Page 104 of Asher Black (The Five Syndicates)
Asher goes to the bathroom and comes back with a warm, wet hand towel. I relax into the mattress as he wipes me down. When he stops abruptly, I open my eyes and glance at his face. He’s eyeing my neck, where the reddish beginnings of a bruise have undoubtedly begun to form.
When he speaks, it’s soft. “I’m sorry.”
A devious smirk crosses my lips. “I’m not.”
And then I grab his arms and pull him against me, claiming his lips with mine.
Earlier today, I thought I was at the beginning of like, but I realize that I’m on the opposite edge—the hazy territory, where the lips of like and love kiss, and lines get blurry. And when Asher slips into me again that night, sliding slowly in and out of me, our hands clasped together and his eyes locked on mine, I slip closer into love, dangerously past the cusp of falling into forever.
Chapter Thirty-One
The best protection any
woman can have… is
courage.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I wake up to a flash of light. It’s quick and over by the time I open my eyes, but it was bright enough to wake me from my slumber.
“Asher?” I ask, groggily. “What was that?”
“The panic alarm,” he replies calmly from across the room. “It’s a bright light that shines once, followed by three quick and successive rings at a high enough frequency to wake us from a deep sleep.”
I shoot up in alarm. When I glance at him, he’s already fully dressed and putting two magnets attached to a keychain on random parts of the full body mirror beside the door. It pops open, and inside of it is a safe built into the wall. There are weapons, ranging from an assault rifle to a samurai sword, in the safe.
“Put some clothes on. Something that shows as little skin as possible,” he says. His voice is still relaxed, as if he didn’t just tell me the panic alarm was sounded and isn’t currently loading his body with enough weapons to fight a small army.
I force myself to calm down, trying to exhibit the same cool Asher is. If he isn’t worried, I shouldn’t be either. By the time I’m dressed in black socks, black leggings and a black turtleneck, my hands are no longer trembling. I notice that Asher is dressed similarly and take the time to appreciate Asher’s command. Covered like this, we’ll both be fully protected from bullets everywhere but our heads.
I follow Asher into the armory, both of us moving silently across the hardwood floor. It’s so silent in the halls, I almost don’t believe there’s a credible threat. When we reach the armory, Asher loads up on some more ammo, placing it on some strap that winds across his chest.
He turns to me and says, “If I don’t return in 15 minutes, call the police and ask for a Detective Jameson. He’s with me.”
And then he presses his lips to mine and leaves before I can say, “What?”
A few seconds after he’s gone, the armory doors begin to shut and flat screens descend from the ceiling. I realize that Asher initiated the panic room protocol. When the screens are fully lowered, I focus on studying the images on them, ignoring the pit in my gut that forms at the thought of Asher in danger.
I immediately recognize Asher’s security team. There are about thirteen of them outside the penthouse doors. Two of them are by the elevators, two are stationed in front of the stairs, and the rest of them are looking at some device attached to the door that separates the hallway from the penthouse. When I zoom in on the device, I realize that it has a bunch of wires on it and freeze.
Is that a bomb?!
The idea is so ludicrous, so absurd that frantic laughter bubbles in my throat. I turn away from that screen, because I can’t focus on that without freaking out. All of the rooms are empty, except the open area downstairs, where the living room, dining room and kitchen converge in one large open space.
There are some men sprawled across the floor. I don’t recognize any of them, so I know they’re the attackers. The three guards that normally stay in the security room are joined by Asher’s night guard and mine. Even with the five of them alive and several of the enemies down, our guards are still outnumbered three to one.
It worries me that I don’t see Asher anywhere, but I can’t focus on that or I’ll lose my cool. A glance at the clock tells me less than a minute has passed since Asher left, though it feels like an hour. I’ll give him his 15 minutes before I call the cops but not a second more.
I observe from the safety of the panic room as my night guard fires two shots, the sound silent thanks to the silencer attached to the barrel of his gun. One hits an attacker in the neck, and the other hits one in between the eyes with unnerving accuracy. Two down, thirteen to go. My heart stops as one of the guards is hit in the chest with a bullet. He falls down and doesn’t get back up. There are only four guards left, and I still have thirteen minutes and fifty-two seconds before I can call the cops.
The countdown reads thirteen minutes and eighteen seconds by the time I see Asher slithering his way down the stairwell. There are nine attackers left and only one of Asher’s guards standing. The rest have fallen on the floor, their bodies lifelessly still. My heart mourns for the loss of these men, but I force myself to push these feelings aside until the threat is eliminated.
Asher stills at the last step, his body hidden behind the bend of the stairwell. While he stays there, the last guard is shot in the heart.
It’s only Asher and the nine men now.
I watch as the men separate into three groups of three. One group clears the left hall and the other clears the right hall. I still, my hand hovering over the panic room’s sat phone, when the last group silently approaches the stairwell, where Asher is hiding.
