Chapter 18 Asher
ASHER
“Ready?” Robert asks with a tightening of his jaw as Declan and I climb into the back of my car.
“Ready.”
We have a visit to pay. I should be heading back to my penthouse after a long day, but what’s been set in motion is ready, and I won’t lose out on this opportunity. Just as the car takes off Sterling texts me.
I’ve spotted Yegor.
Where?
He’s back in Moscow. I got some photos of him leaving a hospital. His face looks pretty fucked.
It was. Serves the bastard right. I’m only sad it didn’t kill him.
Well, the explosives in our watches aren’t made for that. They’re made for escape, which worked, thank fuck.
I need a team in there ASAP. I want him gone.
That’s the thing, he’s in Moscow, but he isn’t staying still. He’s been in three different locations in a matter of a week. He knows you’re coming after him, and he’s on the run. We haven’t heard the last from him, but he’ll be lying low for the next little bit while he heals and regroups.
I don’t want him to get the chance to do either of those things.
I know, but as I said, he’s a slippery fucker. Even I’m having a hard time tracking him. But I’ll keep on it.
Do whatever is necessary.
While Sterling works on tracking Yegor, I’ve got a little present ready for Sergei. He may not have been the one who attacked me, but he and Yegor are working together. Besides, Katrina is Sergei’s daughter, and she threatened not only me, but Ella as well.
And that just won’t stand.
The car slips into an underground parking garage as Declan, Robert, and I pull on leather gloves and wipe them down. I text Sterling again.
Cameras are down, correct?
Yes, they’re down throughout the entire building. You’re clear.
My security team pulls up behind us and Declan, Robert, and I climb out of the car. It will only be the three of us on this little mission, but I brought a few other men as backup. Just in case.
Right on cue, the lights to the building and the rest of the block cut out.
Thank you, Sterling. We give it a minute and then climb the stairwells lit by emergency lighting up to the fifteenth floor.
Sergei didn’t splurge for a high security building or a penthouse for his useless son, and tonight, that makes our job just a little bit easier.
The hallway is mostly empty, though a few concerned tenants roam up and down the hall to ask each other if they’ve heard any updates from the power company.
Thankfully, with the dim emergency lighting overhead, they can’t see us well enough to care about us, and we are ignored as we make our way down the hallway of the fifteenth floor.
“Fifteen twenty-three,” Declan says, coming to a stop in front of the door. He takes out an electronic key he managed to get a copy of through his connections and opens the door.
The same faint emergency lighting shines at the entrance of the apartment, but otherwise, the space is dark.
Voices filter from the bedroom, which doesn’t surprise me.
Dimitri is a partier. It’s the reason Katrina is the one following in her father’s footsteps.
Dimitri can’t stay sober for more than a week, and he certainly can’t say no to a good time.
Taking a leaf out of Yegor’s book, Declan, Robert, and I pull on gas masks, then I open the door to the bedroom and toss a can of gas into it.
“What the fuck is that?” a male voice asks, heavily slurring his words.
“It looks like a cloud,” a female voice says through a fit of giggles.
Heavy footsteps move through the room for a moment before a loud thud sounds from the other side of the door. We wait thirty more seconds, just to be sure.
I push the bedroom door open, and through the dim light coming from the windows, I see two women and four men all passed out around the room. I’m sure they were all probably pretty fucked up before we got here, but I’m taking no risks.
Declan grabs each of the men by the hair and inspects their faces until he finds Dimitri.
I shine a flashlight in his face just to be sure, then I take what I need out of my suit pocket.
I draw up the syringe of narcotics laced with fentanyl.
Declan wraps a tourniquet around Dimitri’s arm until his vein bulges.
His arms are crisscrossed with track marks already, so it’s not hard to find where to inject.
I pierce his vein with the needle and press down on the plunger. When it’s emptied, I pocket the vial and drop the needle next to Dimitri and watch as his body convulses. I should feel remorse. A small part of me does. But this is the least of what Yegor and Sergei are willing to do to me and mine.
I snap a picture of Dimitri once he takes his last gasping breath, and the three of us leave the apartment, lock up, and head downstairs. When we reach the car, I send the picture to Sterling, who will send it to Sergei, Katrina, and Yegor from an untraceable IP address.
I warned Katrina that I would follow through with my threat, and she of all people should know that I do not issue warnings without being willing to follow through on them.
Sergei has targeted my family and our business for nearly thirty years.
Yegor is responsible for my grandfather’s death.
Katrina threatened Ella’s life. Yegor threatened mine.
They have fucked with the wrong man. With the wrong family. And I’m done waiting and watching.
Now, they’ll all pay for what they’ve done.
My phone vibrates with a text from Ella as we pull out of the underground garage.
Are you close?
Nearly there, baby. Sorry, traffic is a bitch.
I hate lying to her, but she doesn’t need to know about the little task I just finished. The further she is from all of this, the better.
The stylists have your tux ready to go, so you’ll need to clean up quickly when you get here.
Or we could stay home . . . Just kidding.
Tonight is our appearance at the symphony. We had to push it back almost a week since I was not about to make any public appearances after Yegor’s attack. Not until I had more protections in place. But in the end, this suited Ella well as she made some big plans for this appearance tonight.
I wish we could stay in. I’m so nervous that I’m ready to puke. But the board wants their spectacle, so I’m giving it to them.
She sure is. Ella decided to pull out the big gun for this event—my mother.
She and my father are coming to the symphony with Ella and me, and this will be the first time a girlfriend of mine will be photographed with my mother.
In fact, none of my brothers have had girlfriends photographed with my mother, either.
So it’s a huge fucking deal. The world has been following all our love lives since we were teenagers, and tonight is the first time one of Catherine Rothschild Langford’s boys will be putting on a show of real commitment.
This united outing insinuates that Ella has received my mother’s stamp of approval, which she has, and fuck if that won’t make headlines all over the world.
As crazy as that shit sounds, it’s real for our family.
So, I’m sure Ella is sweating right now.
We’re supposed to arrive at the symphony in ninety minutes, and I’m not even home yet.
I’ve already fielded several calls and texts from my mother as well.
She knows what’s on the line, and she knows why Ella asked her to accompany us tonight, and she will expect this to be executed flawlessly.
Me running an hour behind is not exactly flawless, and she’s not above badgering me about it.
At least neither of them knows why I’m running an hour behind.
Thirty minutes later, I’m finally home, and a hoard of people are here, camped out in the space between my living room and dining area. But my focus lands on one person and one person only. I cross the room in a few strides and step in front of the makeup chair she’s sitting in.
“Asher!” Ella gasps happily. And even though I know it will get me in trouble with the makeup artist, I grab both sides of Ella’s face and bring it to mine.
I plant a kiss on her before she can say another word.
She lets out a soft moan into my mouth, and I slip my tongue inside.
I don’t care that we have an audience. I can’t wait one more second for this.
In fact, there’s something else I can’t wait for.
“Please excuse us,” I rasp out when I finally force myself to pull away. The makeup artist and hair stylist both chuckle as I take Ella by the hand and lead her away—toward our bedroom.
“What are you doing?” she asks as I practically drag her along behind me.
“I know we’re running behind, but this can’t wait.”
“What can’t wait?” Her nose is scrunched in that cute way of hers when I shut and lock the door behind her.
“You and me. I need you. I won’t make it through the night if I can’t touch you first.”
Maybe it’s the adrenaline still pumping through my veins from what I did to Dimitri or the fact that I finally hit back at Sergei in a concrete way.
Or maybe it’s because I know that this war between us is only going to get worse before it’s over, and the thing I’m scared about more than anything is the safety of the woman before me.
But I need to feel her, be with her, be inside her.
She’s my home, and the only thing I have to hold onto. She’s the only thing keeping me sane.
“But we need to leave soon.”
“And we will. But only after I’ve been inside you first.”
She raises a brow. “We don’t have time.”
“I fuck you here or I fuck you at the symphony, take your pick, baby, because it’s happening either way.”
She scoffs and rolls her eyes. “I can only imagine the headlines if we got caught fucking at the symphony.”
“Good, then we agree to fucking now.”
“What has gotten into you?”
I nip at her neck. “I just need you. I’m literally dying.”
She scoffs again. “Dying?”
“Dying.”