my personal life just that, personal, but as we will be working together over here then it’s a little different. We’ll be based here so they would all meet her anyway so on the way back I told them a little about me, just as they did about themselves.

Daley of course knew everything anyway.

“No.” I shake my head and walk to the bar. “This is Jamie. Where’s Ava?” I direct to Jackson, knowing that he’s the one who’s most likely to know where she is.

“Dunno, haven’t spoken to her since Friday. Charlie said he spoke to her on Sunday though.” I frown, wondering why she hasn’t spoken to Jackson. She’s always messaging him.

Pulling out my cell, I scroll to her name and press the call button. “Straight to voicemail,” I say, shaking my head and pushing off the bar. “I’ll check if she’s at mine.”

“She’s not.” J stops me with a hand on my arm. “I just came past there on my way here, I’m sure she’s on her way. Send her a message to tell her you’re home. She might be at work.”

I nod, even though I know she doesn’t work Wednesdays but she may have picked up someone else’s shift so I sit down on the barstool and signal Jackson to get me a beer.

“Ugh, you brought him back with you?” J sneers and looks over at the door. I smirk at how she reacts to Daley and turn to face him, seeing his eyes zone in on J and then divert to me.

Turning to the guys, we start to talk about the plan from here and what we’re going to do. I told them they could bunk at mine until we find something more permanent which Daley said shouldn’t take too long.

How the hell five of us were going to get on staying in a two bed apartment was anyone’s guess. We’d make it work though.

“Scotch,” Daley says, coming to stand next to me.

Jackson waits with his hands on the bar and his brow raised. “Forgetting something?”

“Please.” Daley smirks and rolls his eyes but I notice them drift back over to J.

“No, Ava?” he asks, turning his eyes to me and picking his glass up when Jackson puts it down in front of him.

“Not yet, she’ll be here soon,” I say and shoot her a message.

The little tick doesn’t show that it’s sent but I think nothing of it and turn to Chad, trying to distract myself from getting into my car and going to find her.

Now that I’m back in the same

town, all I want to do is touch her, feel her and see her. Damn, just thinking about her gets me all hot and bothered.

Staring at the bag that contains a lot of stacks of notes, I shake my head and wonder for the millionth time if I’m doing the right thing. I could do so much with this money but instead it’s going to someone who doesn’t appreciate me bailing them out. I mean, he’s blackmailing me so it really does show how much of an evil person he is.

Pressing the button to light up the screen on my cell, I take a deep breath and zip the bag up.

I check that I have Corey’s gun in the waistband of my jeans and feel relieved at having something to protect myself with.

I don’t intend to use it but knowing it’s there makes me feel safer. After having numerous nightmares about what could happen if someone found out I was carrying this much money around with me, I decided it was better for me to have something to protect myself with.

I take a cab to the place that he said to meet. I tried to tell him that we should do it somewhere closer to me because I didn’t want to carry this amount of money around with me for so long, but he wouldn’t budge so now I’m heading to the other side of town.

Stepping out of the cab, I squint my eyes in the darkness and walk down to the bar called ‘Jessie’s’ where he said he’d meet me.

My feet shuffle on the spot, my nerves going haywire the longer I have to wait.

I spot a figure in the distance, swerving from side to side and I know that it’s him.

“Come on,” he slurs and waves his hand when he’s closer. I hesitate for a second and look around me.

“Why?” I ask, not sure I want to go anywhere that I can’t be seen.

“I’m not doing this here, girl,” he sneers. “Now get!”

I huff and move towards him, swerving away from him when he tries to grab my arm. Walking a step behind him, I follow him down the sidewalk and around the corner.