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Fear.
“What did he find?”
“He wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone, and I didn’t push him because it was something you needed to see yourself.”
Ash stood there for several seconds, thinking, and I could almost see the battle taking place behind his eyes. Part of him wanted to walk away, and pretend none of this existed for one more night, but another part knew that whatever Doryu had uncovered wasn’t going to disappear simply because he refused to look at it.
Finally, he nodded.
“Fine.”
I hesitated. “Fine?”
Ash shot me a look as he started toward the exit. “Don’t make me regret being reasonable.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Yes.”
The faintest twitch touched his mouth before disappearing, and I fell into step beside him without touching him, relieved enough by that tiny response that I nearly missed how tightly he was holding himself together.
Ignatius had taken a suite three floors above ours.
The elevator ride felt considerably longer than it was.
Ash stood beside me with his arms folded carefully around his injured ribs, and the distance between our shoulders might only have been a few inches, but it felt like considerably more.
Doryu opened the door before I’d finished knocking, and whatever greeting he’d been about to offer disappeared when he saw Ash.
Ignatius stood near the windows with his jacket discarded and his sleeves rolled up, while an open laptop sat on the table between them.
Ash’s attention went straight to it. “If this is about my father, I don’t want anyone deciding what I can handle.”
Ignatius regarded him for a moment before nodding. “Fair enough.”
Doryu moved around the table but stopped well short of Ash. “I owe you an apology. I started looking without your permission.”
Ash’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t interrupt.
Doryu didn’t rush to defend himself. He explained that he’d heard enough of the phone call to know somebody was threatening Ash and using me to do it. He’d made the decision to investigate, and whether his reasons had been good or not, Ash had every right to be angry about the way he’d done it.
Some of the tension left Ash’s shoulders.
Not much.
Enough.
“What did you find?”
Doryu looked toward the laptop, and when he answered, his voice had lost its usual casual edge. “I found the video.”
Ash recoiled as though he’d been struck. And I almost reached for him.
Almost.
Doryu saw it too and immediately held up a hand. “Not the version your father showed you.”
