Page 16 of No Mistakes (No Mercy #2)

AXEL

I drive back towards the house with Mandy and Eva following us in the car behind.

I glance at the rear view mirror, catching a glimpse of her face through the windshield, and all I can think about is how fucking badly I wanted to slam her against the hood of that car and kiss her until she forgot why she hated me.

To rip that anger straight out of her body with my tongue and remind her who the hell I am.

She looked like sin wrapped in firelight, standing in front of me earlier.

Untouchable, pissed off, and so fucking beautiful it hurt to breathe.

And I’d give anything to feel her nails digging into my skin again, even if it’s in rage. Especially if it’s in rage.

Ant sits in the passenger seat, quiet like always. But I know he’s watching me, clocking every movement, every glance. He doesn’t ask what I’m thinking; he already knows.

Eva. Always Eva.

I grip the steering wheel, the leather creaking beneath my fingers. She’s back. Not the way I fucking wanted her to be, but she’s here. Alive. Breathing. Furious and sexy as hell.

“I need to know what’s on that USB.”

Ant shifts in his seat like he’s listening.

“Whatever the hell scared Mandy enough to rope you in, it’s big.

And if it has anything to do with her-” I stop myself, feeling the anger build up inside of me.

If it has anything to do with Eva, I’ll burn the city down before I let anyone touch her again.

She doesn’t know the full story of our family yet.

The history of how we became who we are.

She doesn’t understand why I let her think I was dead.

Yes, she knows it was to protect her, but she has no idea of the people I was protecting her from, and when I tell her, it won’t be in some random parking lot.

It’ll be when I have her in a place where she can’t run, where she has to look me in the fucking eye and see the truth for what it is.

Right now, all I can think about is how I wanted to taste that anger on her lips. I wanted to grab her face, shove my mouth over hers, and remind her how good we were. How fucking explosive it was between us.

My phone buzzes on the centre console, no doubt Flynn confirming that the body has now been removed, but I don’t pick it up. My mind is too focused, too locked in on the woman in the car behind me. The woman who might still love me. The woman I broke.

“We’re almost there.”

Ant doesn’t respond, and normally I don’t mind, but right now, I could really do with my brother giving me the advice he used to when we were younger.

He taps something on his phone, probably already pulling information up from whatever Mandy has told him.

He’s always ten steps ahead of me, and a part of me is glad he’s on this.

That they contacted him and no one else, because if someone was watching Eva…

if someone dared follow her into a hospital room to take those photos-

My vision blurs with red again at the thought. I’ll find them. I’ll find every last one of them, and I’ll make them choke on their own teeth.

I slow the car down, turning into the driveway as the gravel crunches beneath the tyres. It may have only been a few days since Eva left the house, but fuck, it will feel so good to have her back here again with me. Even if it is under different circumstances.

Shifting the car into park, I sit there for a second staring through the windshield. She’s about to step back into my world, but this time, she’s about to be introduced to the real Ashford Family.

Ant’s already climbing out of the car with the USB in his hand by the time I kill the engine.

I don’t waste time as I quickly follow suit, keeping my eyes on the other car as Mandy and Eva pull in beside us.

The headlights cut out, and for a second, everything is still.

That is until the driver's door opens and Eva steps out like a goddamn storm, completely unaware that walking into this house is going to change everything.

I shove my hands in my pockets to stop myself from doing something stupid, like reaching for her and pulling her in while pressing my forehead to hers, and begging her to forgive me. I watch as she walks right past me towards the house without a word, holding her chin high like the queen she is.

Mandy throws me a look as she walks by, the kind that says, ‘Don’t fuck this up more than you already have’, before following Eva through the front door like her own personal bodyguard.

As I enter, I spot Flynn near the fireplace, running his hand through his hair like he’s been going over the same mental equation for hours.

Carter leans against the far wall, arms crossed as he watches Flynn pace and Gunnar, well, he’s currently lounging on the sofa with two glasses of whiskey already poured, with one half empty.

The moment they notice Eva, all three sets of eyes land on her, but no one says a word. They already know what she means to me, and they know not to say a fucking thing unless I let them.

Flynn recovers first. “You made it back fast,” he says, but his eyes stay trained on Eva. “Everything okay?”

“No,” I answer flatly, closing the door behind me. “Not even close.”

Mandy brushes past me, heading straight for Gunnar, probably for the whiskey bottle that is clutched in his hand.

Eva stands still, just inside of the arch that connects the living room to the entrance hall.

Her eyes dart across the room, taking everything in, no doubt reliving what happened the last time she stood here.

Everything was going so smoothly until her eyes locked on the whiteboard, and fuck me, I forgot about that.

It stands in full view near the kitchen doorway, like a ticking bomb I didn’t bother to defuse.

Names, lines, symbols. Marco’s network, which is dissected like a goddamn anatomy class.

A map of Chicago, where each territory is broken down by colour, with the three families carved up like a mafia butchers' map. She steps closer, spotting the images hidden in the corner. A printed photo of Mr Bonetti’s body is pinned in the corner, and right next to it, staring at us is the photo that Ant showed me earlier, of Eva looking towards the sky.

She freezes, as if the board has unlocked a whole new level that she never knew existed.

“What the hell is that?” Her voice is low but lethal, like the calm before she burns it all down, including me.

I move without thinking. “Eva-”

“No.” She snaps, backing up a step. “What the hell is that board?”

Gunnar whistles, taking a long sip of his whiskey like he wants no part in what’s about to go down. “She didn’t know?”

“Nope,” I snap, popping the p. “She didn’t.”

Flynn shifts awkwardly beside the sofa. Carter doesn’t even flinch. He’s staring between Eva and the board like he’s waiting for a fuse to blow.

“Will someone please explain why there is a fucking photo of me on a murder board?” She demands.

I let out a small laugh, trying to defuse the situation. “It’s not a murder board,” I say quickly, stepping between her and the board, showing her everything else taped to it. “It’s a case board. From a recent interrogation that just so happens to have a dead body on it.”

She looks at me in disbelief, like I just spat in her face. Ant moves, circling the glass table in his usual quiet way and places the USB down with a soft clink that somehow cuts through the tension like a gunshot.

“What’s that?” Flynn asks, brows raised.

I glance at it. Then Ant. Then Mandy, unsure of where to start with this new information.

The air in the room shifts once again as everyone now stares at the tiny device. Mandy’s voice is quiet but powerful as she explains. “That’s why we’re here. I contacted Ant because we needed his help. It was left behind by someone at our office. Someone who… disappeared.”

Gunnar leans forward, bracing his arms on his knees. “Disappeared how?”

Mandy sighs, shrugging her shoulders. “I wish I knew. He was already gone by the time we returned to the office a few days ago. He took everything he owned apart from his badge and this.” She points towards the USB, and the room falls silent.

Flynn walks forward, “Do we know what's on it?”

“Kind of,” I say. “We know it has multiple files, but only one file has been opened, which contains photos.”

Ant briefed me on the conversation he had with Mandy while I was busy pleading my case with Eva. I tried to pry more information on their conversation, but my brother’s a fucking vault when he wants to be. Whatever passed between them, he’s keeping parts of it close to his chest.

“Photos?” Gunnar asks, standing up to keep an eye on the USB like it’s rigged to explode.

“There were multiple photos,” I admit, each word tasting like rust. “Some of Eva and Mandy. One of Mandy and Flynn at the restaurant.” I hesitate, my eyes finding Eva, and it nearly fucking rips me open to say the next part.

“And there were some of Eva… from the time she was in the hospital. After Marco and his men found her.”

The room falls silent once again, no one daring to say anything.

Eva’s head lifts quickly, like she wasn’t expecting me to say it.

Her eyes meet mine for half a second. Wide, raw and wounded.

The contact doesn’t last for long before she drops her gaze to the floor like it physically hurts her to hold it.

A muscle in Flynn’s jaw ticks. “What kind of photos?”

Mandy answers before I get the chance. “Not medical ones. They were taken personally, at close range.”

“Intimate,” Eva whispers. “Like someone was standing in the goddamn room watching me.”

Carter lets out a low curse under his breath, pushing off the wall. “They were watching her recover? That’s next-level sick.”

Gunnar’s face hardens. “First of all, we were all in the hospital. How the fuck did they get past us? And secondly, could the person who left this be the one who took them?”

He asks a good question: how did they get past all of us and into Eva’s room? Someone was in there at all times unless the doctors asked us to leave, and even then, it was only once or twice.

“We don’t know,” I say, because I fucking hate guessing games. “All we know is that the person left this behind, and the timing’s too fucking convenient. Either they wanted us to find it, or they were running, and it was a parting gift.”

Ant types something quickly on his phone, then shows me the screen. It’s the background search he pulled on Adam when we first saw him with Eva in the car park, before she left for Providence. The file was clean on the surface, but something didn’t sit right. No one's file is ever that perfect.

Mandy glances towards Eva. “We were going to dig into the rest of the USB together, but we knew we needed backup.”

Eva finally lifts her head. Her expression was colder than I’ve seen since she stepped foot back in my world. “And now?”

“Now we all dig,” I say, keeping my voice low while staring at her. “Together.”

I look around the room. Every face. My brothers, Mandy, Eva’s… Every face is hard with the same realisation.

We’re not dealing with shadows anymore. We’re dealing with people who watched us bleed and didn’t blink. Who stood in the rooms we thought were safe? Who photographed her pain like it was fucking art, and now, they’ve made it personal.

The second I feel Eva’s breath hitch beside me, I step closer. My body reacts before my mind does, angling towards her, boxing her in just in case so she knows I’m there, shielding her without making her feel caged.

“You’re safe,” I say, low enough that only she hears it. My voice is steel-wrapped velvet, rough with promise. “I won’t let them near you again.”

She doesn’t look at me, but her pulse jumps at her throat as her chest rises quicker. “They already got close once,” she whispers, her voice ice and fire all at once. “You gonna promise me they won’t again?”

I lower my head until my lips nearly graze the shell of her ear. “No. I’m gonna make sure they don’t.”

Her breath shudders out. She hates needing me. She hates that part of her still trusts me to keep her alive.

I can feel it in the way her body leans the slightest bit into mine, like gravity’s cheating for us. Like it wants her to fall back into me, even if her pride is dragging its heels.

My eyes cut to the rest of the room. My brothers are already moving, the air charged with a readiness that only comes before war.

I wrap my fingers lightly around Eva’s wrist, making sure to leave enough space for her to pull away if she wanted to, but just enough pressure to remind her that I’m here.

“They came for my family,” I say. “They watched. They waited. Now they’re going to learn exactly what kind of mistake that was.”

And they will.

Because I’ve killed for less. Because Eva’s not just someone I protect. She’s the reason I’m going to fucking end this once and for all.