Chapter 11

<Gavin Forrester>

I call Ainsley in frustration since I can't find her address. She picks up after a few rings and I immediately begin talking.

"Tell me how to get to your house from the jewelry store." I mutter as I turn the key in the ignition and pull out of my park in front of the store.

"Go straight down the main road until you reach the Caribbean Grill then turn left. My house is the third one on your right." Ainsley says distractedly.

"Is he still there?" I ask as I begin driving.

"Yes, I don't even know why he's coming to talk to me. He just walked into my house and said that he needed to talk to me about something. It's creepy, he hasn't really said a thing though since he came through my door. Do you think Talon told him about me or something?" She sounds petrified from the other end of the phone.

"No, Talon isn't that stupid. Grayson doesn't know you have Victoria, right?" I turn down her street and pull up in front of the third house on the right.

"He doesn't; I put her in the back bedroom and closed the door. Don't worry; I made sure to do everything to keep her from choking and dying when she wakes up. Her hangover is going to be killer tomorrow." Ainsley chuckles a little and I hear her shift around, probably to keep our conversation private from the chief.

"Joyous. I'm right outside; open the door and don't let the chief leave."

"I can't believe you're going to confront him. You're an idiot." Ainsley sighs. "I'll open the door."

I hang up the phone and get out of the car, making sure to lock it in the process. I walk up the front steps to a modest townhome with a small garden out front and a polished wooden door. I watch the knob turn and there's Ainsley standing in the doorway wearing a leather jumpsuit and a pair of red heels. Her hair is messy and she's wearing dark make-up.

"What are you all dressed up for?" I raise an eyebrow at her and smirk.

"We have bigger problems than that." Ainsley rolls her eyes and lets me in.

I walk over the threshold and she slams the door behind me, locking it up tight. Chief Grayson is seated on the couch with a glass of water in his hand. He has no escort; it's just him alone which makes me even more suspicious. I plop down on the chair facing him and don't say anything.

"You're Gavin Forrester." Grayson points at me and narrows his gray eyes.

"And you're Edward Grayson. I'm glad we're now acquainted." I cross my arms and glare at him, the low lighting in Ainsley's living room backlighting my angry expression.

"You're supposed to be in jail." He chuckles and leans back on the couch.

"And you're supposed to be taking down Talon but that seemed to be the last thing on your mind when you bought a few grams from him." I mirror his expression and lean back in my chair.

"There is too much testosterone in this room. I'm going to go get some water. Can I get you anything, Gavin?" Ainsley taps me on the shoulder and waits from my response.

"Nothing, thank you." I say through tight lips.

Ainsley nods and leaves the room. I turn back to face a smug looking Edward Grayson.

"You can't prove it. You can't prove that I bought anything from that bastard." He chuckles, an obvious attempt to get on my nerves.

"I have pictures, enough to get you put in jail unless you have some sort of explanation for them that could clear this all up..." I give him a hopeful look before changing back over to one of indifference.

"I know you have my daughter. I know she ran off with you. I don't know what the hell she sees in you but she's in love; that much I can tell. She may not be biologically mine but I raised that kid and I love her, more than you could ever know." Grayson snarls and leans forward to make himself closer to me.

"Then why were you buying crack from the man who wants her dead?" I ask in a serious tone.

"Gavin, I don't want to put you behind bars; I honestly couldn't care less. Talon is a despicable man and he deserved what you gave him and more but what I do care about is Victoria. I want her to come home, I don't want her to be around criminals all of the time and I don't want her to constantly be worrying about Talon..." I hold up my hand to stop Chief Grayson from continuing.

"You didn't answer my question. I asked you why you were buying crack from Talon Tenebris." I cross my arms and await his response.

"I came here looking for Victoria. I convinced Talon that I wanted in on his little business and he believed me. I only did that because I had a hunch that he knew where my daughter was. I could feel it; I wish I didn't have to do it that way but I was desperate. Nobody knew where she was and I had to find her; she's all I have left to love in this world." Edward Grayson brushes a few tears away from his eyes as he looks at me pleadingly.

"You came here looking for Victoria and you ended up working for Talon." I say as if I'm trying out the words on my tongue for the first time.

"Gavin, I swear I won't put you behind bars but please give me my daughter back. She's all I came here for and then I'll leave you alone. I will give you your freedom for free, no questions asked."

"Freedom isn't worth anything if it's free and Mr. Grayson, I have seen too many cops go bad in my life to let you do that to yourself. You love the law; I mean otherwise you wouldn't've made a career out of it and I refuse to let you go bad because of me or Talon Tenebris. There are few things of value in this world but honesty and integrity rank in spots number one and two. We are nothing if we don't keep our word." I stand up and look down on him.

"What do you want me to do? Arrest you? I can slap the handcuffs on you right now." Chief Grayson stands up, a smile playing on his lips.

"I don't really know what I want you to do right now. But I know that I don't want you to take Victoria away from me. Sir, I love your daughter with all of my heart and I'd never do anything to harm her. I know you don't know me at all but your daughter is my world and..." I try to continue but Chief Grayson stops me.

"I know. Victoria has told me all about you. She's been sending me letters this whole time, no return address of course and she's mentioned a young man many times. Victoria is truly in love with you, Gavin but this lifestyle isn't for her. You know it, I know it; the whole damn world knows it. Do you really want to put her in danger? Don't you want her to be safe?" Chief Grayson tilts his head and waits for my response.

"There's nothing I want more in the world but I need to ask you something, sir." I cross my arms and harden my expression.

He gestures for me to continue and I do.

"Sir, if she had run away with anyone else, would you have gone to such great lengths?"

"I would do anything to get my little girl back." He answers almost immediately. "If she can't count on her father than who can she count on?"

The thought that this runaway plan had put him through hell never really crossed my mind until right in this moment.

"Then I guess it would only be right to let you have her back..." I mutter hesitantly.

"Gavin, don't you dare give her up that easily." I whip my head around and find Ainsley standing in the doorway between her kitchen and the living room, a bottle of whiskey clutched in her right hand.

"It'd be selfish to keep her here," I say, now more confused than ever.

"Mr. Grayson, sir, I know Gavin is a shady son of a gun but I have never seen someone who loves a girl as much as Gavin loves Victoria. You can't separate them; she'll just come back and try to find him. I think that would be more dangerous than leaving her here." Ainsley makes eye contact with the chief and confidently holds the stare.

"Talon Tenebris and his cronies are here, literally an hour's drive away from where you are staying. I don't like her being in this much danger. I respect that you love her but she is my child and I want to know that she's safe." Grayson crosses his arms and sets his jaw in anger.

"Sir, maybe it's time to let her make her own choices." Ainsley pipes in as she walks towards the both of us.

"I lost my wife, I lost my daughter and the man who wants her dead has her exactly where he wants her. Gavin, if nothing else, you guys need to go to a new place."

"I can't make her start over without a damn good reason. I've already made her start over before and Chief Grayson, Talon's men are everywhere. There is nowhere safe for us to run to." I bite my lip and narrow my eyes at him.

"So, what is there left for us to do? I can't let anything happen to her; she's all I have left, Gavin." Chief Grayson breaks down and sits on the couch again, a hopeless expression implanted in his eyes.

"I swear on my own life, I won't let any harm come to your daughter." I sit down next to him and give him a sincere look.

"Gavin, you owe me an explanation. I am not working with the cops anymore. I came down here on my own free will and I went to Talon in a moment of desperate weakness. I actually resigned from my job because I wanted my priority to be finding Victoria. I've hit every dead end possible and I just want to know what my daughter is doing, and how she is doing. Please just tell me what happened, everything." Mr. Grayson lets out a deep breath and leans back on the couch cushions, his eyes closing as he does so.

"How do I know I can trust you? How do I know you're not working undercover?" I ask suspiciously but even I know the answer to that.

"There's a big ass warrant from the FBI out for your arrest; I would've cuffed you the minute you walked through the door if I was working with the cops still." He chuckles and then goes dead silent.

"I guess I should start from when I first met Victoria. I worked for Talon but for real and I'm not proud of that. He gave me an assignment which was to murder your daughter. I knew from the minute I met her, I'd never be able to hurt her in any way. She was getting drunk because of Carter and we kind of bonded I guess. We kept going out and then we fell in love. The night she got stabbed, I realized I had to take Talon out and that's why I shot him and your wife. He's the most despicable person on the face of this planet and your wife wanted to help him kill her own daughter. I can't stand people like that and I'm sorry that I didn't finish the job."

I'm about to continue when Mr. Grayson interrupts me.

"Your assignment was to murder my daughter?" He looks surprised but not fazed.

"Regrettably but I was never going to do it. I would've killed myself before even thinking of putting a bullet through her." I maintain eye contact with him and set my jaw in determination.

"And my wife wanted to kill my daughter?" Grayson looks completely crestfallen.

"Unfortunately."

"Why didn't you put the bullet right through her cold, dead heart?" Chief Grayson's face contorts in anger as he stares at me.

"Sir, I didn't want to kill her. My target was Talon but she would not leave and I wasn't going anywhere until Talon was back in hell where he belonged."

"Then why didn't you? Why didn't you kill him while you had the perfect opportunity? Why did you let him go free?" Chief Grayson calms down and leans back on the sofa again.

"I didn't want to lose Victoria and I knew if I actually killed them then I'd be in prison for the rest of my life."

"Gavin, you are an idiot. If I were you I would've taken the shot and asked questions later." Chief Grayson gives me a pointed look and waits for me to answer.

"But see that's the problem; that's what Talon taught me to do. He taught me to shoot and think about consequences later. I didn't want to be that person anymore; I wanted to be better, for your daughter mostly. I wanted her to know that she changed me." I let out a small breath that I didn't know I was holding in.

"Gavin, I'm glad Victoria has someone like you looking out for her." Chief Grayson admits honestly.

"She's the only one I want for the rest of my life, sir. I can't imagine being with any other girl." I begin to ramble but the chief puts his hand up to stop me.

"You don't need to explain yourself further, Gavin. I'm glad she has someone like you protecting her but I think it's time for her to come home. Let me fix things for you; I will negotiate with whoever I have to so you can return to New York and be with my daughter. I want nothing more than for her to be happy but I have to think about her safety before anything else and this island isn't safe." Chief Grayson doesn't meet my eyes anymore; instead, he looks down ashamedly at his lap.

"I understand, you don't want your daughter fraternizing with my kind." I clench my fists and glare at him.

"No, I don't even care about your past life; you are a good man who did some terrible things and you obviously care deeply for my daughter. I'd never want to take her away from the one man she truly loves, the one she'd give up everything for. However, I don't want the next time I see her to be on her death bed. I need my daughter back, Gavin. I need to know that she's okay." Chief Grayson whispers and gives me a pleading look.

"Dad?" My head turns around so fast that I think I might get whiplash.

There is a very disheveled looking Victoria standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. Her hair is matted and sweaty. Her eyes are bloodshot and her breathing is shaky like she just woke up from her alcohol induced coma. Tears fill her deep brown eyes as she runs towards her father, whose arms are outstretched.

"I'm here, baby, I never left." Chief Grayson whispers in a choked up tone as he holds her close, his fingers running absentmindedly through her hair.

I get up to give them space but before I leave the room, I see Chief Grayson mouth the words 'thank you'. I nod solemnly and follow Ainsley out to her front porch where she sits down and opens up the bottle of whiskey she had in her hands earlier. She takes a long swig and then passes me the bottle. I do the same and then we both lean back and stare at the unobscured night sky, where stars dot every bit of the vast darkness.

"If you love something, sometimes you have to let it go. If it's meant to be there, then it'll come back" Ainsley mutters after a few minutes of silence and a few more swigs.

"And sometimes you have to hold onto it until you're sure it'll come back." My hands reach for the bottle but Ainsley expertly keeps it out of reach.

"There's no way in hell Victoria wouldn't come back for you." Ainsley smirks and tries to hold the bottle over my head.

"Then why do I have to let her go?" I wink and grab the bottle, a sense of drunken satisfaction washing over me.

I tip the bottle back to my lips and lay down on Ainsley's front porch.

"Touché; now give me that back. Getting drunk until you pass out will solve none of your problems, Gavin." Ainsley lunges for the bottle but misses and almost slaps my face.

"It'll take a lot more than this to get me drunk, love." I wiggle my eyebrows and bring the bottle to my lips once again.

"You sound like a greasy pirate from some low budget movie." Ainsley scoffs and sits up straight, twisting a piece of hair around her finger as she does so.

"That's actually one of the better things I've been called, surprisingly." A small laugh escapes my lips and then it turns into full-blown hysteria.

"You're more drunk than you thought, Mr. Forrester."

"At least I can pretend I don't have problems for a few hours." My shoulders shrug and then I too sit up.

"That's sad; you're a man, you can solve your own damn problems."

"I can but you know what's scary about that?" My body shifts so Ainsley and I are at eye-level of one another.

She gives me an expectant look and crosses her arms.

"There is going to come a day when I'm going to be lost, when I'm not going to be able to solve the problem laid out in front of me. I can't stand the thought of that day and I can't help but feel like that day is coming soon. Everything is over complicated and more problems come up before my brain can solve the previous ones. I don't want to lose everything, Ainsley, because it came down to a decision I couldn't make or a problem I couldn't solve. I can't lose her; she's my world." My eyes blink back a few tears as my lungs expand with the deep breaths entering them.

"Gavin, you have to have faith that everything, soon enough, will turn out for the better. I mean what else can you really do when you feel like your whole world is falling apart?" Ainsley smiles softly and pulls me into a hug.

We sit there on her porch, wrapped in each other's arms and wondering how we'll ever get out of the mess that Talon has created.