Page 88 of Asher Black (The Five Syndicates)
“You can keep the clothes. I can get you your room back in Vaserley Hall. You won’t even have to pay for it. I’ll still write your letter of recommendation, too, and give you everything we agreed on.”
I stare at him. He’s really selling this. It’s almost as if he wants me gone.
“Do you want me gone?” There’s an unsurprising amount of hurt in my voice.
“What? No.” He exhales heavily, frowning at my face. “I don’t know.”
I wasn’t expecting that, but at least he’s being honest like always. “What does that mean?”
“It means I want you to stay, but I also want you to go.”
“Why do you want me to stay?”
“Because I like you.”
“Why do you want me to go?”
“Because I like you.”
“Oh.”
“Oh.”
He likes me.
He likes me.
He likes me.
I’m silent for a minute, but my heart is pounding loudly. I can hear the thundering sound in my head. “I have no idea what that means.”
“You and me both,” he mutters.
Gone is the fixer, the self-assured, dangerous man the world wishes to know, and in his place is the real Asher, vulnerable and honest to a fault. I just didn’t realize that this is the real him until now.
“Asher?”
“Lucy?”
“Right now I’m finding it hard to believe you’ve ever killed anyone.”
His eyes widen in surprise, but he remains grimly silent. That’s answer enough.
“Why?” I ask.
“You can’t un-kn—”
I interrupt firmly, “I can’t un-know it. I know. Tell me, please.”
“The first time—” I wince. That means there’s more than one time. “—I was 18.” He sighs at my look of incredulity, which is still there despite the fact that I’ve heard the rumors and remember what he said at L’Oscurità. “I learned to fight at a UFC gym, and Vincent decided that it was important to continue my training when I moved in with him. Except his training was more intense. I didn’t just learn hand to hand combat. I learned tactical training, weapons training, strategizing…”
I try to reconcile this Asher with the 18 year old fighter. I can’t.
“I never thought I would have the chance to use it, and Vincent never wanted me to. It was just a precaution. But then one night, there was an attack on our house. It was coordinated, planned to a T, but what they hadn’t planned for was me. Vincent kept me out of the spotlight. Only the family elders knew about our bond, so no one knew I was living there.
“The attackers killed all of our guards. They lost some of their own, but they still had sixteen men. They thought they had this in the bag. Sixteen men against the great Vincent Romano. That was a fair fight. They didn’t know I existed let alone lived in that house. I took them out before they even got to Vincent’s room.”
“Sixteen men. You took out sixteen men? How?”
