24. Rurik
TWENTY-FOUR
RURIK
When he’s not in his room, I don’t like it, but I pretend that sometimes I’m calm, cool, and collected and not a fucking psychopath. Normal people have lives and do things, and I don’t know where they are every minute of every day.
My people do things, and I’ve had to learn to give up control and not know their exact location at all times. My therapist said it’s good for me to give up some of the control. But Ash doesn’t go places outside his routine.
I’m fine. This is fine.
Sometimes, he’s out with his cousin. Against his will, and it hasn’t happened since I started sleeping over and making him come regularly, which is half the point, but whatever.
Maybe Finn likes his company or whatever.
Just because I don’t care about other people’s feelings doesn’t mean I don’t have some concept that they have them.
I call him. He doesn’t answer.
I blow out a breath. He’s new to this. So giving me a heads-up probably seems like a foreign concept to him.
Don’t assume the worst.
This is why you shared his location when you added your number to his phone.
I know I hang out with a lot of questionable people, but this cute little baby boy is trying to play with the criminal underworld. I just can’t trust it even if I want to make sure all his hopes and dreams happen.
His location takes a minute to load, which doesn’t make me think the worst and have me pacing his fucking room. Finally, I see he’s in…a bar?
Okay. He’s got to be out with Finn. He’ll be leaving soon. He hates staying out late. Maybe his signal is bad. I can wait here for him. That’s something I can do… in theory.
Except that lasts about five minutes before I’m climbing back out his window and getting in my car—only because he’s on the other side of campus, and I don’t want to waste the time walking back when I know he’ll be tired and overstimulated.
I drive around the quad and stop at the light, checking my phone again.
Still nothing.
I may send a few more texts with a totally normal level of boyfriend concern about him not answering.
No wonder people don’t date. This shit sucks. He’s just a fragile human life made of skin. Anything could happen to him. How do people let things they love just fucking walk around with all the goddamn hazards that exist?!
Oh no.
Exactly what I just thought hits me.
Love.
Well, that escalated quickly.
It can’t be true, maybe it’s just one of those things I thought in a haze.
But I know it’s true because if anyone lays their fucking hands on him, I will kill a bitch.
Fuck.
Locke is going to be so mad at me.
I text Ash a few more times, stuck behind the slowest driver on campus. Then I decide I need something stronger tomorrow.
Rurik: Breakfast tomorrow?
Kiho: How early? And if you say something stupid, no in advance.
Rurik: Since I’ve taken up rowing, I’m now a morning person. I need you to adjust.
Kiho: I’m not getting up before eight. And it might require mimosas.
Rurik: It’s a date.
I finally pull up to the bar and park, looking in the windows as I cross the street. He’s sitting at the bar with a fucking woman. No Finn in sight.
What.
Is.
He.
Doing?
I send a string of texts.
I stop myself from going inside in my current state.
My hands will be around that woman’s throat if I go in now.
He leans closer to her laughing.
This stupid idiot bitch.
I shove my hands into my hair and pull, trying to ground myself before I bury some chick.
I shouldn’t keep watching. I should fucking leave and go back to the vault to talk to Kiho. He can always talk me off a ledge.
Look at your phone motherfucker. Like I can will him.
I almost have myself convinced to leave when she puts her hand on his leg.
Against my better judgement, I send another text.
Rurik: No one else is allowed to touch you.
And another.
Rurik: I’ll kill her.
Rurik: Ash, I’m serious…
Dark fog creeps into my vision, and I storm into the bar. I’m blocked by a group of drunk frat boys and nearly get into a fistfight to get around them. By the time I get to the bar, Ash is gone, but the girl is sitting there.
I sit down next to her, about to tell her never to touch him again, when I stop. “K? What the fuck are you doing here?”
She looks at me funny. “Hey, handsome. What trouble are you causing tonight?”
I’m at a loss for words for possibly the first time in my life. “Who is that you’re here with?”
“Astor—I mean Ash. My cousin.” She looks me over. “He’s off limits, Rurik. I’m serious. I’ll fucking kill you.”
He has two cousins? One of them is K? It’s too much for me to process.
“Where did he go?” I glance around, still needing to strangle him for making me a wreck. “Do you live with him?”
No wonder he’s so weird about bringing me in normally. He’s got K watching his every move. Does she report back to his homophobic family?
“I’m not playing games. He is untouchable.” She grips my shirt, setting her jaw. She’d poison me in a second—I have no doubt. Just another small complication I’d figure out after I’ve fucking found him.
“I want to meet him.” I smile, keeping my mask on. “Is that a crime?”
She loosens her grip. “As long as you understand he’s not a toy.”
“I understand he’s not a toy.” I disarm her. Because while K is a lot of things, she’s not a psychopath, and she doesn’t understand that while Ash is a lot of things, he’d never be a toy to me.
“You can meet him. He’ll be back in a minute.” She glances over my shoulder in the direction I’m assuming he went.
How did I never put together where K lived? Since we’re the same age, we got into Legacy at the same time, so I guess I never thought to look at her file, assuming my brother and the other senior members had done their due diligence on her. But how the fuck did I not know she’s related to Ash?
But then the name she said clicks.
Astor.
My blood runs cold.
She said Astor. I almost missed it in my rage.
It can’t be related. He’s eighteen. It’s a coincidence. It has to be.
But the itch in the back of my brain tells me they are connected. It’s not a common name. I don’t like any of it.
I check my phone for a text. Surely, he’d text me back in the bathroom. Just to ask how I got his number. He’s at least that consistent. “He’s been gone a long time.”
“He has been.” She gets up too, and wordlessly, we both head to the bathroom.
It’s empty.
We check the stalls.
Empty.
We exchange a glance.
She gets on her phone. “I’m calling him. Even if he was leaving, he would have said goodbye to me.”
I pull up his location, sure she is going to interrogate me over this later. “He’s outside.”
“How do you have that?” She’s already moving out of the bathroom and into the back hall.
“I’ll explain later.” I shove past her, slamming into the door into the back alley.
I un-holster my gun, and she does the same, glancing both ways.
There’s a guy just turning out of the alley, half-carrying a barely walking Ash. We sprint toward him, rounding the corner, but there’s no sight of them.
I scan the streets, finding a black Buick with two men in the front. No sign of Ash but I trust my gut.
I don’t have to say a word to K. She’s been in Legacy for three years and done all the summer training camps. We casually approach the car, each taking a side. The driver is on the phone, not paying attention to us.
As if we can read each other’s minds, we get in the backseat seamlessly, finding Ash slumped over. Rage pumps through my blood, and the guy is lucky I don’t blow his head off right fucking there.
I press my Ruger Revolver against the back of the driver’s head. “You picked the wrong fucking guy today.”