3 Scarlett
“The scariest part wasn’t surviving that night, it was walking back into the life that caused it”
I wake up feeling disoriented. For a few terrifying seconds, I don’t recognize the room around me, and panic immediately begins clawing its way up my throat.
As I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand, pain shoots through my feet.
The memories of last night slam into me instantly.
The guest house…. Celeste…..The woods…..
Asher. I barely make it to the bathroom before nausea takes over.
I drop to my knees in front of the toilet just as bile burns its way up my throat.
Oh God. It was real…all of it. Part of me had hoped it was just a nightmare.
Some horrible drunken hallucination my brain created after too much champagne.
But nightmares end, and this one didn’t.
I rinse my mouth shakily at the sink, gripping the marble counter as tears sting my eyes.
Celeste…I want to kill her. I wonder if our parents would finally believe me now.
“Are you okay?” I freeze at the sound of a deep male voice behind me.
Slowly, I turn around. Asher stands in the doorway wearing nothing but low slung gray sweatpants, his dark hair messy from sleep.
Tattoos crawl down his arm and disappear beneath the waistband of his sweats while those impossible autumn colored eyes study me carefully, and suddenly, I want to disappear.
He saw me last night. I was broken and terrified and completely vulnerable and a way I never let anyone see.
“I’m fine,” I lie quickly, wiping beneath my eyes. “Thank you for everything you did last night, but I should probably get going. I need to check on Harper and get ready for school.”
I move to walk past him, but the second I turn, he steps closer. Too close. His bare chest brushes against my shoulder as he looks down at me.
“You are not going back to that house alone,” he says firmly. Not asks, but more demands. Instant irritation sparks through me despite the fear still twisting in my stomach.
“I’ve survived in that ‘lion’s den’ for over thirteen years,” I snap. “I can handle myself.” I try to sound confident, but even I can hear the fear beneath my words. His jaw tightens instantly.
“Really? Handle yourself?” His voice drops dangerously low. “Is that what you call showing up on my doorstep half naked, bruised, bleeding, and barely conscious?” I flinch.
“What the fuck would’ve happened if I hadn’t answered that door, Scarlett?” he continues harshly. “Or worse….what if I’d been some sick asshole instead? Last night could’ve ended very differently.”
Before I can respond, he grabs my arm gently but firmly and turns me back toward him.
“I have to go home,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “I can’t let her win. I can’t let Celeste think she broke me. ”The tears I’ve been trying so hard to hold back finally spill over. God, I hate crying. I hate looking weak. Asher’s expression softens slightly.
“Then don’t let her win,” he says quietly. “Let her think you found something better.” I blink up at him in confusion.
“Move in here.”
“What?”
“There’s plenty of room. My brothers will be here soon, so it won’t just be the two of us.” He pauses. “And we’re both gonna be at Raven Hills Academy anyway. It makes sense.” I stare at him like he’s lost his mind.
“Asher, I don’t even know you.”
“Maybe not,” he says softly. “But after last night, you know enough to trust me. ”His thumb brushes beneath my eye, wiping away a tear.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Red. And I can’t consciously let you walk back into that house after what happened.”
“I don’t know…” I whisper. “Maybe Dr. Bennett and his wife wouldn’t mind if I stayed there instead.”
“Think about it,” he says after a moment. “For now, let me take you home so you can change. I’m not letting you go there alone.” He grabs a towel and heads to the bathroom before turning toward the shower.
“And I’ll drive you to school.” Before shutting the bathroom door, he tosses me his phone.
“Call Harper,” he says. “Make sure she’s okay.” A second later, the shower turns on.
I stare down at the phone in my hand before quickly dialing Harper’s number.
“Hello?” she answers groggily.
“Harp, are you okay? Are you still at my house?”
“Scar?” Her voice instantly sharpens with concern. “Where the hell are you? And whose number is this?” I sit slowly on the edge of the bed.
“It’s… a long story,” I admit quietly. “I’m at the new neighbor’s house.”
Silence.
“What happened?”
I start explaining everything from after I brought her upstairs last night, carefully leaving out the fact that Celeste was involved.
If Harper finds out Celeste had anything to do with this, she’ll march straight into her room and beat the living hell out of her, and honestly?
Celeste would deserve every second of it.
But somehow, I know my parents would still find a way to blame Harper and me instead.
“Scarlett, you need to call the police. File a report. “
“And tell them what, that I drank so much I passed out and woke up to two men trying to rape me?”
I cut her off. I know what the police would say.
I can’t remember exactly what the men looked like.
Celeste would just deny it all. I don’t want to go through that humiliation, not to mention the whole underage drinking thing.
As she is about to say something, Asher comes out of the bathroom with steam still clinging to his skin, looking like something dangerous dragged straight from one of my darkest fantasies.
He was the kind of man people noticed the second he walked into a room, even when he wasn’t trying to be seen.
He stood somewhere around six-foot-four with broad shoulders and the powerful build of someone trained for violence rather than vanity.
Every movement he made carried a dangerous kind of precision, like his body was constantly calculating threats before anyone else noticed them.
Thick muscle stretched beneath tan skin marked with scars that hinted at a past soaked in secrets and survival.
His dark black hair was damp and slightly messy, like he had run his hands through it one too many times, and sharp stubble shadowed his jaw, adding to the roughness of him.
But it was his eyes that made people uneasy.
Deep amber-brown, almost gold in the right light, they could turn cold and unreadable one second and burn with intensity the next.
The kind of eyes that looked at you and made you feel completely exposed.
Tattoos crawled down one entire arm and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirtless frame, black ink twisting together in roses, skulls, snakes, and Italian phrases tied to death and loyalty.
More ink stretched across his ribs and up the side of his neck, disappearing beneath the towel hanging dangerously low on his hips.
Droplets of water slid slowly down the hard lines of his chest and stomach before disappearing beneath the white fabric.
A faint scar cut through one eyebrow, barely noticeable unless you were close to him, but somehow it only made him more intimidating, and yet, standing there barefoot in nothing but a towel with exhaustion written across his face, there was something strangely comforting about him too.
His autumn-colored eyes found mine immediately the second he stepped into the room.
“You okay, Red?” he asked, his voice rough from sleep and low enough to send warmth spreading through my core despite everything that had happened.
It was unfair, honestly. No man should be allowed to look that good.
“I gotta go, Harp. I’ll be over at the house in a few.” I hang up before she can ask more questions. Asher leans against the bathroom doorway, watching me carefully.
“You okay?” he asks again.
I let out a soft laugh.
“Yeah… about as okay as I can be after last night.” I shrug awkwardly. “So, you really just moved here? Kind of sucks starting a new school this close to the end of senior year.” He shrugs like it doesn’t bother him.
“I’m used to moving around,” he says casually.
“My family’s basically military royalty at this point. We moved constantly when we were kids.”
He walks into the closet while talking, pulling on a fitted black t-shirt that stretches tightly across his chest and shoulders before sliding into a pair of dark designer jeans.
Honestly, it should be illegal for someone to look that good this early in the morning.
“My oldest brother, Grant, is thirty-seven and runs the whole operation,” he says as he pulls on a pair of black Timberlands.
“Declan’s thirty-five and is basically the voice of reason most days. Roman is twenty-eight and spends half his life getting into trouble and the other half getting us out of it.”
A small grin tugs at his lips. “They recently started their own investigations and security firm and landed a contract out here, so they're coming in to get things set up. I handle some of the security work, from time to time, and Grant wanted me here to help.”
“What about your parents?”
“My mom died when I was younger and my dad not too long ago.”
Something about the way he says it feels rehearsed. Like he’s leaving parts out. But before I can think too hard about it, he nods toward the bedroom door.
“You ready to get this over with, Red?” He places his hand against the small of my back as we head downstairs, and every nerve ending in my body instantly lights on fire.
God. This man is dangerous in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with violence.
Asher takes his phone back from me, quickly typing something as we walk outside toward the front gates of my estate.
The morning air feels colder than usual.
I punch in the security code, and the massive iron gates slowly slide open.
We walk the long driveway toward the front entrance, and Barry immediately notices me.
“Good morning, Miss Scarlett,” he says politely before his eyes shift toward Asher. His expression instantly turns suspicious. “Everything alright?”
“Morning, Barry.” I force a smile. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I just need to grab some things before school. I’ll be back down in a few.”