Chapter 4

Ethan recovered quickly, his constitution robust despite his self-inflicted dramas.

One afternoon, while Ava was still at the hospital, technically for observation after her blood donation, his phone rang.

Chloe.

Her voice, saccharine and panicked, echoed from the speaker.

"Ethan! Oh, thank God! There was a tremor! An earthquake! I'm so terrified!"

A minor tremor, barely registered by anyone else in Seattle.

Ethan was out of his hospital bed in an instant, shrugging off a nurse's protest.

"I have to go to Chloe. She needs me."

He barely glanced at Ava, who lay pale and still watching him.

Liam Hayes found Ava later, his face a mixture of anger and concern.

"He's impossible," Liam said, shaking his head. "She calls, he runs. Doesn't matter if he's just had surgery, doesn't matter if you're lying here because you saved his life."

"It's who he is, Liam," Ava said, her voice flat. She felt a strange detachment, as if watching a poorly written play.

"He'll never change," Liam agreed. "He's obsessed. He'll destroy himself, and anyone around him, for her."

Ava just nodded. She knew.

A few days later, Ethan, now discharged, showed up at Ava' s temporary rental.

He was all solicitous concern.

"Ava, you look tired. Are you sure you're okay after that... blood donation?"

He didn't mention his own mad dash to Chloe's side.

"I'm fine, Ethan," Ava said, her voice cool.

"Good. Because I was thinking," he said, a charming smile playing on his lips, "we never really got to finish what we started at the restaurant. How about we try again? Just us this time. No Chloe."

He was trying to re-stage the proposal. As if that would fix anything.

Ava looked at him, at the expensive suit, the confident posture, the underlying arrogance.

A slow, knowing smile touched her lips. An ironic smile.

"Alright, Ethan," she said softly. "Let's try again."

He beamed, relieved. He thought he was winning her back.

He took her to a charity gala that evening. A public event.

He was attentive, charming, holding her hand, whispering in her ear.

He wanted to be seen with her, to project an image of reconciliation.

The "proposal" was meant to happen later, at a private, romantic spot.

But fate, or rather Chloe's machinations, intervened again.

As they were leaving the gala, Ethan's phone buzzed. A text.

He read it, his face hardening.

"It's Chloe," he said, his voice tight. "She's been taken."

Taken?

"A disgruntled ex-employee," Ethan explained, his eyes darting around. "Someone I had to fire. Chloe said he was unstable."

Someone Chloe had likely pressured him to fire.

"He says he has her at the old Decommissioned Bridge. He wants... me. He wants the person I love most."

Ethan grabbed Ava's arm, pulling her towards his car. "We have to go."

They sped through the Seattle night, the city lights a blur.

The decommissioned bridge loomed ahead, dark and menacing.

A lone figure stood at the edge, holding a struggling Chloe.

The ex-employee, wild-eyed and desperate.

"Reed!" the man yelled. "You ruined my life! Now I take what you value most!"

Ethan stopped the car, jumping out. He held his hands up.

"You've got the wrong woman!" Ethan shouted, his voice echoing in the damp air.

He turned, dramatically, and pointed straight at Ava, still in the passenger seat.

"I was blind! The woman I truly love, the one I can't live without, is right here!"

Ava stared, frozen. He was using her. As bait. As a shield.

The confused ex-employee, his eyes shifting from Chloe to Ava, lunged.

Not at Chloe. At Ava.

Ethan' s immediate, unthinking instinct was to move, to shield Chloe, who was already steps away from the supposed danger.

Ava was shoved violently.

She teetered on the narrow edge of the bridge, the dark, churning water far below.

Then she fell.