Chapter 31 Cord
THE SKIES OPENED up as soon as I got in my car, so now I’m sitting in the parking lot outside Dante’s warehouse staring at my phone and wondering where I’m going.
I need to talk to you about something.
Asher.
Half of me wants to ignore it. Pretend I didn’t see it.
The other half keeps going back to that scene in the warehouse earlier. How he stood up to Dante.
No one stands up to Dante.
The big man didn’t say anything more about it when I stopped to give him the rundown on my latest session with the prisoners. He wasn’t happy to learn the Python had more than one hangout, and that none of his people had ever seen him.
“How the fuck are we supposed to find this guy?” he demanded.
Since I didn’t have an answer for that, I just gave him a status of the prisoners.
“Two are dead and the third has a rotting hole in his gut. I would’ve put him down but I wasn’t sure if you wanted another crack at him.”
“Do you think it’s worth it?” he asked.
“Not really. I don’t think he knows any more than his buddies.”
Dante agreed and sent two guys down to take care of the bodies while I said my goodbyes and called it a night.
Which leaves me sitting here in the rain. Every instinct is telling me to ignore the text. Put it and this Python business out of my mind and go home. Get some sleep in my own bed. Worry about all this other crap in the morning.
So why am I hesitating?
Why else?
Asher.
It always comes back to him.
“I’ll be up late, if you want to stop by.”
Why am I even considering it?
And I am.
I shouldn’t be. No matter how many times I tell myself I don’t want this again, I keep spinning back in his orbit. Why do I let him do this to me?
Although, if I’m being honest, I’m the one doing it to myself. I see him everywhere I go. In every face. Hell, I can’t even feed without thinking of him.
He’s driving me insane and it has to stop.
Trouble is, I don’t know how to make it. I’ve told him to stay away. I’ve gone out of my way to avoid him, but we just keep ending up together.
And now the one place I had to myself, where I knew he wouldn’t go, has been invaded by his presence.
Whose fault is that?
Okay, so I invited him here.
For someone who claims he doesn’t want him, I sure am having a hard time pushing him away.
And now he wants to talk.
About what?
Someone knocks on my window, pulling me out of my head. I roll it down enough to talk without getting soaked and see Zeke standing there.
“A few of us are heading over to the fights. Wanna come?”
Ordinarily I’d be down for a little mindless violence, but after spending the last two days in a cell torturing vamps, my appetite for bloodshed is sated.
“Not tonight. I’m just going to head home and get some sleep.”
“Suit yourself. See you tomorrow.”
He runs off toward his car as I roll up the window. Is that what I’m doing? I turn the key and bring the engine to life, then pull out of the parking lot.
I don’t question where I’m going. At this point I’m pretty much on autopilot, so I’m not really surprised when I find myself parked down the block from Asher’s apartment.
“This is getting ridiculous,” I mutter as I dash through the rain to get to the building.
The doorman seems a little put out by the fact that I’m dripping all over his floor, but he must recognize me because he picks up the phone and calls Asher.
“You can go up,” he tells me after hanging up.
I still don’t know why I’m here. So what if he wants to talk. He could’ve just said his piece on the phone. Or better yet, in the text.
But no, he had to leave me hanging. To summon me.
As if anticipating my appearance, Asher is waiting for me at the elevator with a towel. I accept it without a word and proceed to get most of the dripping water off my head and back.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get you out of those wet clothes.”
I roll my eyes. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
He grins and leads me down the hall toward a laundry room. “Take off your jacket and throw your clothes in the dryer. I’ll get you a pair of sweats.”
I can see in the light that my clothes are splattered with blood and body matter from the cell. “If it’s all the same to you, these are kind of a mess.”
He looks me over and nods. “Fine. Throw them in the washer. You want to shower?”
My mind immediately goes to the divine pleasure that is his shower, and I can suddenly feel every knot of tension in my body melting away at the touch of those heated jets. “That would be nice.”
I strip out of my wet clothes so I don’t track up his apartment and follow him to his bathroom. He lays out another towel and points to the robe, then leaves me to it.
Asher’s shower is just what I need. I try not to think about how this is getting to be a habit. After about fifteen minutes in the steamy enclosure, I start to feel like myself again. It is with supreme regret that I finally turn off the water and step outside.
After drying off and slipping into the robe, I wander out to the living room, where Asher is bent over his laptop with an open file of papers on the coffee table.
He looks up when I enter and closes the laptop. I glance over at his bar.
“Mind if I make a drink?”
“Help yourself.”
I grab a glass off the shelf and pour three fingers of vodka into it, taking a long sip and savoring the warm bite as it slides down my throat. It’s enough to take the edge off the lingering remnants of the headache from earlier.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt your work,” I say, indicating the laptop as I lower myself to the opposite couch.
“Just catching up on a few details.”
I take another sip and set down the glass. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”
“We got an address for Thalium. Well, actually two.”
“You could’ve just texted it to me.”
“That’s not–” he starts to snap, then takes a deep breath and composes himself. “That’s not why I needed to talk to you. The addresses really don’t do us much good. One is a house in the Hamptons and the other an apartment on Park Avenue. I doubt either are being used as a headquarters.”
No, he’s right about that. “I’m sensing there’s more?”
He sits forward, his eyes holding mine. “There’s a black tie event coming up next week, something for the Arts Council. Every mover and shaker in town will be there, which means someone like Thalium will likely make an appearance.”
“And how does that help me? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not part of the one percent club.”
“No, but I am, and I was hoping you’d come as my plus one.”
I stare at him for a minute, trying to determine if he’s serious. Me, at a black tie event? “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No, I’m not. Come on, Cord, this could be the only chance you’ll get to see the Python up close.”
I hold up my hands. “Slow down. First of all, how do you even know he’s going to be there?”
“Elaine is working on getting the guest list as we speak.”
I consider that. So, what if Thalium is there and what if he is, in fact, the Python? I can’t exactly capture him in a room full of people.
And let’s face it, what good does it do to find him if I can’t capture him? Otherwise he’ll just slip back into whatever privileged hole he crawled out of.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Asher says.
“I doubt it.”
“You want to grab him.”
“Okay, so you do know.”
“What if, for right now, you just get a good look at him? Maybe talk to him, feel him out?”
“And how would that go? ‘Nice to meet you, Mr. Thalium, and hey, by the way, are you the asshole creating Outliers who are trying to take over the city?’ Yeah, that should go well.”
“I was actually hoping you’d be a little more tactful.”
“This is me, Asher. I’m not tactful. And I’m sure as hell not black tie material. Something I thought you would know.”
“God damn it, Cord!” He stands up and starts pacing the room. “Can’t you just, for one night, pretend to be something you’re not? For the good of all of us?”
His outburst surprises me. I’d almost forgotten what Asher’s anger looks like, though I guess I shouldn’t have. I’ve seen it enough in the past.
He stops and takes a deep breath, reining it in before rounding the couch and kneeling in front of me, his voice once again the calm Asher I’ve seen since we reconnected.
“I know this isn’t your kind of event. And I swear I would never put you in a position to feel uncomfortable or out of place, but this may be our only chance to get up close and personal with this guy.
Maybe he’s not the Python. Maybe his company name and the fact that he owns O’Hara’s is just a really big coincidence.
But we won’t know that unless we stand in front of him and look him in the eye.
You’re a great judge of character. Surely you would be able to see through whatever bullshit he’s handing out. ”
Leave it to Asher to make me feel like a child. He always seems to have a knack for being the adult in the room.
What pisses me off, though, is he’s right. We may not have another chance to confront Thalium. And his guard will be down at an event like this, since he’s not expecting anyone to know his true identity.
“You really think I could pull this off?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
Me, at a black tie event? I can’t even remember the last time I dressed up. “I don’t own a suit.”
“I’ll get you one. Does that mean you’ll do it?”
I blow out a sigh. “If Elaine finds out he’s going to be there, I’ll go. But don’t expect me to schmooze these assholes.”
“I would never. Besides,” he turns serious, “I’d kill anyone who looks twice at you.”
“For a businessman, you’ve sure got a violent streak.”
“I learned from the best.”
I look around; my clothes are in the washer, so I’m not going anywhere for a while. “Now what?”
He stands up and walks over to the window, turning his back to me. “That’s up to you.”
He’s leaving it up to me? I can feel his lust from across the room, but for once he’s not pushing it. And that leaves me wondering what I want from him. I just assumed if I came here, we would end up fucking. Isn’t that what always happens?