27. Asher
27
ASHER
The world spun around me as I stared at my dead wife. My dead, but very alive wife. I was just kissing Holly, happy as I’d ever been. We were about to order drinks. The waitress was about to come to the table and take our order. And then she showed up. I caught a glimpse of someone standing behind Holly and had to look, had to make sure there was no threat.
I just hadn’t expected it to be my dead wife.
How the hell was this even possible? I had seen her crash. I held her in my arms after she flew through the windshield after crashing into a tree. Her body was limp and gone. The doctor said she was dead. I held a fucking funeral for her. We buried her.
I gripped the booth behind me as the world spun around me. My heart was beating entirely too fast and I closed my eyes, hoping it would slow down and give me just a fucking minute to think and get my head on straight. But that wasn’t happening and my breaths were coming entirely too fast. I was about to pass out.
I peeled my eyes open and the room swayed before me. Shit. I closed my eyes again, thinking maybe the next time I opened them, she would be gone. I counted to ten and opened one eye. She was still there, and this time, everyone in the restaurant was staring at me.
“You’re dead.”
“I’m not.”
“Clearly,” I croaked out. “You’re standing in front of me.”
What the hell was going on? She didn’t look anything like she did the last time I saw her. She was strong, clean, with no signs of drugs in her system. And then he stepped out from behind her.
Chase .
“You fucker!” I shouted, running straight at him and tackling him into the table behind him. I swung my fist, slamming it into his face over and over again. Screams filled the restaurant and people ran out as I continued to pummel my old teammate, but then I was being pulled off him.
I jerked the hands away, ready to fight whoever was trying to stop me. When I spun around, I growled at Patrick, wondering how much of this he was in on.
“You too?”
“Just listen,” he said, holding his hands up.
“Listen to what? More lies?”
“We didn’t know! Not until she came back, and you weren’t answering your fucking phone,” he argued.
I spun around to face Chase as he stood, wiping the blood from his lip. He nodded in confirmation, glancing at Jade.
I was so fucking confused, but there was one thing that was clear in my head. She was back, and that really fucked up my plans. I was finally happy, and I was still married. My eyes rose to meet Holly’s. I didn’t know what to say, what to do, but I knew I needed her in my arms.
I stalked across the room and took her hand in mine, grabbing her purse. “Let’s go.”
“What?” she asked, surprised by the whole thing.
“We’re leaving.”
“But Asher?—”
I didn’t want to stick around and discuss it right now. I had to get out of here and let it sink in that the woman I was married to was still alive, and that was fucking up my current life. “I need to get out of here,” I said to her. “Are you coming with me?”
“You know I will,” she answered immediately.
That was all I needed. I turned and pulled her toward the door, past Jade and my old teammates, who stared at me in shock. Yes, I was leaving. But what did they expect? Springing Jade on me in a restaurant was not the right way to do this.
“Asher!” Chase called out.
I stopped and glanced over my shoulder.
“Tomorrow.”
I nodded once and then walked out of the restaurant with the only person in the world who mattered right now.
I stormed across the parking lot, feeling the bracelet around Holly’s wrist hit my hand as she rushed to keep up with me. I felt like shit for her having to deal with this. She had to know who that was. I’d told her my wife’s name. She had to be just as shocked as me. Yet, she wasn’t freaking out like I was, but she had every right to. This affected her just as much as me.
As soon as we were to the truck, I backed her up against it and pressed my body to her, kissing her with everything in me. I needed her to know how much I loved her. I didn’t want her to doubt for even a second that my heart was with her. Our situation might be complicated as hell right now, but that didn’t mean I felt anything less for her because Jade was alive.
“Baby,” I whispered. “I love you.”
“I know,” she said breathlessly. “I know.”
“Let’s go home.”
She nodded, not saying anything more. I would give anything to hear those three little words from her right now, but I couldn’t ask her to give me anything right now, not when I’d just flipped her world upside down. I hoisted her into the truck and then took a moment to shake off my nerves before getting in the truck with her. I spied Wyatt walking out with Noelle, but didn’t stop. I needed to get home and talk to Holly.
The whole drive was tense. I knew shit was about to get a lot worse the moment we walked through her door. She would want answers to a lot of things, and my past was about to rear its ugly head. There was no more keeping secrets from her. Everything about me was about to be split wide open for her to see. And if she didn’t like what she saw, this could be the end.
As soon as the door snicked shut when we walked inside, I felt the temperature go up about ten degrees. She tossed her shrug on the couch and started to pace her small living room, shoving her fingers through her hair as she took a deep breath.
“So, that was Jade.”
“Yeah,” I answered, still unable to believe it myself.
She spun to face me. “I’m only going to ask this one time, but I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.” I nodded for her to continue. “Did you know she was alive?”
“No,” I answered calmly. “I buried her. I—” I didn’t even have anything else to say. I didn’t know how to explain it. And until I talked to her, I wouldn’t be able to. But I couldn’t listen to it tonight. It was all too much to take in after years of self-loathing and destruction.
She blew out a breath and rushed forward, wrapping her arms around my waist. “I knew it. The way you reacted, I just knew you had no idea. I’m so sorry.”
“Baby, I’m the one who’s sorry. The way this happened is?—”
“Don’t. That was crappy. I don’t know what happened and I’m not asking for you to be pissed at her. But I’m pissed on your behalf. For her to show up at a restaurant and approach you like that—” Her nostrils flared in anger and she turned away with a muffled scream. “I just want to kill her! I mean, if she hadn’t just come back from the dead. God, that’s a horrible thing to say.”
My lips turned up in a smile. Even at the worst times, this woman could bring a smile to my face. “It’s not horrible. It’s a natural reaction.”
“I know, but—how the hell did this even happen?”
“I have no idea.”
She blew out a breath and sat down with a plop on the couch. “Okay, I think we both know what comes now, Asher.”
I nodded, taking a seat beside her. “Yeah.”
“I need to know. I get that you don’t want to tell me, but?—”
“I’ll tell you. It was wrong of me to keep it from you anyway. But now that she’s alive, it’s gonna come out. It’s all connected to her.”
“In what way?”
Fuck, I really hated dredging up the past, but there was no ignoring it any longer. The old me—all the ugliness that followed after Jade’s supposed death—was all coming roaring back, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
“You know I was in the military.”
“Yes, you told me.”
“When I got out, I worked with Chase and Patrick—the two men you saw tonight. We worked a job for this guy called Rafe, and along the way, we ran into his brother, Cash, though we didn’t know they were brothers at the time. Anyway, we started working for Cash at his protection agency.”
“Wait, protection…like bodyguards?” she asked, her face filled with confusion.
“Yeah.”
“Well, that explains that massive change in your behavior when you saw me being attacked. Honestly, I never saw that side of you before then.”
“That’s because I did my best to leave who I was behind.” I swore, just talking about it left a bad taste in my mouth. “Rafe wanted us for a job—infiltrating part of The Syndicate. It was this massive crime organization.”
“Like the mafia?”
“Think bigger. They had their hands in every piece of the pie and spanned every part of the country with contacts all over the world. I don’t even know the extent because I got out when?—”
“When you thought Jade died.”
I nodded. “It was my job to infiltrate one of the organizations and take over. Rafe already had one picked out for me. I had to kill an arms dealer and take over his business, which I did. And after that, I met Ambrose Buchanan, Jade’s father. He owned the most prestigious banks in the country and used them to launder money for The Syndicate. It was the meeting I needed to secure ties within The Syndicate, but what he wanted from me was help in expanding his territory in The Syndicate, and I would have to prove my loyalty to him by marrying Jade.”
A slight gasp slipped from her lips. “And you agreed to that?”
I shook my head slightly. “I had no idea what I was walking into, and once he made the offer, it was clear the only way I was walking out of there alive was by accepting. It wasn’t something I wanted at all. She absolutely hated me from the moment she saw me.”
“She was there?”
I huffed out a miserable laugh. “Her father dragged her in for me to see. Like that would tempt me in some way. That’s how disgusting that world is. She was nothing but a commodity to him, and he made it damn clear that my life was tied to hers in every way.”
“And that’s how you ended up married to her,” Holly whispered.
My eyes slipped closed as I relived my past. I fucking hated every second of that job. Who I was back then was someone I despised. And now that I was putting it out there, it brought back that itchy feeling under my clothes that made me feel like I needed to shower with a Brillo pad to get the stench off me.
“It was one thing after another on that job. People were constantly trying to kill us. I almost died a few times. I was always terrified Jade was going to be used against me. It was a fucking nightmare, but somewhere along the way, I started to fall for her. It was a relationship built on extremely dangerous circumstances, and if she hadn’t died…I have no idea what would have happened.”
I felt her stiffen beside me. “Meaning, you don’t know if you would still be with her?”
I finally met her eyes and gave her the truth. “Yes.”
“Do you still love her?”
“Part of me will always love her, but it wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t real. If we had met under any other circumstances, I’m not sure we would have looked twice at each other.”
“There was an attraction, Asher. You can’t deny that.”
“No, I can’t,” I said honestly. “But she’s not the one I want to be with.” I took her hand in mine. “Holly, what I have with you is the most real thing I’ve ever had in my life. I have never been so happy in my life as when I’m with you. I need you to know that.”
“I do,” she sighed.
But that wasn’t all. I could feel it. She slowly pulled her hand away.
“But, Asher, it’s all based on a lie.”
“No—”
“Yes. What we have is real, but you hid everything about who you were from me. This was a major part of your life and you just acted like it never happened.”
“Holly—”
She shook her head, standing with a sigh. “I need some time to think about this. It’s a lot to take in. Please believe me, Asher, it’s not that I don’t love you or that I think less of you. But you have a wife who’s back from the dead. You used to be a bodyguard who infiltrated a crime organization,” she said with a laugh. “I can’t even begin to wrap my head around that. I mean…I run a small home shop. I thought you were a mechanic who teased me about my girl measuring and liked to pull on my funny hats. And now I find out you have this whole other life where you apparently kill men to take over for—arms dealers!” she spluttered. “I don’t even know what to do with that!”
She pressed her hand to her forehead, closing her eyes as she took a deep breath. I stood, wishing I could change what was happening. I knew this would be a shock to her. I never wanted her to know about this part of my life for exactly this reason. But maybe this was always meant to happen. Maybe she was right—you couldn’t ever truly escape your past.
“I’ll, uh, head back to my place and give you some space.”
“I think that’s best,” she said quietly.
It fucking killed me to walk away, but what hurt even more was seeing the pain in her eyes because I’d put it there. I swore I would never hurt her, and I’d broken her heart in one night.
“I’m really sorry about all this, Holly.”
She nodded, and when she looked up at me, I saw the tears swimming in her eyes, and it nearly broke me. She swiped at her cheeks and nodded. “I know, Asher. God, I know you never wanted this to happen.”
I couldn’t leave without holding her one last time. I had no idea if this was the end or if she’d ever let me near her again. Sliding my hand up her arm, I brushed my thumb across her jaw and then cupped her cheek as I pulled her to me. Her soft body folded into mine perfectly, just like it was meant to, and that nearly broke me, knowing this might be the last time.
I blinked away the moisture in my eyes as she buried her face in my chest to muffle her cries. I would not lose her. I couldn’t. She was everything to me, and the thought of never holding her in my arms again or seeing her beautiful smile at the end of every day would be worse than when I lost Jade. I might never come back from that. Somehow, I would find a way to make it up to her and win her back because there was no other option for me.
I took her face in my hands and forced her to look up at me. “I love you so much, Holly Bear. Never forget that.” I kissed her one last time, pouring my entire heart into the kiss. Then I turned and walked out of the house, not looking back once because I knew I would never be able to leave if I did.