by Riley Storm
“Put the car in park,” he growled. “I will take care of this, then answer your questions and explain. Okay?”
He waited patiently until she reached out and slammed the gear shift into park before sitting back in her seat, arms crossed. Asher sighed, this time loudly enough for her to hear, and tapped on the window, motioning for her to roll it back up.
Emma glared at him but did as she was told. With Wilson still blocking the alleyway, it wasn’t like she could go anywhere anyway.
“Who’s the broad?” Wilson asked, gesturing at the car.
Tamping down on his anger, Asher shrugged. “Some chick who won’t leave me alone,” he said, trying to sound tired. “Slept with her once, and now she just won’t stop following me.”
“Excuse me?!”
Asher nearly fainted as Emma’s voice sounded from behind him.
“I heard that!” she snapped. “Stop lying. We never slept together!”
“Grrr,” Asher said. “One moment more.”
Wilson rolled his eyes, but he didn’t move to leave.
Asher turned and stormed the few steps back to Emma’s car in the cramped space behind the old bakery.
“What are you doing?” he hissed through the window. “Seriously. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Why are you telling people that we slept together, Asher? We kissed. Once. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. Now you’re going around spreading rumors about me? That is not cool, man. Not. Cool.”
Asher gaped helplessly. What the heck was he supposed to do now?
“Are you about done?” Wilson called.
Standing up, Asher glared at him. “I told you, one moment. Keep the attitude up, and my buyers will go elsewhere, got it? No more regular purchases for you.”
He didn’t wait for a response before turning his attention back to Emma.
“Regular buyers?” she hissed. “You’re a damned drug trafficker, that’s what you are. You lying asshole! Your treasure is probably all stolen goods, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?”
“No, it’s not. At all. Just stop talking for a bit and this will fine, okay?” he said, trying to give her a reassuring smile.
“I do not have all day. Regular buyers or not, I will not stand around and have my time wasted. Do you want to deal or not?” Mr. Wilson said.
“Just stop talking?” Emma exclaimed. “Who do you think you are to talk to me like that?”
“Coming!” Asher said to Mr. Wilson, then glared at Emma. “Shut up, I’ll deal with you later.”
He blinked as his words and tones registered. The constant stress and trying to flip his personality, and then he’d gone and done it, made the worst mistake.
Instead of trying to calm Emma and threaten Wilson, he’d done the opposite.
“Ah shit,” he muttered.
“Did you just tell me to shut up?” Emma all but shrieked, furious with him. “Are you serious right now? I can’t believe I came all the way out here to—”
“I am done waiting. The deal is off. You have too many issues,” Mr. Wilson said, turning to go.
“Wait. Hold on,” Asher called. “One second. Just gimme thirty seconds to handle this, and then we’re on. It’s not normal, I promise.”
Although he wanted to make a point, Asher was buying enough product off him to keep Mr. Wilson’s attention a bit longer. Especially at the prospect of repeat purchases of the same size. The lure of more money won out, and Wilson waved a hand at him tiredly. “Thirty seconds. Time is of the essence.”
Asher rolled his eyes. “You’re in Five Peaks, Wilson. There is nothing else going on, okay? We both know that. Now just hold on.”
“Okay, here’s the deal,” he said, sticking his head in the window, at the end of his patience. “You roll up the window. Stay in the car. Give me a minute to talk to him. Alone, without you interfering. Then when he is gone, you can either leave, and you’ll only hear from me when I have my treasure back and can pay you, or you can stay and get answers. I don’t care which, it’s your choice. Just stay in your car and be quiet. Please.”
Emma stared daggers at him. “Fine,” she said.
“Windows up. Head down. Okay?”
She frowned. “Head down? What?”
Asher just tapped on the windshield impatiently. It earned him another glare, but Emma did as he’d requested.
The second it was up, he slammed his fist into her driver’s side door, smashing the locking mechanism and window, mangling it closed.
There was a yelp from inside. He bashed off the mirror, then drove his elbow into the window just hard enough to make it crack all over, but not enough to shatter it. He did the same to the backseat window and then the rear window as well, effectively blinding Emma.
“Sorry about that,” he said with a cheerful smile as he walked back toward Mr. Wilson.
The guards were watching him warily, all four of them.
Wilson looked behind him at the car, where Emma was shouting at him from inside. Asher ignored it. He kept walking forward.
The goons realized he wasn’t slowing, and they went for their guns, but by then it was too late. Asher was pissed off and he needed answers. Now. He wasn’t about to wait any longer for them.
“What are you—” Wilson tried to speak, but Asher was busy demolishing his “protection”.
He slipped to the right, driving an elbow into the thug’s sternum, then rotating the arm upward so his fist cracked into his nose, dropping the man to the ground in a heap.
A deep sense of satisfaction came over him at being able to unload some of his anger on those deserving of it. Asher was careful to hold back as he methodically dropped the four hired support one by one. He wasn’t out to kill them. Just give him some time to chat with Wilson unhindered.
A chop to the knee, a vicious shoulder to the jaw, and another one toppled over. His hands lashed out faster than the next two guards could follow. One flew back into a dumpster, hitting it hard enough to make Asher wince, while the other flipped up over the hood of the car and disappeared out of sight and stayed that way.
“Now,” Asher said jovially, grabbing Wilson by the shoulders and lifting him up and slamming him down onto the hood hard enough to dent it. “Where were we? Oh right. You were going to tell me where my treasure was. Now,” he snarled.
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Wilson said, trying to play innocent.
Asher lifted him up and slammed him back down. He didn’t have time for games.
“Who is Lars and where can I find him? Answer me!”
Chapter Sixteen
Emma
For a solid handful of seconds, she sat still in her car, shocked speechless by what Asher had just done to it.
Her car. Her precious car. He’d destroyed it! The door was dented in, the windows broken. So why couldn’t she stop thinking that he’d done all this for her own protection? He’d certainly made it seem that way.
Shock quickly gave way to anger, however, and Emma began pulling on the door handle, trying to get out of the car. It wasn’t working though. She was trapped!
Logic cut in and she undid her seatbelt, climbing over the console to the far side. She caught a glimpse of motion in the side mirror, but by the time she got over and out of the car, it was apparent to her that whatever was happening, had happened.
Three of the four men she’d seen standing guard around the drug dealer were sprawled out on the ground. They weren’t moving. Hopefully just unconscious. There was no sign of the fourth.
Emma squeaked in surprise as she saw Asher lift the man up from the hood of the car and slam him back down into it, snarling something that was unintelligible to her.
She didn’t know what exactly was going on, but it certainly seemed as if Asher had it all in hand. Her eyes roamed the downed guards again. Had he done that? All in the time it took her to get out of the car?
Her eyes noticed something else on the ground near one of the guards, stic
king out from under his jacket. Being from a small country town, she knew what a gun looked like when she saw it, even half-obscured by the jacket.
That was what Asher had been protecting her from, she realized with a start, feeling her heart thud faster.
He’d known all along that they were armed, and he’d been trying to get rid of her. Asher had been trying to save her life. She couldn’t deny that now, the evidence was too plain for her to see.
How did he know? What’s more, how had he taken out the four men in such a short period of time? Emma watched as he interrogated the older man he had pinned to the hood. Doing something like that took skill. A lot of skill.
Could Asher be a government agent of some sort?
Government agent. Secret vault in the woods. A “brother” able to track him.
“Holy shit,” she yelped as everything came crashing into coherence. Everything made so much more sense now!
The mysterious hole in her wall from someone he couldn’t talk about. The police immediately letting him go. The unlimited funds to repair her grandfather’s house, the issue that had started this all. His skills in combat, secret exits from the vault, how could she have not seen it all before now?
Asher was looking over at her now, having heard her exclamation.
“Where’s my treasure?” he snarled, returning his attention to the man on the hood.
She walked over to him. He didn’t tell her to get back in the car, which must mean the danger was over. For now.
“Who is this guy?” she asked casually.
“This turd,” Asher growled, pushing his weight down on the man, denting the hood of the car some more. “Is the one responsible for having us locked in the vault.”
Emma’s attitude turned icy as she stared daggers at the man. “You trapped us in there?” she shouted. “Why would you do that?” She lunged for him, but Asher’s arm blocked her. “You asshole!”
The sudden outburst of emotion hadn’t been expected and Emma stumbled back a step, blinking in shock, trying to compose herself.
“He’s also the one who stole my treasure,” Asher said.
The man laughed. But only for a second. Government Agent Asher let go of his shoulder just long enough to punch him in the gut, driving the air from his lungs.
“You despicable piece of human excrement,” Emma spat as the man heaved painfully, trying to regain his breath. “I can’t believe you would do something like that to someone.
“Where is my treasure?” Asher rumbled ominously, his attention now split between her and his victim.
Emma tried not to notice the constant glances he was sending her way, but it was difficult not to, especially when she kept staring back.
“Long gone,” the man chuckled. “I know not where.”
Emma gasped, covering her mouth with a hand at the admission. There had been a treasure.
Why did a government agent have a treasure? So many questions that she didn’t have answers to. But one of the biggest ones had just been confirmed. Asher hadn’t been lying to her about it, or about its theft. That was all completely true!
So maybe some of her other earlier opinions of him were wrong as well. Perhaps Asher wasn’t the bad guy after all. Could it be that he was one of the good guys, government agent or not, and that she’d had it all wrong?
“Tell me where to find him,” Asher was saying to the crime lord.
“No idea.”
Metal crunched. Asher was pushing the pan deeper into the car. He was so strong, she noticed. The muscles for more than just show.
“I swear, I swear! I don’t know where to find him. He always came to me. Never over the phone, always at my business. I promise! Ahh!”
“Well that’s thoroughly useless information,” Asher muttered in her direction.
“What do we do now?” she wanted to know. Interrogating people wasn’t something she had any experience with. Best to let the trained professional handle it.
“I’m…not entirely sure,” Asher admitted. “Kind of at a roadblock. Cause I’m pretty positive he’s telling us the truth. He doesn’t know. He’s useless to us.”
With a disgusted sigh, Asher pushed off from the car, letting go of the mob boss—as if Five Peaks had a mob!—and slapping his hands together as if to wash off the dust.
“You two have made a big mistake here,” the older man started to say. “Do you know who—”
Emma watched wide-eyed as Asher spun, grabbed the man by his shirt and jacket, hauled him off the car and tossed him clear back up the alleyway and into the windshield of the car beyond.
“No, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care,” he growled as the criminal lay still, eyes open wide, chest rising up and down, stunned by the sudden display of power. “Five Peaks is my town, and it’s under my protection. If you so much as breathe in her direction, you’ll be in jail for the rest of your life before you can inhale again. At best.”
Emma was astonished too, but also…impressed. She’d never seen someone do that. Not with such casual strength. It was intimidating and yet…and yet she wanted to stare at him and bite her lower lip, that’s how it was affecting her.
“Get a grip of yourself,” she hissed.
“What’s that?” Asher asked, looking up from where he was busy hauling one of the unconscious thugs out of the alleyway.
“Nothing,” she said sweetly. “Just…taking this all in. It’s all a little new for me. I’ve never been under a government agent’s protection before.”
Asher frowned at her. “A what?” he said, shaking his head in confusion, then moving on. “Sorry about this by the way. I didn’t want you to see any of this, but you just sort of showed up.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, waving it off, trying to seem cool, as if she could handle this. Asher didn’t need to know that she was both mildly freaking out and a little turned on by him all at the same time. Nope, he didn’t need to know that at all.
“Okay. I’m going to get this all out of the way. Then we need to go.”
“Right. Of course.” She nodded, taking a step toward her car before her memory returned to her. “Um, Asher? I can’t go. You kind of broke my car.”
“Hmm? Oh. That. Don’t worry, not a big deal. I can fix it.”
Chapter Seventeen
Emma
“This is not my idea of fixing it,” she muttered for the tenth time as wind whipped at her face and pulled strands of hair free from her braided ponytail. “It’s more broken than before! How is that fixing it?”
Asher’s answer to her predicament had been simple. He got into her car, pushed really hard, and the panes of glass popped free. He’d gotten out, looking at his handiwork with a big old stupid grin on his face, proud of the solution he’d come up with.
Emma meanwhile had looked on in horror, only seeing more dollar signs of damage that Asher was racking up on her stuff. First her grandfather’s house, which still wasn’t repaired, and now her car. Her poor car!
They were headed back to her house to regroup, and also to talk. Emma had some questions that it was past time he answered, and she wanted to figure out just what sort of situation she had walked in on by getting herself involved with Asher. No more games. She was going to know everything.
And maybe she could guilt him a bit more by showing him the damage to the house again. Perhaps he could get a better feel for it by sticking around this time, instead of that jerk of a Sheriff Dunbar just letting him go.
She pulled into the driveway, grateful to be home, and not just because it meant no more driving without a windshield. It was much more uncomfortable than she’d assumed!
Waiting until Asher pulled in next to her, she got out, closing the door with a heavy thud.
Clink-clink-clink. The sound of metal bouncing and then rolling reached her ears. Looking down at her feet, she saw what had caused the noise.
“Everything okay?” Asher asked, coming around the front of his truck.
“H
ere,” she said, flipping the noise-maker to him. “I think you left something behind.”
Asher looked at it with a frown. “What do you mean?”
“That’s the second one of those that has come free from my tires,” she said. “Care to explain how they got there? How I might have picked them up? Because I certainly don’t remember driving over any used ammunition lately. Which is what you’re holding. A spent casing. Looks like something big enough to be from a rifle, certainly not a pistol.”
Emma had been advancing on Asher as she spoke. Now she was right in front of him as she continued. “You’re the secret government agent. Tell me, just what was it that you were doing when you snuck out of the vault, leaving me alone?”
“Maybe hunters came by while we were locked inside?” Asher suggested weakly.
“I’m glad you made it a suggestion,” she said, poking him in the stomach. “Because I don’t get the feeling you’ve outright lied to me yet, even if you’ve left a lot of information out.” She softened, deciding to try a different tactic. “And I’d really like to keep it that way Asher. For whatever reason, I enjoy being able to trust you. Even if it’s put me in some crazy positions.”
Asher slumped slightly, and she pushed past him, heading up the walkway to her front door, leaving him alone to contemplate her words and what he was going to say next.
“Technically, I wasn’t lying,” he said, footsteps scraping against the flagstone. “Two hunters did come by.”
“Oh really? They just happened to find a ten-point buck right by our cars and needed multiple shots to hit it?” she drawled sarcastically, opening the door and walking in, leaving it open for him to follow.
“Maybe, but I wasn’t there for that part,” Asher said, following her inside. “But they were also there on purpose. They had a door to close. They didn’t take it too nicely when I showed up to open it. They tried to stop me.”
Emma whirled. “So you’re saying they shot at you?” she gasped, not sure why she hadn’t really absorbed that information before.
“They missed,” he said, holding his hands up. “I promise. Not a scratch, not even a graze.”
