Tortured because of me.
What if any of them were next? Or Evie? Or Regan?
We had nowhere safe to go, no way to stay protected or regroup. Once again, I had to sort out my life without a fucking thing to start with besides ash.
I grabbed my helmet and swung onto my bike.
“We find out what the fuck is going on,” I said. “Reach out to anyone you think could know something. Aiden, can you?—”
“Not let Evie out of my sight?” he asked with a smirk. “Yeah, no problem.”
“Thanks. We’re out for blood now,” I said. “So let’s go spill theirs before they spill ours.”
I parked my bike in front of the office building. The ridiculous ways these drug lords didn’t even try to hide anymore made me roll my eyes. A sky-high office building right in the middle of downtown Valeport.
Asher, one of the top four drug suppliers in the city, was nearly a friend now. Or at least as much of a friend that you can call a drug lord when you do business together. I pulled open the glass doors, stepping inside to see the receptionist, who smiled at me.
She was younger, but she didn’t seem worried or scared. Which made me think she had been working here long enough to know the type of people that walked in here.
“How can I help you?” she asked, still smiling.
“I need to see Asher.”
“Don’t we all,” she said with a shake of her head. “Do you have an appointment?”
“Does he even take appointments?” I asked, leaning on the counter. There were plenty of times I would blow past a front desk, or ignore the receptionist to get to the boss, but not here. I wouldn’t fuck with Asher or the security setups he had in place. I would be dead before I made it through the door.
The receptionist was laughing now, clicking at her computer. “Not really, but I still like to ask. Let me see if he’s in. Your name?”
“Rook. And it’s urgent.”
She picked up the phone, whispering into it before hanging up with a smile. “Apparently, he was expecting you to come by at some point. You can go up.”
I didn’t say a word, pushing past through several doors and one ridiculously long elevator ride before I stepped into Asher’s office.
Asher glanced up from his desk. The suit and tie he was in almost made me laugh.
“Such a proper businessman now. This is nothing like the shit warehouse you used to work out of in jeans and an old t-shirt.”
He smirked, leaning back in his chair. “Really moved up in life, didn’t I? Business is good and you’ve helped keep it that way.”
“Does this mean you aren’t the one threatening to kill me and my guys?”
His eyebrow cocked. “Your guys? I think you mean your girl, too.”
My blood ran cold, and I fell back into the chair across from them. “Evie, too?”
Asher knew all of us well enough and I knew he still had a thing for Evie. If someone was out to kill her, he wouldn’t be in on it.
“Her, too, but apparently you have a new girl on your bike and people have taken notice. No word on who she is, but there is a price on her head, too. Actually,” he said, clicking open his phone, “it looks like someone will get paid pretty nice if they kill you or you and her, but if they manage to just kill her for now, the price is higher.”
The words took too long to process. Someone wanted me dead, and not only did they want me dead, but they wanted me to suffer first. They wanted Regan killed, and me left alive, probably just long enough for me to suffer before the price on my head went up.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mumbled.
“Who the fuck did you piss off so bad for this?”
“I piss off a lot of people. And with you all continually getting your shit stolen and having me come clean up your mess, the list of people wanting me dead seems to get longer with each job.”
