CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN ASHTON
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ASHTON
I stayed until long after Molly fell asleep, and even then, I couldn’t bring myself to leave her.
This—I didn’t know what the fuck this was, but needing to take care of her, the terror that went through me when that gun touched her head. It was nothing to how it felt when she looked at me.
I felt struck by lightning.
She was scared. She knew she would die, and she looked at me for help. It was in an instant. One look. Not even a second and we both knew what we were going to do.
I hated her while growing up and now this?
This? What the hell was happening with me?
I untangled myself from her. It’d been my fourth attempt.
The first two she’d fought back, waking up.
The third, I hadn’t had the heart in it myself, but this fourth time—I needed to separate.
At least for a bit. I needed to think clearly again, to even remember how that felt.
Pulling a shirt on, I headed out and toward Trace’s basement. He had a whole TV lounge area, and in the last month since he’d bought this place for him and Jess, it was where they spent the most time. He was at the bar mixing a drink when I came down the stairs.
“Heard you get up.” He brought it over, his own in hand.
I took it. “Thank you.” I looked around, but no Jess. “She’s sleeping?”
He snorted. “Are you kidding? She was already riled up when she got the call from Pialto, and you called, showing up with Molly covered in blood? She’s in the gym, trying to kick ass in there so she doesn’t kick your ass here.”
I almost grinned. “I might enjoy that.”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “You and the love of my life. I don’t know what I’m to do with both of you. You make her want to rip out your throat, and I swear that you enjoy it.”
I smiled now. “I do.”
“Well, get ready, because any thawing that she’s done toward you, that shit is up in smoke. She wants to put a bullet in you.”
Fuck. But I almost laughed at that too.
He motioned upstairs. “How is she?”
Molly.
All my amusement vanished. An image of her looking at me when she felt the gun against her head flashed in my mind again.
“She’s been through a lot.”
“What’s going on with you both?”
Trace had been asking me this same question since Molly Easter came into our lives.
I never answered before, not really, because I hadn’t wanted to get into anything about our mothers, but now .
.. it was different. I was different. She affected me, and I shook my head.
“I was planning to use her. I was going to take her away, stash her in some house, and leak her location. Then I would sit back and wait and see who showed up to kill her. Course, I’d kill him first, and voilà, we’d follow the lead back to whoever killed Justin and Kelly.
Jess would be better. You would feel better if she was better, and you and me, we could handle things and end this war we’re in.
” That same image. A gun against Molly’s head.
How she looked at me. How I felt it. How I knew what she was going to do.
“All that’s gone. Everything is different now. ”
Using her as bait that way was something I would’ve done before, without blinking an eye or giving it a second thought.
Another person, another situation, it’d already be a done deal.
I knew who I was. I knew the darkness in me, and I welcomed it.
I wrapped myself with it, savoring it, but her.
She’d broken through, giving me different thoughts. Different feelings.
A different outlook.
If that gun had gone off against her head ...
I greatly and intensely wanted to rip someone’s head off their shoulders. I wished I hadn’t killed the man. I wished that I’d kept him alive and he was strapped to a chair in one of my warehouses and I could be feeling his blood all over me.
I wished for that with every fiber of my being right now.
Trace had been observing me. He always did. It’s how we were. Him and me. We watched each other, but we watched out for each other. So because of that, he murmured, “You’re in too deep.”
“Yeah.” Fuck. “Yeah.”
Trace let out a sigh and came over, clinking his glass to mine. “Shit’s different when you care about someone.”
Goddamn. Care.
I hated it, but yes. I cared. I cared about Molly.
Shit was so very different now.
“It was Worthing’s men.”
“You sure?”
I nodded. “I recognized them. Molly had to go to the bathroom. They’d been tailing us. I think they saw a chance and took it.”
“Were they there for you or Molly?”
“Me. They didn’t know she was there. She went inside first, so I don’t think they even saw her until she came out of the bathroom. They had a guy positioned at the back door. He came up behind her. My source said that on the camera, he saw her on her phone. That’s when he approached her.”
My mouth was so very fucking dry, just talking about it.
The whole thing played out in my head. Slow motion. It was on a continuous loop.
I shot him first, right in the forehead. He was dead before his body hit the ground. My guy Cal was shooting next to me, and I’d turned, taking out the last guy standing. He had wavered between shooting me or Cal. That’d been his mistake.
“Jess talked to some people she knows. She said the shooting was clean. You guys took down all three. Boom, boom, boom. That’s how she made it sound.”
“They got off a couple of shots. Cal got hit in the leg and arm.”
“She said it was still pretty clean.”
“I don’t think they thought we’d shoot, or maybe they didn’t think I would shoot.
They were surprised. I remember that at the end, the last guy was stunned we were shooting back.
” My gut was twisting and churning. Worthing.
He’d sent those men. Those same men who put Molly in danger .
.. and I’d been about to do the same thing myself.
“That makes no sense. If they were Worthing’s men, they’d know we would shoot. Or you would shoot. You recognized them as Worthing’s men?”
I nodded. “I have a file on every single man who works for him. These guys are low on the hierarchy. They’re the guys who open the car doors, the restaurant doors. They’re the lookouts. Why would he send them to tail me? If they weren’t going to kill, then why did they approach?”
“What are you thinking?”
I shook my head, taking a drag from my drink.
A long drag. I needed it. I barely felt the burn.
“I thought it was Worthing who had killed Justin. He found out something, and that’s why he and Kelly were running and asking the 411 to hide them, but Nicolai Worthing wouldn’t have sent these guys to make a move how they did.
It wasn’t thought out. It was lazy work. Careless.”
“You’re thinking we have another player?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea, and that pisses me off. I don’t like playing chess against someone I don’t even know is playing.”
A door opened above, then a stampede as someone was coming down the stairs. Jess arrived, holding up her phone. “Just got off the phone with a friend. All three of those men were texted orders from Jake’s phone.”
“What was the order?”
My own phone beeped, and I was getting the same information she just got.
I read my text out loud. “Find and tail Ashton Walden. Scare the shit out of him. It’s time we stepped up this fight.”
Another beep.
I continued, “Worthing was at the hospital when he sent the texts.”
Trace frowned, stepping over to stand beside Jess. His hand went to her shoulder, and he began rubbing her back. “Excuse me because I don’t have an enemy or work relationship with him, but that doesn’t seem like an order Detective Worthing would send out.”
He was right.
“The order would’ve gone through Nicolai, not Jake.” She was watching me intently. “Why was he at the hospital?”
“Hmmm?” I shook my head. “No idea.”
Trace snorted, turning to refill his drink.
“You asked to take over finding Kelly’s killer. Since then nothing has happened except Molly’s apartment was blown up.”
“Her door was blown up, and it was a small blast. Contained.”
Jess kept on as if I hadn’t spoken. “Her coworkers called me, worried out of their ever-loving minds because she’s gone and they have no idea where she is, and her cousin, a guy that I found out you also pay, is manning the bowling alley.
Then seconds after I get a text from her that she’s fine, but she’ll explain later, Trace comes tearing through the room saying that you’ve been shot at.
And then , you show up here with Molly in your arms. She’s terrified and covered in blood, and the only person who can help her is you because she freaked every time you tried to let me have her. Why is that?”
She was speaking through gritted teeth, her tone clipped.
I took a sip of my drink. Oh, screw it. I tossed the whole thing back, eyeing her. “To which one?”
Her eyes flashed. “What?”
“You had a lot of statements in there, but you’re asking me a clarifying question. I need to know which one to address first.”
Pure venom flashed before she reached for her gun.
Trace moved in, his hand covering hers before she could pull it from her holster. “Okay. Since I’m aware how close Jess is to actually shooting you, and because he’s my best friend and also business partner, I’m hoping we don’t get to that.” The last part was directed at her.
She scowled in response.
He sighed, moving toward me. “You asked to handle finding Kelly and Justin’s killer. We pulled back, giving you that freedom. But Molly’s involved, and Jess doesn’t want to lose a second friend. It’s time you brought us in on what’s going on.”
I was almost disappointed at how he was talking to me, all reasonable and sensical. “Would’ve been more fun if your woman brought the gun out.”
Now she growled.
Trace was fighting back a grin. “You already made the decision to bring us in on this when you brought Molly here.”