When she finished, silence settled between them again for a moment before Ethan finally cleared his throat and spoke.“I can intervene,” he said with a low but audible tone.Axel looked at him at the point like she was confused, trying to figure out where his response was coming from.Ethan sat up in his spot on the couch and spoke a little clearly.“I can intervene with whatever is going on at your place of work… if you want me to, of course,” he added that last part to assure her that there was no pressure.Axel looked up at Ava that was already looking at them at this point, still at the window, and Ethan gently held her cheek, softly directing her eyes back to him.“Don’t worry about Ava, you don’t need her permission for this,” Ethan said, knowing that if Ava gave Axel a single look, Axel will lose every inclination to say yes, so he pulled her eyes down to his to make sure her decision here was her decision fully.“No!” Axel shook her head immediately, removing his hand from her

Axel was still doing the math in her head when she realized that it was going to cost him a lot to acquire the back, not to mention the fact that they had no real reason to sell off the company.The bank had been so optimized that they had barely ever made any losses in the past half decade, so convincing them to sell would be next to impossible.It would involve probably a double payment of what the company is worth.The scale of the cost of such a decision was heavy, and it hit Axel like a delayed shockwave.For a moment, just a brief moment, her mind betrayed her. A thought slipped into her head uninvited, but it felt dangerously warm to think of, and she couldn’t stop the thought.‘Does that mean I matter that much to him?’ she thought to herself as a warm smile began to form on her face.Ava caught the shift with the side of her eyes instantly and scoffed.“Don’t read into it,” she said firmly. “This isn’t romantic.”Axel flushed. “I didn’t…”“You did,” Ava cut in, not giving Ax

“I don’t want to think the worst about what I saw, so my initial assumption was that you got caught in the middle of a shootout,” Ava began, telling him of the exact train of thought she had thought of while they were at Axel’s condo.“I am guessing it was just a ‘wrong place, wrong time’ situation, right?”“I mean, it happens, even in a city as safe as Brighton, bad things still happen. People die like that every day. Your car being armored is probably the only reason you’re alive.”Ethan looked at her for a while, and he was surprised by her assumption.The conversation of ‘what happened to the car?’ was something he was hoping to avoid, because he knew she was not going to let it rest.As much as he was pretty much her boss, she sometimes made it seem like they were on the same level or she was holding more authority than him.She would sometimes talk to him like a friend, and other times, she would scold him like a mother scolding her only child, and this situation was the kind of

Ava pulled away, signalling for him to continue with his analysis.“The money spent on this whole thing is beyond her. And I am not just talking about the bribery cash.”“I am talking of the weapons used, the money she would have to pay the mercenaries for their services and compensate them for the ammo they used. “I mean whoever was behind this was powerful and wealthy enough to afford to have them use an RPG, and she doesn’t strike me as someone that would have been…”Ava froze and stopped listening to Ethan as something caught her attention in his statement just now.“…An RPG?” she replete his words to him and Ethan stopped talking.He swallowed hard, realizing how much he had just exposed himself.Even though he was telling her the truth, he was planning to keep that part out of the discussion, but he got too comfortable and now she knew about the RPG.“…Yes,” Ethan said with a defeated tone.Ava’s jaw dropped.“You were attacked with an RPG?” she whispered.Ethan hesitated but

Hearing Ethan’s explanation, Ava was pretty sure she recognized who the people were that were chasing after him.“Are you sure of that?” Ava edged forward, with an expression mixed with concern and amusement on her face.Ethan only nodded.“That's… That’s rather curious,” Ava said.“Sometimes last year, I heard reports of these groups of mercenaries that were roaming the city like federal agents.”“Apparently, even the police never interfered whenever they were on the street,” Ava said with a look of worry on her face.“If what you saw really happened, then I think those men were a group of mercenaries called…”“... The Three Horsemen,” Ethan finished her statement for her.Her breath caught.“You… You know them?”Ethan nodded.“Well, not exactly. I heard of them. While working in the bar, I overheard some guys talk about them sometimes, so when it happened today, my first thought was that they were the ones in the car.”Ava swallowed hard as she nodded grimly. “They’re among the dea