Finally, we reach our stop, and while we wait for the doors to open, she looks at me. There is that punch of connection between us and I see it register in her face. Neither of us were looking for this, but it’s here, it’s happening, and I’m damn sure not letting us walk away from it for some asshole who didn’t deserve her. We exit the car and head toward the street and once we’re there, we don’t speak but there is a distinct crackle of tension between us, an explosion that is just waiting to erupt.
We reach her apartment when the sun is setting, and when Sierra punches in the code, my spidey senses go off right about the time there is a flash in my peripheral vision. I turn and find nothing, no one, except an old lady with a walker talking to an old man. I’d say that flash was my imagination, but I’m not one to see or feel things that don’t exist. And those spidey senses of mine don’t want to be ignored, but I’ve never been quite so ready to face an enemy and end them as I am the man in Sierra’s life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Asher
Sierra opens the door to her building and we enter the lower level foyer, which is basically a box leading to a stairwell. The door shuts behind me, sealing us inside, and I refocus any concern I have for what, or who, might have been outside following us, to who, or what, might be inside waiting on us and for good reasons. I don’t like this building or this neighborhood, I’m chasing a serial killer who likes women who look like Sierra, and she’s got a crazy ex who’s basically an unknown to me.
She heads up the stairs, with me closely following, and when we reach the last flight of stairs, I catch her hand. “Let me go first.”
She turns to face me. “Why? Did I miss something? Did you see something?”
“No, sweetheart. Hero complex remember? Just being a macho ass who needs to save the world and you. And I figured you might want to look at my ass again.”
She ignores my joke, as if it wasn’t as amusing as it was. “Are you armed?”
“Yes,” I say. “Does that make you feel better?”
“Since you seem worried about what’s upstairs, yes. I didn’t bring the mace on my outing. I brought you.”
“And I’m better than mace. I’ve got you covered and later you can feel around and figure out where I hide that weapon.” I kiss her temple, and move in front of her, beginning the walk up the next flight of stairs. The steps are long and ridiculously narrow, but it’s not long until I silently declare the foyer between her apartment and one other safe and empty.
I take the bag Sierra is holding and step to the side of her door, giving her room to approach her apartment and unlock the door, but that’s not what happens. Instead, she flattens against it and looks up at me. “You aren’t coming in with me.”
“That’s a cock block if I ever heard one,” I say. “I’m here. We’re here.”
“Thank you for today. Thank you for everything, but you aren’t coming inside with me.”
I set the bags down and step closer to her, pressing my hands to the door above her head. “Sierra.”
“Don’t say my name all low and rough like that. Like I’m your woman. I’m not.”
“And if I want you to be?”
“You just met me.”
“And I’ve never wanted to know a woman like I want to know you,” I say, speaking a truth I don’t even try to understand. It just is what it is.
“I’m married, Asher. What part of that do you not understand?”
“Let’s go inside. I don’t want your neighbor listening in.”
“She barely speaks English and sleeps all day. She dances at some topless bar, which I know because she offered to get me a job. I’m married, Asher. I can’t change that. I wish I could. I so wish that I could, but he will kill me before he divorces me. So, I can’t ever be free.”
“I’m crystal clear on your marital status and while no, I do not fuck, love, play with, or engage with married women, this is not cheating. You’ve been separated nine months while the man hunts you like an animal and it’s time I hunt him.”
“See,” she says, poking my chest. “That’s why we’re over.”
“Because you think I can’t beat him when I can?”
“Because,” she clutches my shirt again, “I’m saving your macho hero-complex-ass from getting killed.”
I cover her hand with mine. “I know you think he’s dangerous.”
“I don’t think. I know. I’m not emotional. I’m not irrational. I’m not damaged. He doesn’t get to do that to me. And you don’t get to downplay my intelligence.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Sierra,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be an arrogant prick. I’m just wading through the swampland here with you.”
“Are you sorry enough to hear me and believe me?”
“I heard you. I believe you, but—”
“No buts,” she bites out angrily and exhales, lowering her voice to calm again. “I’m rational, Asher, and I’m a smart person. I’ve stayed alive nine months that most people would not have survived, considering who he is and the connections he has. This isn’t a man who wants to bring me back home. He wants me dead.”
“Why?” I ask, assuming this is one of those me-or-nobody kind of crazy fuckers.
“I found out things about him and other very powerful people.”
That wasn’t the answer I expected. “What things?” I ask. “What people?”
“Go home, Asher.”
I shackle her hip and walk her to me. “Let me be clear. I could have already run your fingerprints. I could have already looked into who you are, and based on what you’re telling me, I’m going to. I have no choice.”
“He has red flags set up. He found me in Texas and I did everything right. Almost everything right. That’s another story. The bottom line though is that I barely escaped. The minute you dig around, he will come for me. And if he finds out that I’m with you, or your people, he’ll kill us all. He’ll make it look like a robbery or a terrorist attack, but he will kill us. He knows how to do it and survive it.”
Holy fuck, I think. I believe her. “We have people high up in all of the agencies and in the government.”
“Which means you could have people who are corrupted by his people,” she counters.
“No one on our team is corruptible. I believe that one hundred percent.”
“I thought that, too. I thought there were people I could trust. I can’t take that chance again with your people. And neither can you. You need to forget you ever met me.”
“I know you need time to trust me, Sierra. We’ll find a path to get there.”
“I already trust you, Asher. Maybe beyond reason but I do. It’s not about you.”
“Then give me time. Give me two weeks, until the baby shower, to show you my inner circle is trustworthy. Let me show you that we will keep this in that circle and find a way to take this guy down.”
“Whatever you think I mean by that, you aren’t thinking big enough. This runs too deep, too high for even you and Walker Security.”
“If that’s true, which I doubt, there are other options besides this damn apartment and that bar.” I cup her face and stroke her cheek. “Let’s go inside, sweetheart. This is not a conversation we should be having in the hallway.”
Her lashes lower, dark circles on pale, creamy skin, torment in her expression before she turns to the door and flattens her hands on the wood. “Oh no,” she whispers, before turning around. “I lost my key. Please tell me you really did keep a key.”
“I did not.”
“I never do stupid stuff like this. You’re distracting me. You’re making me crazy.”
“As far as I’m concerned,” I say, “it’s fate. Now you have to come home with me.” I settle my hands on her waist. “Let’s go to my place. I want you there. I want you in my bed, Sierra.”
“You know—”
“I heard everything you said.”
/>
“What little I have to my name is in this apartment.”
“I can get you back in, but I don’t have time tonight. I have to meet with my team before we head to the bar.”
“It’ll be like four in the morning when we get back here.”
“I’ll get you in tomorrow, after we sleep. I have to focus on the reasons I’m at the bar with no time distractions.” I cup her face. “I’m of the opinion we should just fuck and get past any barrier your fuckhead ex puts between us. But I have a spare bedroom. I want you with me, but I’m not going to pressure you.”
“He’ll kill me before he’ll let me divorce him. You get that right?”
“The only one that’s going to end up dead is him, Sierra. That’s a promise.”
“That’s the problem,” she says. “He won’t stop coming for me until I’m dead or he is.”
“Then he gets to die.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sierra
We’re still standing at my apartment door when Asher pulls out his phone. “I’ll get us an Uber,” he says, pulling up the app.
I watch him keying information into his phone, while I question myself instead of calling the thrift store to see if they found my key. What am I doing? I can’t involve him in this. I should be taking what money I have left and getting on a bus, running again, hiding. Keeping everyone but myself out of harm’s way.
“Done,” he says, sticking his phone in his pocket. “We’ll have a ride in about ten minutes. We can wait at the door downstairs.”
I nod and both of us latch on to one of my bags, but I drop mine again. “I can’t do this. You don’t deserve to get pulled under with me. I won’t do this to you.”
“Sweetheart, you already pulled me under and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m not talking about whatever this is happening between us and you know it.”
He sets his bag down again, closing the small space between us, and cups my face. “Fate, sweetheart. The way we met. The locked door. You belong with me.”
“Fate isn’t always good.”
“Mark my word, and my word is golden. It’s good for us and bad for that prick chasing you. Come home with me.”
“Asher.” I breathe out, a knot of emotion in my chest.
“I’m his worst nightmare, sweetheart. Let’s get out of here.”
I inhale a breath and let it out, tormented with this decision, but my gut says to stay with Asher. “Yes,” I say, praying that it’s the right choice.
He takes my hand and kisses it. “It’s the right decision.” He grabs both bags this time with one hand. “I’ll go first again.”
Shielding me, I think. That’s what he does. He protects people. He has honor. I follow him down the stairs, with the understanding that he is so much more than tattoos and muscles, and even brains and a sense of humor. He’s a man of honor who makes life choices based on that honor. A man who would die to save a life, while Devin is a man who would kill to save his own. Asher is like no one I have ever known. I like him. I could maybe really like him and yet, I’ll never be free. Ever. Ever.
We reach the small foyer inside the apartment building and Asher catches my hand, leading me to the door, where he pauses to eye the street. “Our car’s already here,” he says, opening the door.
He exits first again, guiding me forward and keeping me tightly positioned at his side, his hand settling possessively, protectively, at my back. We walk toward a black sedan, and I sense his protectiveness. He heard me. He knows how dangerous The Beast is now. Maybe his awareness is why I don’t have that sense of being watched I’d had earlier. Maybe that feeling was paranoia, which at the moment is consumed by how big Asher has suddenly become in my life. Asher holds the door for me and I slide into the back seat. He joins me, sliding in close, me on one side of him, the bags on the other.
His hand comes down on my leg, possessive again, and in a way his touch had not been before our conversation upstairs, and I feel that touch radiating up my leg and through my body. He confirms the driver knows where he’s going, and finally we’re in motion, headed toward his apartment. We don’t speak or even look at each other right then, but there is a shift in the air between us, as if my confessions have torn down a wall instead of placed one between us as I’d feared. We’re combustible together, and I’m not sure where that leads. I was arm candy to Devin, a possession he used to soften his image. What am I to Asher? Sex? A challenge? Duty? That’s all I can be at this point. I have no right to ever ask for more.
I press my hand to his and I don’t even know why. Control, I think. I need to control where this thing between us leads. He looks over at me and without moving my hand, laces our fingers together. “Stop,” he says softly.
“Stop what?”
“Thinking whatever you’re thinking.”
I don’t know how this man reads me this well, but then, reading people is part of his job. What I used to do in a different setting, only he does it to survive and save lives. Still, I ask, because I need to know, “How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“You have the same look you had right before you bolted at lunch.”
“I’m not going to bolt.” I hope, I add silently. Running is old.
His phone buzzes with a text and he leans in and kisses me before pulling it from his pocket. I like that he does this. I like how it makes me feel, how present he is with me. He reads the message, frowns, and types a reply.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He types another message and then looks at me. “Something is off with Blake. I just texted his wife to ask what the hell is going on.”
My unease is instant. “What do you mean by ‘off’?”
He squeezes my leg. “Don’t read into that. It has nothing to do with you, and if I thought it did, I’d tell you. Blake is a good man who has a hatred of disloyal, corrupt people. I promise you, he’s the last person you have to worry about. Okay?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“He’s just cranky and unreasonable,” he adds, as if I’ve asked. “That’s not like him. I noticed it last night at the office.”
“Is the job going badly?”
“It’s not going well, but he rolls with that shit all the time. It’s something else. Something’s wrong and you don’t even want someone on a job with you that isn’t one hundred percent, even if they’re the boss.”
His phone buzzes again and he looks at the message. “Okay,” he murmurs, his lips thinning. “Well, fuck.” He surprises me by showing me the message that reads: Five-year anniversary of Whitney’s murder.
Murder.
I hate that word.
“Who’s Whitney?” I ask.
“His late-fiancée, and any further details are not for this car. But holy hell, Royce is losing his mind over Lauren’s pregnancy and now this with Blake.”
“Why is Royce losing his mind? Was the pregnancy a surprise?”
“No. He and Lauren have been trying to start a family for a while now. She’s miscarried twice.”
“Oh well, that explains it completely.”
“It leaves me with Luke, the one sane brother out of the three of them right now.” He leans in and whispers, “I’m either going to have to drink or fuck a hell of a lot to survive this.”
My cheeks heat and I squeeze his fingers. “You’re bad.”
A low, rough laugh rumbles from that broad chest of his. “You’ll like how bad, I promise.” I never get the chance to respond. He sits up and taps the driver’s seat. “This is it.”
I glance out of the window to discover a red stone building in what looks like the Battery Park area, which makes sense. Asher said this is where he runs. It’s also one of my favorite parts of the city, where a short walk allows you to watch the ocean crashing against a man-made shore lined with sidewalks and restaurants. Asher hands the driver a twenty-dollar tip and exits the car, with the bags in one hand again, before offering me his hand. “Y
ou live here?” I ask, scanning what is about a twenty-story half-moon-shaped building that I suspect frames part of the park.
“I do,” he says as we walk toward the door. “My first contract job out of the SEALs was a job from hell that almost got me killed, but it paid for the down payment.”
“One job paid your down payment in this building?”
“Not all jobs pay that well,” he says, waving to the doorman as we enter the lobby with floors in gray and brown marble, chandeliers and towering high ceilings.
I glance up at him. “Am I allowed to ask what the job was? Or is that top secret?”
“A billionaire’s daughter was kidnapped by a Mexican cartel and held for ransom. Blake and I had both done work in Mexico, so we teamed up and went in and got her.” He motions to the security desk and we stop at the counter, where a tall, black man in a blue jacket greets us. “David, meet—”
“Kelli,” Sierra supplies, obviously using a fake name. “Nice to meet you.”
“Kelli can come and go as she pleases,” I continue, following her lead. “And no. She doesn’t have her ID. Her purse was stolen, but I need her on the approved list anyway.”
He glances over at me. “I need a last name.”
“Vincent,” I say, which is, of course, a lie.
He has me sign a form and Asher slides his arm around my neck and pulls me close as we walk toward the elevator. “Is Sierra your real name?”
“Yes,” I say, “but my apartment lease says Kelli, but I stupidly let my real name slip to the bar manager. And then I needed the job too much to turn back.”
We stop at the elevator and he punches the call button. “Did you fill out any paperwork at all?”
“None,” I say, “which is why I figured I could play it off and tell the manager he confused me with someone else tonight.”
“Yes,” he says. “Become Kelli.”