Chapter 5 Beneath the Ashes

By morning, the city was gray and dripping with a thin and steady drizzle that soaked everything it touched. Ava hadn't really slept, not while Ethan dozed upright in her rickety kitchen chair, arms crossed and head tipped back against the wall. Every creak in the hallway made her eyes snap open and every car horn below her window made her heart thud too hard. She'd spent the night perched at Lila's bedside, brushing damp hair from her daughter's forehead and counting each shallow breath.

The rhythm anchored her something real she could hold onto when everything else felt like it was dissolving under her feet. At dawn, Ethan stirred,he woke like a soldier, with a single breath and a flicker of his eyes that made it clear he never really slept. He didn't even look at Ava at first, he just checked the door, the windows and the slip of paper he'd wedged in the crack to see if anyone had opened it while they dozed, but It hadn't moved and the lock still held.

Ava watched him from the hallway, Lila's tiny form curled around her battered bunny in the bed behind her. "Do you ever actually sleep?" she asked her voice was raw from too many hours without rest. Ethan cracked his neck, "When it's safe." Then Ava folded her arms over her chest, the chill from the floorboards seeping through her socks. "And is it safe now?" She asked.

Ethan looked at her, really looked, and for a heartbeat she saw how tired he was under the layers of control. "Not yet," he said, "But safer than it was."

He made coffee in her tiny kitchen, if pouring water through a cracked filter into a chipped mug counted as making coffee,then Ava sipped it anyway, wincing at the bitter burn. She needed the heat more than the taste, they sat across from each other at the table littered with bills and Ethan's crumpled papers and outside the window, rain traced crooked lines down the glass, blurring the world into smears of gray and neon.

"Tell me again," Ava said, voice steady now. "Why me? Why my name on those accounts? Why now?"

Ethan leaned back in the chair, balancing on two legs the way a man might test gravity just to remind himself he could still fall. "Your ex-husband owed the wrong people and he needed a clean name to hide dirty money while they moved it. You were perfect, no priors, steady paycheck, invisible and they tucked your name onto an account you never saw and made it look like you were in on it."

"And the robbery?" She asked.

"A cover-up. They hit the bank to wipe out the trail, but someone still needs to take the blame when the dust settles, someone that's easy to throw away." Ava ran her finger over the lip of her mug and herr mind pulled up memories she'd buried, Kevin's sudden trips with the way he'd come home with new shoes while she juggled past-due bills,the fights and the slammed doors,and also his last words before he vanished into the night with a half-bag of clothes and the good blankets she'd bought secondhand.

"God," she muttered. "I was so stupid."

Ethan's voice was quiet but sharp,"No, You trusted the wrong person, that's not stupid, that's human."

The city outside hummed awake, the rumble of traffic, the distant wail of sirens and the bark of a neighbor's dog that never seemed to shut up. Ava wondered if they'd still be here in a week, or a month, and If she'd still have Lila curled in her bed or if some uniformed cop would knock on her door and drag her away while her daughter screamed for a mother she might never see again. Ethan snapped her back to the moment, then he unfolded a map he'd pulled from his bag with a tattered city street grid with notes scrawled in black ink. Circles and arrows, crossed-out corners of town that were no longer safe.

"We can't hide forever," Ethan said. "They'll push harder until you crack or they get sloppy,so we push first." Ava raised an eyebrow. "Push how?"

"We find Kevin, we find the accounts and we make it impossible for them to pretend you're disposable." A bitter laugh slipped from her throat, "You make it sound simple."

"It's not," Ethan admitted. He traced a finger across the map landing on a spot near the waterfront, a rotting stretch of old warehouses and half-empty bars that stayed alive by selling stale beer and cheaper lies. "Kevin's been seen here and he's been using an old contact of mine to stay out of sight." Ava leaned over the map and she could smell Ethan's aftershave, the faint clean scent that clung to his collar despite the night's rain, she forced herself to focus on the ink and paper.

"You want me to just... walk in there? What if it's a trap?"

Ethan's eyes met hers, dark, steady, the only solid ground she felt like she had left. "I'll be with you. They won't expect you to look for him,they think you're scared, hiding and that's our advantage."

She didn't want to be brave,she wanted this to be over but Lila's cough in the next room was a reminder she couldn't run from.

She took a deep breath. "When?"

"Tonight," Ethan said. "Before he hears you're asking questions and disappears for good."

A knock on the table made them both flinch, not a threat, but a small fist. Lila stood in the hallway, her hair sticking up in every direction and the bunny tucked under her arm. Her eyes were half-lidded with fever but clear enough to find her mother in the haze of grown-up words.

"Mommy, who's that?" she asked, voice soft and scratchy.

Ava swallowed the knot in her throat and she crossed the room and dropped to her knees, gathering Lila into her arms. The girl smelled like sleep and the faint sweetness of the cough syrup Ava rationed too carefully.

"This is Mr. Ethan, baby," Ava said, glancing up at him, "He's helping Mommy with some work."

Lila blinked at Ethan, and for the first time, Ethan Cross looked like he'd been punched in the gut by something small and pure,then crouched down, close enough for Lila to see the scar that sliced across his jaw like an old regret.

"Hi, Lila," he said softly. "You're safe,i promise."

Lila pressed her face into Ava's shoulder and mumbled something about toast and Ava's heart cracked a little more at the normalcy of it, this tiny, tired child wanting breakfast while her mother plotted how to keep her out of a cage. Ethan stood and looked away, clearing his throat,he ran a hand through his hair and back to business as if the moment hadn't peeled a layer off him too. When Lila was settled with toast and cartoons with volume low to keep her from hearing things she shouldn't, Ava turned to Ethan again.

"Tonight, then," she said, voice firm now. "We find him. We end this."

Ethan nodded and he folded the map, slipped it back into his bag, and looked around the cramped kitchen as if memorizing every crack in the paint, every shadow that might hide a threat.

"It won't be easy," he said.

"It never is," Ava replied. And this time, her voice didn't shake at all.

The rain turned into a misty drizzle by nightfall, the kind that soaked through Ava's thin coat before she'd even crossed the street outside her apartment. She pulled the collar tighter under her chin as Ethan locked the passenger door beside her,he didn't say anything as he rounded the car and sliding behind the wheel like he'd done it a thousand times for a thousand darker reasons.

Ava tried not to shiver when the engine rumbled to life,the heater coughed stale warm air that smelled faintly of the city, exhaust and wet concrete with something sharp she couldn't name. They didn't talk much as the car threaded through Portbridge's rotting veins and streets lined with buildings that leaned into each other like drunks at closing time. Neon flickered in and out of broken windows,the waterfront was worse and whole blocks abandoned to squatters and ghosts,the kind of place where secrets didn't bother burying themselves too deep because no one cared enough to dig them up. Ethan parked in a gravel lot behind a boarded-up fish market,he killed the engine but didn't reach for the keys,he sat there with his hands loose on the wheel and eyes on the rain-slick street.

"You sure about this?" he asked.

Ava's answer came before the fear had time to get loud. "No. But I'm here."

Ethan's mouth curved, not quite a smile, but the closest she'd seen. He pushed open his door,"Stay close."

The bar they slipped into didn't have a name outside, just a single flickering red light above the door. The inside was worse,peeling linoleum floors and the stink of stale beer and cigarettes ground into walls yellowed by years of lies and cheap whiskey. A jukebox wheezed out a song nobody listened to and a few men hunched over drinks, eyes half-shuttered, the kind of eyes that knew not to look too long at other people's trouble. Ava stayed half a step behind Ethan as he cut through the gloom,she kept her hands jammed in her pockets to hide the tremor in her fingers,and she felt eyes on her anyway with strangers measuring the shape of her fear.

At the back, near a door marked "Private," a heavyset man sat slouched on a barstool, picking at a bowl of peanuts like he hated every crunch,his eyes lifted when Ethan stopped in front of him.

"Trent," Ethan said, flat, familiar.

Trent's face cracked into a grin that never touched his eyes. "Well, look what the tide dragged back. I heard you were dead, Cross."

"Not yet." Ethan's hand rested lightly on the bar, too casual to be safe.

Trent's eyes slid to Ava, lingering. "Who's the girl? New side job?"

Ava bristled, but Ethan cut her off with a small shake of his head. "She's not your problem."

Trent's laugh was wet and ugly,"Everything's my problem when you come crawling through my door after three years gone. What do you want, Cross?"

Ethan leaned in, voice low. "Kevin Carter. He's using your backroomand we both know he's not paying you enough to keep your mouth shut when I'm asking."

Trent popped another peanut in his mouth,and cracked it between his teeth like a threat. "You think you still have pull here? You think you can just"

Before the man could finish, Ethan moved, one hand shot out, he grabbed Trent's wrist and twisted it just enough to make the bigger man grunt in pain. Ethan's voice was calm as a quiet street. "I don't care about your little kingdom, Trent,i care about Kevinand where is he?"

Trent's eyes darted between Ethan's face and Ava's clenched fists,then he spat a curse under his breath,"Back hallway at the third door on the left,but if he knows you're coming..."

Ethan released him so fast Trent nearly toppled off the stool,"He won't," Ethan said.

They slipped through the bar's back corridor, walls covered in old posters for bands no one remembered and the smell of bleach failing to mask with the mildew that clung to every corner. Ava's pulse rattled like a loose bolt in her chest,she could feel the panic rising and the old fear that Kevin still owned pieces of her, pieces she'd never wanted him to have. But each step behind Ethan made the fear bend under something new, something harder than the panic. This was her life they'd stolen,her name and her daughter's future but no more running.

Ethan stopped at the door with a dented slab of metal with chipped paint and he pressed his palm to it, his eyes meeting hers in the dim light and his voice was barely a whisper.

"Stay behind me, let me talk first."

Ava nodded and she didn't trust her voice to hold, Ethan's knuckles rapped the door, three sharp taps and Silence,then shuffling inside,a lock scraped, and the door cracked just enough for a sliver of stale heat and stale lies to leak out. Kevin's voice slipped through the crack, oily and too familiar. "What the hell"

Ethan shoved the door wide, forcing Kevin back a step and Ava stepped into the room behind him her heart was hammering so hard that she thought it might knock the walls down for her. Kevin Carter looked smaller than she remembered his hair longer with his beard patchy and eyes darting like a rat cornered in a drain. The room stank of old beer and sweat and a laptop sat open on a card table, next to a half-smoked cigarette balanced on the edge of an ashtray overflowing with broken filters. Kevin's eyes landed on Ava and for a moment, the smirk slipped just enough for her to see the flicker of guilt he'd always buried under cheap charm.

"Ava," he said, smoothing his hair back with a shaking hand,"What are you doing here? Who's this" He asked.

Ethan didn't give him the courtesy of an answer, he just stepped closer, crowding Kevin back toward the table, "You know exactly why we're here,the bank,the accounts and her name."

Kevin's laugh was weak, tinny,"Hey, hey, come on, man, It's not what you think" Kevin said.

Ava stepped around Ethan, her hands tight at her sides and her voice like ice cracking under the weight of spring. "Shut up, Kevin, No more lies!! ." Ava yelled. Kevin's smile slipped completely now and he raised both hands, palms out like she was pointing a gun at him instead of just her words. "Ava, baby"

She flinched,that word, she hated that word in his mouth.

"Don't call me that!," she snapped. Her voice shook, but it didn't break, "You dragged me into your mess,you used my name,you put my daughter at risk and you don't get to call me anything."

Kevin's eyes darted to Ethan, looking for an out, a shield, anything,but Ethan's expression said there was no escape coming from that corner of the room.

"Where's the money, Kevin?" Ethan's voice was calm and deadly, "Where's the proof?"

Kevin licked his lips, glanced at the laptop,too fast and too obvious but Ethan saw it too and ,he stepped past Kevin and flipped the laptop around. Spreadsheets,offshorelogins,and passwords tucked in a sticky note half-hidden under the keyboard.

Ava felt her chest tighten, not with fear this time, but with something fierce and electric. This was it,this was her way out and Kevin the man who'd called her weak, worthless, invisible was the one handing it to her. Kevin lunged, a flash of movement,and Ava saw the glint of metal too late and Ethan grabbed Kevin's wrist, slammed it down on the table so hard that the laptop rattled. The knife clattered to the floor andKevin cursed under his breath but Ethan's grip didn't budge. Ethan's voice was a razor's whisper,"Try that again and see if you keep the hand."

Ava stepped closer, close enough to see Kevin's pulse jump at his throat, she'd never felt bigger than him until now.

"You're going to fix this," she said her was voice shaking but clear, "You're going to clear my name,or so help me"

Kevin laughed, a choked, bitter sound. "You don't have it in you, Ava."But he was wrong,she could feel it, the thing she'd buried under years of survival and the thing that looked like anger but tasted like freedom.