After sliding off the safety, I flip onto my back, aim Asher’s gun in the direction I just sprinted from, shut my eyes, then fire—continuously. The noise of a semi-automatic weapon discharging on repeat is near-deafening, even more so when it’s added to the stomping of feet.
Thank god Asher’s men have arrived, because I’m almost out of bullets.
With my heart in my throat, my eyes flutter open. Vaughn is still standing. I don’t know how. He has three bullet holes in his chest. . . and a sneer that reveals he’s nothing like the little boy I remember from before I was locked in my ivory tower. It’s fortified with darkness and opens a floodgate of memories.
The smile he’s wearing, the sick, sadistic one, it’s the same one he wore when he tripped me all those years ago. He’s surrounded by a dozen men ready to kill him, yet he feels no fear. If that doesn’t reveal he didn’t turn evil, he was born this way, nothing will.
His smugness doubles when I line up Asher’s gun to the scowl creasing his forehead. He doesn’t think I have the guts to take him down. I’m not as inclined to believe him. He killed Asher, the only man I’ve ever loved. This is letting him off easy.
Just as my finger starts to yank back the trigger, a cold, sweaty hand darts out to snatch my wrist. I nearly retaliate, until I recognize the frantic quiver of his pulse. I know that rhythm. I’ve heard it under my ear, felt it ghosting over me during intimate activities. I’ve even felt it raging through my body when he weakens my pulse by clutching my throat.
It belongs to Asher.
Chapter 32
Asher
Footsteps thumping against the tiled floor add to the pounding of my skull, and my vision is nothing but a blur of colors, but she is right in front of me, as bright and as courageous as ever.
My Little Mouse isn’t as meek and as timid as her nickname suggests. She has my gun braced in front of her, her sight lined up. She’s ready to kill for me, to protect me from anyone who dares to harm me.
Now I must do the same for her.
My hand darts out with only a second to spare. Zariah has the trigger compressed to the halfway mark. One minor move, and she’ll pop a bullet between her baby brother’s eyes. I should let her do it. I should let her kill him. But that would make me a monster.
Trust me when I say you never forget your first kill. It doesn’t matter if they’re the equivalent of sludge on the bottom of the ocean, if you end a life, the death stays with you for eternity.
I don’t want that for Zariah. I don’t want Vaughn’s eyes to be the last thing she sees every night before she goes to sleep, or the first thing she thinks of when she wakes. There’s only one person I want occupying her thoughts. That person is me.
A mangled groan tears from Zariah’s throat when her neck cranks my way. I can barely see through the blackness swamping me, but there’s no way I can miss the sheer relief in her eyes when they land on mine. I’ve been shot, drugged withwho fucking knows what, but I’m alive, and that’s all that matters.
“Asher!”
I shouldn’t laugh when she leaps into my arms. It’ll have my men thinking I am a madman. I am, but I’d rather it not be circulated by anyone but the men I’m hunting.
“Shh, Little Mouse. You’re okay. I’ll never let anyone hurt you.” My voice sounds weird even to me.
After tugging Zariah close, I scoot back, narrowly avoiding the person’s neck I snapped a mere second before I fell into unconsciousness. Zariah adjusts her head until her ear sits directly above my heart when an unknown brunette’s lifeless eyes stare up at her. She is as unsurprised as I am that I killed a woman.
Who feels remorse when you’re protecting the one you love?
Zariah counts the beats of my heart, letting them drown out a command she knows I have to give. “Take care of it.”
Usually, not even a bullet wound or veins laced with drugs would stop me from executing revenge, but I’ve got more important matters to take care of. The foremost is keeping the silent promise I made to Zariah when she took it upon herself to protect me.
Once my men are done with Vaughn, he’ll have no chance of hurting Zariah—physically. That doesn’t extend to mental capabilities. I want to be the man Zariah seeks comfort from on both bad and good days. The one she’ll forever look at with love in her eyes. I can’t achieve that by causing her pain. Knowing I killed her brother will cause her pain. For that alone, I’ll step back and let my men do the job I pay them to do.
Zariah’s welfare is more important to me than anything. Drugs. Money. Power. None of it matters when my Little Mouse is safe and in my arms.
Epilogue
Asher
Six months later. . .
“You can’t be in here. It’s bad luck.”
My mom whacks me in the arm with her purse, but even she knows she doesn’t have the authority to throw me out. This is my house. My rules. My soon-to-be-wife she’s hogging. I’m not a patient man, so there’s no way in hell I’m waiting for Zariah to walk past all our guests before seeing what she looks like in the one-of-a-kind dress Roderick crafted for her. I’ve always wanted to be Zariah’s first, so it’s not only right I see her in her wedding dress before anyone else, I must also dress her in it.
