Chapter 17
seventeen
ASHER
The office smells like scorched wires and bad decisions. Most of it is sectioned off, the crime scene unit collecting evidence as my team tries to explain what all the equipment does.
Brad, my second-in-command, is waiting for me. “Asher,” he says, shooting me a pained look. “This is Detective Claire Russo, in charge of the investigation.”
“I know Claire,” I say, holding my hand out. “Thanks for being here.”
“I know you, too,” she replies, a wry smile on her lips. “And in case of any doubt, this is my investigation.”
“Sure it is,” I say agreeably. We both know I’ll be running a parallel one. “What do you have so far?”
She walks with me down the hall, her boots crunching on broken glass. “Your server room was the target. Whoever did it knew exactly what to hit and how to get in. No alarms tripped, no entry logs. Just a fried firewall.”
“Do you have any suspects?”
“I was hoping you could give me a list. Rivals, enemies, whoever.”
“You don’t think the motive was financial?” Fuck, I wish it was.
“Do you?”
No. But I’m not giving her everything. Discretion is what we sell. And I already have an idea of where to start.
She glances at her phone. “We just heard from the hospital. Shaun Morris is starting to regain consciousness.”
I stop. “Wait, one of my employees was hurt?” I turn to Brad. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He winces. “I was going to, as soon as you got here. He was in the control room last night. Whoever did this had to get through him. He put up a fight.”
Fury tightens my chest. “We’re covering his care, right?”
Brad nods. “He has a private room, a top neurologist. We’ve spoken with his wife. She’s there with their baby.”
Jesus. They just had a kid.
I rake a hand through my hair. Shaun’s lying in a hospital bed because of me. Because someone wanted to make a point.
“Send flowers, food, anything they need,” I tell Brad. “Offer security if she wants it. A babysitter too.”
He nods grimly. “Already on it.”
I turn to Claire. “Once he’s stable, I want to talk to him.”
Her lips curl. “You planning to interview my witness?”
“I just want to make sure he’s okay. If he remembers anything, you’ll get it.”
She gives me a pointed look. “Sure I will, Fitzgerald.”
I ignore that. But I will speak to Shaun first.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Francie Salinger. Just seeing her name punches the air from my lungs.
There’s already a voicemail too. I shouldn’t listen here. But my thumb hovers over the screen.
Even now, in the middle of all this wreckage, I want to hear her voice. To know she’s okay after last night.
But I tuck the phone back in my pocket.
I can’t listen yet. Because I know a phone call won’t be enough. And right now, I can’t have more.
It’s late afternoon when I leave Shaun’s hospital room, murmuring reassurances to his wife. I tell her not to worry about anything. I’ll handle it all. Just focus on him. On their baby. But I’m carrying the guilt like a weight on my shoulders.
I head for the stairwell – six floors isn’t much – but stop cold at the sign on the door.
Maintenance underway. Please use elevators.
I stare at it like it’s mocking me. Of course. One more thing to make today worse.
I glance toward the elevator bank, silver doors gleaming under the fluorescent lights. One dings open. An orderly wheels out a cart, chatting with a nurse, like the walls aren’t closing in.
My pulse spikes. Sweat prickles at the back of my neck.
This is ridiculous. I’ve run black-ops security for billionaires. Sat across tables from men who’d kill me for blinking wrong. But a metal box? That terrifies me.
It’s the smallness. The stillness. The lack of escape.
I curse under my breath and step inside anyway, bracing myself against the back wall. Just one button to press. G. Ten seconds, maybe. But my chest’s already tight.
The doors close. The elevator hums.
And suddenly I’m ten years old again, locked in the dark, listening to my father scream.
I hit the wall with my fist, pain flaring in my knuckles. It does nothing. The nausea’s already rising.
When the doors open, I stagger out, adrenaline crashing. I barely make it to a planter outside before I’m retching, doubled over like I’ve been punched in the gut.
My legs give out. I sink to the concrete, back against the cool stone. Gasping. Waiting for the panic to fade.
But it won’t.
Maybe nothing will.
Except… maybe someone can.
I pull out my phone. My fingers are already moving.
FRANCIE
The shrill ring of my phone makes me jump. I glance at the screen, expecting it to be a spam call, or Skyler. Or maybe – if I’m really unlucky – Captain Toe Shoes himself.
But it’s Asher. And my heart skips a beat.
Lifting the phone, I slide my thumb against the glass to accept the call.
“Hey,” I say, ignoring the thud of my heart against my chest. “I’m so sorry about the break in.”
There’s no reply. For a second I hear nothing, then heavy breathing. It reminds me of my youngest cousin who has asthma.
“Asher?” I say softly. “Are you okay?”
There’s more ragged breathing, followed by a choked inhale. And then finally – his voice, rough and low, like it’s been dragged through gravel.
“I’m okay,” he manages. “I just… I couldn’t breathe. I—”
He cuts off with a shuddering breath that sounds so far from okay it isn’t funny.
Oh my God. I’ve never heard him like this before. I sit up straighter, my laptop and writing forgotten. “Where are you? Are you okay? What happened?”
A beat of silence. “I’m outside the hospital.”
And just like that, my lunch starts to rise in my gut. Please let him be okay. “Why are you there? Are you hurt?”
“No.” He inhales sharply. “Not me. One of my employees. He got a head injury during the break in.”
I hate how relieved I feel that it’s not him who’s hurt. “I’m so sorry. Is he hurt badly?” I can’t imagine what that must feel like.
“It’s Shaun.”
I blink. “Shaun who guarded me?” I ask, remembering the tall, young guy who was lurking outside my apartment all that time ago. For some reason it feels like a personal attack.
“Yeah.” He sounds despondent.
My eyes widen. “Wasn’t his wife about to have a baby?”
Asher’s breathing is slowing. But not fast enough. I think he might be having a panic attack. “They had it. A girl. He’s okay.” Another moment of silence. “I’m sorry, I should go. You don’t need to—”
“Stay,” I tell him. “Stay with me. Talk to me. Try to slow down your breathing. We can do it together,” I tell him. “I know a qualified breath consultant.”
That joke does the opposite of what I intend. He starts to choke.
“Asher?”
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” I’m not sure who he’s trying to convince, me or himself.
“And so is Shaun,” I tell him. “This isn’t your fault.
It’s nobody’s fault except whoever hit him.
” I take a breath, trying to remember how to deal with a panic attack.
There was a girl at school who used to get them regularly.
“You’re okay,” I tell him. “Look around you. Try to find something green.”
“There’s a planter I just vomited in,” he says sounding almost embarrassed. “Will that do?”
I bite down a smile, figuring I need to be normal for him. Especially after what he did for me last night.
He saved me. Maybe I can repay the favor.
“Nature can be healing, right?” I quip.
There’s the faintest huff of a laugh from the other end. It sounds a little broke, a little raw. But it’s there and it warms my heart.
“I can’t remember the last time this happened to me,” he murmurs. “Fuck, I thought I was past all this. I feel like I’m a kid again.”
My breath catches. “You’ve had panic attacks before?”
“A very long time ago.”
I hesitate. “Do you want to talk about it?” I ask softly. I have no idea how to make him feel better, but I want to keep him on the line. Hearing his voice makes my whole body feel like it’s vibrating, but I also need to make sure he’s okay.
I owe him that. And more than that, I want to do it.
There’s a long pause before he speaks again. I hear his breathing – becoming less shuddery, more regular. There’s the sound of cars and the occasional bird. I wish we were on video, but I don’t think he’d like that.
Asher Fitzgerald is always so closed off. So in control. I’m not sure he’d ever show this side of him in normal circumstances. And I don’t want to break the connection we somehow have right now, even though he’s hundreds of miles away.
“I was stuck in a closet,” he says. His voice is so low I have to concentrate to hear him. “I was ten. My dad owed the wrong people money. Shocking, I know.”
I wince, because I know all about their dad’s gambling addiction. He lost their home, their island, and their fortune after all. By that point, Hudson and Asher were older. They managed to keep the family going. But it affected Autumn and Eden and I saw it first hand.
“He used me to help him cheat,” Asher confesses. “He figured out I was good at math and turned it to his advantage. Made me hang around the room when they had poker games. I had to count the cards.”
Good at math is an understatement. The whole family knows that Asher is pretty much a math genius. Eden, their youngest sister, is too. Autumn used to regularly complain that the gene somehow skipped her, especially when it came to tests at school.
“He made you do it?” I ask.
“He’d intimidate me. Would tell me there’d be no food on the table if I didn’t. Told me I was doing it for the family. I was a kid, I…” He lets out a breath. “I should have said no. But I loved him, you know?”
My heart contracts. “Of course you did.”
“One night we got caught,” he tells me. “They locked me in a closet while they…handled him.”
Oh god. The breath leaves my lungs like I’ve been punched. I press a hand to my chest, trying to calm myself.
“I sat in there for hours, listening to him get beat. Hearing him scream. Thinking that I’d be next and it was all my fault.” He trails off, like he’s done talking. “Since then small places… just mess with me.”