by MJ Masucci
Liam was so involved with Xander that he didn’t pay attention to what Ava was doing. The parking spot was dimly lit, and the windows of the SUV were tinted dark. She had slipped from the cargo area of the SUV into the back seat. Liam had neglected to tape her hands behind her. She was still able to use her fingers to flip the lock and unlatch the back door without opening it. She almost gave her position away by crying out when he shot Xander. She waited with her legs positioned against the door, coiled tightly.
“Please Liam, don’t do anything you are going to regret,” Xander said.
“Yeah, beg for your life, you fuck. I have nothing to lose. No job, no home, no girlfriend. You fucked that up for me. I don’t give a shit. I’m going to take care of business and disappear. I got it all planned out. Now where should I shoot you next? I bet that arm isn't feeling too good, now does it? How about the stomach this time or maybe the head?”
Ava watched as Liam backed up towards the back door. He took aim circling the gun around deciding where the next shot would be. Tears blinded her, and she wiped them away. Just two more steps, NOW. She kicked the door hard, and Liam stumbled forward, dropping the gun. She heard it discharge and the bullet echo as it struck somewhere in the garage. Xander jumped on him, and they wrestled on the ground.
She reached for her purse in the front seat and fumbled with the zipper to get her phone. Pressing the buttons she tried to call 911 but the signal was too weak. Instead, she slipped out of the SUV to see if she could help Xander. She saw the two of them rolling around on the ground partially under the SUV. Liam got his arm free and tried to reach for the gun, but Ava was able to kick it away and under the car next to them just in time. Xander got on top of him and banged his head on the ground. She heard footsteps behind them, and she was pushed out of the way.
Xander was pulled off of Liam whose face was a bloody mess. It turned out that Liam had not been so smart after all. He missed one camera that had a clear view of the entire incident. The security firm that manned the garage during off hours found it peculiar that all the cameras in the south corner of the third level had all failed. They checked all cameras and found one operational. It was a dome camera that had been embedded in the concrete beam. Hard to see for anyone hoping to commit a crime. They called the police, and it just so happened that Detective Mike Halloran was in the area. Fearing a hostage situation he and his partner Eddie Velasquez, another plainclothes detective entered the third level just as Xander was fending off Liam.
“I need an ambulance at the River Garage on West Twelfth, third level,” Mike called into his radio. His partner Eddie was handcuffing Liam. Liam spat blood onto the ground along with a tooth.
“You son of a bitch. I’m going to get you.” Liam screamed.
“Read this asshole his rights before he claims a Miranda violation,” Mike said to his partner. Several uniformed police officers had entered the garage to take him away for booking. Ava sat in the SUV crying hard. Eddie tried to comfort her as the paramedics attended to Xander. He cut her hands free of the tape.
“Come, Ava, the paramedics, want to take a look at your nose. You also have a pretty bad cut on your cheek.”
When Liam had backhanded her, she felt the scrape of metal. He must have hit her with the hand that had a ring. They helped her into the back of the ambulance with Xander who was already on a stretcher. His shirt was off, and they had wrapped his arm where he was shot. They were attending to his eye, had him hooked up to a heart monitor and had started an IV. He had an ice pack on his ribs. As soon as they moved and she saw his face she started to cry. His eye and cheek were horribly swollen. He had a gash in his eyebrow. The paramedic said he would probably need a couple of stitches to close it.
“Sweetheart, I’m okay,” he soothed as he reached out to stroke her hand.
“But your face, he almost killed you, and it’s my fault,” Ava cried, the tears streaming down her face.
He gestured to his arm. “Oh this old thing, it’s only a flesh wound,” he tried to joke even though he was in just as much emotional distress as she. Her beautiful face was marred by a swollen cheek. Liam had cut the skin on her face when he backhanded her, and an angry bruise was starting to form. She still had some blood on her lip and chin when her nose bled. How did she get that bloody nose? He had been unconscious when it happened, and he felt the contents of his stomach churn. He was supposed to protect her, and he let her get hurt.
Detective Mike Halloran had stepped onto the back bumper of the ambulance. “We need a statement from you two, and we are going to follow you to the hospital.”
Ava reached out to grab his hand. “Thank you so much, Mike. We owe you our lives.” He squeezed her hand, nodded at Xander and stepped off the tailgate.
At the hospital, Ava and Xander’s family members milled around the waiting room. The nursing staff had called them at Ava’s request. Xander was having x-rays taken of his ribs and a CT scan on his head. Ava was fully evaluated. She had a slight concussion from Liam’s punches. She sat in the ER feeling horrible about the night’s events. Xander might have been killed had she not kicked the door open and knocked the gun from Liam’s hand.
Thinking about it made her sick. She called the nurse because she had to throw up. She was interviewed by Mike and his partner Eddie as to the how the whole thing took place. Her eyewitness account would be corroborated with the security footage as well as the statement from Xander.
“Mike, will he be able to make bail and be out on the street again?” Ava asked.
“I doubt it. I woke the DA up for an early morning conversation, and he said that they are going to ask for a high bail. I’m sure his attorney will try to get that down, but we have a pretty solid case. The video footage alone is damning. By the way, we got nothing from the video footage at your office.”
“Are you serious? He took pictures of me from the lobby.”
“I know, and though we saw a guy walking around with a hoodie, there never was enough of his face to make a clear determination who he was. The DA said it was very weak evidence. Now we have him clear as day. He isn’t going to get away this time. He will probably be charged with attempted murder. Ava, I don’t want to alarm you, but Liam is in this hospital. They are treating him for his injuries then he will be transported to jail. He is handcuffed to the bed, and there are two uniformed police officers guarding him.”
She felt fear rising in her gut, as Mike continued. “Don’t worry; he has no chance of getting away. They are almost done with his medical care, and he will be on his way very soon.”
Ava’s family entered her room as Mike and Eddie exited.
Uncle Daniel stepped to her bedside. “We called your father. He’s on his way. The earliest flight he can get is a 5:30 AM flight out of Atlanta but its non-stop and he should be here by nine or ten.”
She started crying again at the thought of her father. He must be beside himself. Aunt Mavis stroked her hair.
“Shhhh, Ava, we’re all here for you. Xander is going to be alright.”
“I need to see him,” Ava said.
“They are cleaning him up. He had to have some stitches, and they are waiting for the CT scan results. Peter told us that he has some cracked ribs.” That started Ava sobbing harder. The nurse came in to check on her and offered her a sedative. She told her that she was fine.
The nurse told her, “They are preparing a room for you. The doctor wants you to stay overnight for observation.”
“Can I please have a room with my boyfriend?”
“Normally we don’t put males and females in the same room. I’ll see if we can accommodate you. As long as the doctor approves it should be okay.” Ava dozed off, and when she awoke, she was being moved to a permanent room. When she got there, Xander was already in the next bay. She couldn’t talk to him because he was asleep.
“Is, is he alright?”
“Yes, he has been sedated because he was in pain from his ribs,” the nurse said. “Now Ava, please don�
��t move out of this bed unless you buzz the nurse’s desk. We have you both on a falling risk due to your concussions.”
“But I feel alright.”
“You might feel alright, but you could get dizzy once you start moving around.”
After the nurse had left she turned on her side to watch Xander sleep, the right side of his face was a bruised mess. His eye was swollen. They had shaved part of his eyebrow to stitch up the cut. The knuckles on his hand were abraded and swollen. Probably from punching Liam. He would never be in that condition if it weren't for me. I can’t lose him.
“Honey, honey wake up.” Ava heard a familiar voice pull her out of sleep.
“Daddy,” she mumbled.
“Yes, baby, I’m here.” She became fully awake and gingerly turned on to her back as she opened her eyes.
“Daddy, you’re here.” Jason Keene hugged his daughter. He was horrified by the injuries to her face.
“How did this happen? How is Alexander doing?”
Ava looked over at Xander, and he was still asleep. “They said he is doing okay, but he is a mess. He has some cracked ribs, a concussion and he was shot in the left arm.”
Ava started to cry, and her father pulled her against him to comfort her. She smelled his familiar smell of peppermint and sweet pipe tobacco. He held her until she stopped crying then offered her his handkerchief. It was a gesture that started the tears all over again. It was something that Xander had done just a few short weeks ago. She wiped at her tears and heard Xander talking in his sleep. She could only make out one word: “Ava.” She told her father the entire story about Liam and what had happened, how Xander had saved her from him.
“So you are in a relationship with him now? How long has this been going on?” The look on his face told her of his disapproval.
“Daddy, please. I’m in love with him.”
“Then why did you have to hide it?”
“I wasn’t hiding it. I was waiting for the right time to tell you.”
“Now is the right time. So tell me how this started?” Ava related the entire story of how they started dating, leaving out certain parts that she knew her father wouldn’t like. She painted Xander in a very good light as he should be. He risked his life to save hers and that meant something special.
The nurse came in to check Xander’s vitals. He awoke from his drug-induced sleep with the activity buzzing around him. When she left, Jason went to his bedside.
“I owe you everything for risking your life to save my daughter,” he said.
“I love her, Mr. Keene. I would give my life for hers.” Tears welled up in Ava’s eyes. She could only imagine how miserable her life would be without him. Jason put his hand on Xander’s shoulder then went over to kiss Ava on her cheek.
“I’m staying at Daniel’s until you get out of the hospital. Then I will stay with you.”
When her father left, she focused her attention on Xander who was gazing over at her with sleepy eyes.
“If anything happened to you…” Ava said.
“Sweetheart, I’m okay. A little worse for wear but I’ll be fine.”
“How are your ribs feeling? And your arm?”
“Doc said that the bullet grazed my arm, no real damage. I don’t think that piece of shit wanted to kill me at the time. He just wanted to make me suffer. My arm is sore, but my ribs hurt, and so does my head. Mike told me they found a retractable Billy Club in his pocket. That must have been what he used to hit me in the back of the head. Ava, I need to know something?”
“What?”
“You were in the passenger seat when he hit me but the cargo area of the SUV when I woke up. What did he do to you for the few minutes I was out?”
Ava didn’t want to tell him for fear he would want to climb out of his hospital bed and tear Liam limb from limb.
“It’s not important. They arrested him, and that is all that counts.”
“It’s not all that counts. I need to know.”
“It can wait. What he did to me is not going to change.”
Xander pleaded with her, “Please, I need to know.”
She inhaled deeply and told him what had happened.
“When he hit you I turned around and saw him. He was making his way around to my side just as I opened the door. I tried to close it, but he was too fast. He reached in and pulled me out by my hair and slammed me against the side of the SUV. He called me names and slapped my face several times hard enough to cause my nose to bleed. He said that I was going to give him what was his.” Ava stopped talking because she could see Xander’s face was turning red.
“Go on, I want to hear all of it,” Xander said through gritted teeth.
“But you don’t need to hear this now. Why can’t I tell you when you are better? This is just upsetting you.”
“I want to hear it now.” He fixed her with an intense stare, so she kept going.
“He grabbed my hair and twisted it around his hand pulling me around the SUV to the driver’s side. When we passed, he kicked you in the back. I started to cry and begged him not to hurt you anymore. He hit me in the face again and told me to shut up. He made me pop the latch for the trunk and pulled me back to it. Then he opened it and pushed me in, and that was when he pulled the gun out from his pocket. He stuck it in my mouth and told me that he was going to blow my brains out but not before he fucked me first.”
Ava hesitated but the look on Xander’s face told her to continue with her story.
“He had a roll of duct tape in his other pocket. He told me to hold out my hands, and he wrapped the tape around them. Then he put another piece on my mouth. He said he didn’t want to hear me crying anymore, and I better stop, or he would shoot you. He punched me this time, and my nose started to bleed even harder. I was upset because it was dripping onto my dress. Can you imagine that? How stupid was I? All that was going on around me and that made me most upset.”
She put her face in her hands and shook her head. Xander felt helpless because he couldn’t go to her to give her comfort.
“Sweetheart, don’t do this to yourself. We do those kinds of things to escape the horror around us. You were out of your mind with fear. Please, I need to hear the rest.”
Ava didn’t want to tell him the rest because it was revolting. She turned away from him and told him the last bit.
“He climbed up on the tailgate and put his hands under my dress. He pulled my panties so hard that the band broke. He put them in his pocket and was touching me…”
Xander clenched his fists so tightly that his sore knuckles were aching, “Go on.”
“Then thank God you started to wake up, and he jumped out of the SUV. I know he would have raped me if you hadn’t woken up. I could feel him pressed against me, and he was…hard.”
If not for his physical condition Xander would have punched something. He was more than angry. He was full of rage. That bastard put his hands on the most intimate of places on Ava.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t want him to touch me. I begged him not to touch me,” she whimpered. “Thank you for telling me sweetheart. You did what you had to do to survive. I would never fault you for that.”
Ava lay back in her bed and turned her back to Xander. She felt dirty and cheap even though Xander was right. Liam would have killed her if she didn’t comply with what he wanted. She felt like she had cheated on Xander. She fell into a restless sleep.
Xander lay in his bed staring at the ceiling. He touched her was all he kept thinking. Besides the physical scars Liam had put upon her, now he added to her growing list of psychological scars. The physical scars would heal, the psychological scars might not. Ava was sensitive and still held tight to the devastating incident from years ago. Would she hold on to this horrible one, too? Time would only tell.
Chapter 23
Ava was released from the hospital the next day and Xander the day after that. Both would be out of work for the next week and apart. Xander stayed with his parents, and his mother t
ended to him; Ava stayed at her apartment, and her father took care of her. When Jason needed to step away, he made sure that one of her cousins, aunt or uncle was with her.
Ava had a few nightmares during the following days after the assault. Her father always calmed her as he had when she was a child. But she missed Xander terribly. She had spent so much time with him almost every day that being apart was causing her more misery than the physical or emotional hurt that she endured. She constantly wore the ring he gave her, not even taking it off to shower or sleep (which she usually did). She even moved it to her left hand as if it were her wedding ring. The swelling had gone down in her cheek, and the doctor had assured her that the cut would not leave a scar. The dress she wore that night became evidence and to her embarrassment, they had her panties, too. They had found them in Liam’s jacket pocket when they arrested him.
Her father made frequent trips to the offices of Keene, Ashburn, and Wilder. He, Peter, Daniel, and Brian all had convened in the conference room to discuss the case. They had all spoken with the District Attorney, who had requested a denial of bail for Liam and the judge granted. Liam’s sister and parents had both washed their hands of him, so he had nowhere to go.
When Ava heard the news, she breathed a sigh of relief. Though she wasn’t an attorney, she had been around the law her entire life. She knew that criminals could slip through the cracks. At least she had a whole law firm behind her and Xander who would press for information on the case. Liam wasn’t going to get away with this.
Xander lay in the guest room at his parent’s apartment feeling miserable and lonely. He had gotten home three days ago and except for some TV, he spent most of the time sleeping. The ribs that were injured had caused him a lot of pain, and he was not able to sleep without taking the painkillers the doctor had prescribed. The gunshot wound to his arm was healing well. His mother changed the bandage each day. She waited on him hand and foot.
His sister, Suzanne came to visit him, and even Lidia came from California when she heard what had happened. He was happy to see them, but it didn’t take the place of Ava. He missed everything about her. Her intelligence, her soft skin, her beauty, her laugh, her smell. He even missed the things that she did that drove him crazy. Most of all, he missed holding her in his arms. Though his body was broken, being away from her was the worst part. He had awakened several times over the past few days to find her not in bed next to him. It took him a few minutes to realize why. He had too much time to think, and though he tried to keep it away, his mind drifted to the intervening minutes before he woke up after Liam had knocked him unconscious. The terror that Ava must have felt. It ate at him endlessly that he had not been able to protect her.
