by Riley Storm
“Is that all?” Asher asked, the first to reign in his temper. “I have to go.”
Not only did he have to go, but he wanted to go.
He was off to his treasure vault to meet Emma, and to his surprise, he found himself eager to get there.
Eager to see her.
Chapter Five
Emma
The last turn on the directions Asher had given her appeared in front of her, as hidden as he’d said it would be.
Abruptly, she pulled over to the side of the road, gravel rumbling underneath the tires as she came to a halt.
“What are you doing?” she asked, shaking her head, giving the barely visible dirt track—calling it a road would be too generous—a long look out of the corner of her eye.
There had to be a good reason why Asher would want her out here, in the middle of nowhere in the mountains surrounding Five Peaks. She looked back at the road she’d come down, a road Emma hadn’t known existed until she’d turned on it.
Was this all a mistake? Should she have insisted that he simply pay her normally, with a check, like most people would have? Though the more she talked to him, the more Emma was realizing that Asher wasn’t like most people. Not at all. And they had only talked twice!
Imagine what he will be like after a third time. Or a fourth.
Not that Emma could come up with any logical reason why she would ever talk to Asher again after today. Once she had her settlement in hand, that was it. Goodbye. See-ya. Sayonara. No more cocky, arrogant Asher Aterna in her life, and thank goodness for that.
Right?
She could relax, live in peace, and hire the master craftsman it would take to repair her grandfather’s work as good as new again. The house would be repaired, and she could rest easy, knowing that her grandpapa would be looking down at her with pride for the way she was taking care of his things.
Emma owed him that much at least.
She looked over at the bag on the seat next to her. Not her normal purse, this one was larger. For good reason. Leaning over in her seat, she gave it a squeeze, reassuring herself that everything would be okay, that it would work out.
Oddly enough, she didn’t need much reassurance. Of all the things she felt with Asher around, unsafe was not one of them. Even his mysterious, shady method of paying her didn’t evoke any fears that he was out to get her.
That didn’t mean she was coming unprepared, but she wasn’t expecting any issues. Not unless he tried to renegotiate, but she could handle that. She was ready, her nerves calm, mind like steel. She could do this.
Something knocked at her window.
“Ahh!” she screamed, foot coming off the brakes and slamming on the gas before she knew what she was doing.
The car shot ahead as she frantically grabbed at the wheel to prevent the car from going into the ditch as it spewed gravel behind her.
Her brain caught up with the rest of her and she glanced in her rear-view, easing off the gas and bringing the car to a halt as she recognized the figure behind her.
It was Asher.
Decked out in a solid black long-sleeve shirt and dark blue jeans that fit him perfectly, he walked up to her car, brushing off dust and bits of debris from his clothing.
“What the heck are you doing?” she yelled, rolling her window down. “You scared the bejeesus out of me!”
Asher frowned. “Seriously? I was coming here to meet you and pay you your ransom money. I want to settle up, so that this thing can be over and done with. Much like you, I suppose. While I was driving here, I saw a car parked on the side of the road. As wild as this might be for you to understand, I was concerned that perhaps someone was in trouble.”
Emma considered his words. “Okay, that seems to be a solid line of reasoning and train of thought,” she admitted after several moments.
“Are you okay? You were certainly on edge there. Is everything okay?” he asked, his eyes searching hers.
“Yeah. Fine. I’m fine,” she said, waving him off.
“Right.” His voice said he didn’t believe her at all.
Well that was fine, Emma didn’t need him to believe her. She was a grown adult who could do things on her own.
“If you want to just follow me from here, we’re not far away,” he said, gesturing at the turn. “You were almost there. Just one last turn.”
“Your directions were easy to follow,” she said. “But why is your vault all the way out here, Asher? Who keeps stuff in the middle of nowhere like this? I mean, look at that…trail. It’s not heavily used at all. What is this place?”
Asher watched her with troubled eyes. He didn’t like the line of questioning, that was easy for her to see, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to back down. It was weird, and she wanted to know. Her foot twitched on the brake pedal, ready to hit the gas again if she needed to, if he did anything overly suspicious.
Yet still she didn’t feel in danger. There was no real sense of unease. Just confusion, lack of understanding. But no forbidding sense of doom, like she was doing something stupid. Asher just gave her a sense of…safety, in fact.
Emma couldn’t explain it, but she knew she would feel safer travelling the rest of the way with him, instead of on her own.
It was crazy, but it was real.
“I don’t trust humans,” Asher said, interrupting her thoughts. “Ah, the bank, I don’t trust the banks.”
She frowned. “I see.”
“Why do you ask?”
“I mean, it’s kind of shady, Asher. A little…almost criminal, if I’m being honest.”
Her foot was ready to go at any time as she voiced her thoughts, even if they differed from her feelings.
Asher frowned, then his eyebrows shot up, eyes going wide, fully revealing the golden amber of his pupils. “Oh, my God,” he gasped. “No. No, that’s not it at all, Emma. I’m not a criminal. There’s no, this isn’t some sort of trap. Crap, I never thought about how it would appear to you,” he said, shaking his head.
“Shocker,” she muttered, fully aware that Asher wasn’t the type to often think about things from other people’s point of view.
“You can stay right here if you want,” he said, throwing out the idea. “If that would make you more comfortable.’
“A check would be the most assuring,” she suggested airily, wondering how he would respond.
“No checks. No banks,” Asher said flatly. “No records. I’ll go in and bring it back here, load up your car if you’d like, but I’m taking a twenty-five percent hauling fee for doing so.”
Emma trembled with anger at his audacity.
“Absolutely not,” she snapped at him. “There’s no way I’m letting you pay one cent less than what we agreed upon. Not at all. I’ll follow you to your secret treasure stash, mister. I’ll load every gold bar myself if I have to, so that you don’t get out of your obligation.”
Asher shrugged. “Suit yourself. Follow me.”
She watched him go back to his truck, trying to contain her anger. He waved as he went past her, smiling broadly.
Once more, Emma reached over and patted her oversized purse and its contents. She could do this.
If he tried something, she would be ready.
Chapter Six
Emma
The car was bouncing wildly by the time they finally pulled to a halt. Not for the first time she found herself wishing she had an SUV or a truck. Life out in the tiny mountain town would be a lot easier for her if she did.
But they cost money, and most of Emma’s paychecks went into upkeep of the house. Buying a brand-new vehicle simply wasn’t part of the equation.
Well it might be now.
She shook her head. This money wasn’t hers to spend. It was to go toward the house. To repairing it, restoring it even. There were other things she could get done that needed doing. Things she simply hadn’t had the time or the money to accomplish, but that her grandfather surely would have if he was still around.
The o
ld man had been meticulous about the care he took of his property, and she tried to do the same. It was hard though. Everything cost so much these days.
“Emma!”
The voice came to her, dulled by having to pass through the windshield from outside. Blinking, she returned her focus to the area around her where she saw Asher waving both his arms over his head and calling her name, trying to get her attention. He was already out of his truck and pointing up ahead.
They must be near.
Reaching across the seat, she grabbed her purse and got out of the car.
“Just up here,” Asher said, pointing through a pair of trees just a little too small to fit his truck through. Her car would have fit, but the bigger vehicle was blocking the path.
In fact, she wondered now just how she was going to even turn around. Or was she going to have to back out the entire way?
“Are you coming?”
Shaking her head, realizing that Asher had gone ahead without her, she nodded and walked a little faster to catch up as he waited.
“You sure you’re okay?” he wanted to know.
“People know where I am,” she said, then wondered why she’d lied to him like that? He wasn’t giving her any heebie-jeebies. In fact, the closer she got to him, the more protected she seemed to feel.
That makes no sense, she thought to herself, but that didn’t make it any less true.
“What do you mean?” Asher asked, concerned. “Who did you tell? How many people know?”
Emma stopped in her tracks, caught off guard by his questions. Her hand slipped into the purse as she eyed him suspiciously. He wasn’t giving off any obvious signs that he was about to do something, but still…
“Maybe this was a bad idea,” she said, looking around.
Asher sighed, his eyes following her arm as it went in her purse. “You’re not going to need a gun,” he said, holding his hands out wide. “I promise, okay? I wasn’t trying to set you on edge. I just wasn’t expecting you to go sharing the location with everyone. I do try to keep it kind of private you know.”
She wanted to know then why he’d brought her out there instead of just bringing the payment to her, but for some reason, Emma didn’t put voice to the words.
Was she afraid of what the answer might be? Or was it that she just didn’t care?
“Well I didn’t tell people exactly,” she relented, altering her initial story. Why was she doing this? Why not keep him on edge instead? What was with her sudden desire to put him at ease? “Just some people that can find my phone or track my GPS of my car. That’s all.”
There were so many holes in her story that Asher could have driven his truck through it. In hindsight, Emma probably should have told people where she was going, but again, she couldn’t shake the inescapable feeling of security with Asher.
“Well there won’t be any need for them to use it,” Asher said, still unhappy, but not interested in pursuing the point any further. “You’ll be going back as soon as you’re loaded up. Which hopefully won’t take you very long to do,” he said, glancing up through the tree canopy at the sky. “The sun will be down shortly.”
“Couldn’t have met here in the morning,” she muttered unhappily as they started forward again.
“Nope,” Asher said cheerfully.
All at once, they were swallowed up by darkness.
It took Emma a panicked moment to realize that they had walked into a cave entrance. The trees were pushed right up against it, hiding it from even the keenest of eyes.
She took out her cellphone and turned on the flashlight just in time to see Asher picking up something from the ground nearby. It looked like a stick of some sort.
Her suspicions were confirmed when the torch suddenly burst into bright light. Emma shook her head, eyes adjusting to the light. She hadn’t seen him use a lighter. It had just caught on fire, catching her by surprise.
“What is that for?” she asked. “Is that all we’re going to be able to see by?”
Asher didn’t respond. He walked forward, and she followed. They rounded a sharp left turn perhaps ten steps further down, and twenty after that, they came to a halt.
She was going to have to carry the gold a long way. Hopefully, she was lucky, and he had it melted into bars already. Emma had checked the price of gold before leaving her house that morning, and by her estimates she was owed a hair over three kilo bars.
Twenty-odd pounds of gold would weight her down on the trip back, but she figured she could manage it. Perhaps Asher would quit being lame and take one or two for her as well. It’s not like they would weigh much for him. Not with muscles that big…
Asher waved the torch in front of him, revealing a large metal door.
Emma blinked. It was a vault door. A real honest-to-goodness bank vault door. Buried here in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. And as she looked at it closer, she saw an electronic pin pad and fingerprint scanner.
“You sure take your security highly,” she remarked. The electronics meant there was a power source nearby as well.
Asher had gone to a lot of work to keep this place secure.
“Yeah, I do,” he said quietly as he unlocked the door.
The metal bars on the inside retracted with a dull thud, and the door swung easily on its hinges.
“Now, once we’re inside, you keep your hands to yourself,” Asher said. “If you take anything, one tiny thing that you aren’t supposed to, I will know about it. And you won’t get a thing,” he rumbled. “Am I making myself clear?”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Well that’s a little over the top, don’t you think?”
“Not really,” he said quietly. “I know what’s on the other side of this door. You don’t.”
She chewed on her lip. What could he really be hiding? “If you say so.”
“I do,” Asher said. “It’s fairly easy for someone to be awed by…” he pulled the door open, watching her face as he gestured at the inside. “This.”
Emma frowned as lights flicked on inside, activated by the opening of the door.
“Uh. Impressed by what?” she asked, looking back over at Asher. “An empty room?”
Asher rolled his eyes. “Very funny,” he said, turning to look inside.
His body jerked violently as he too looked at the empty room beyond.
“My treasure!” he gasped. “It’s gone!”
Chapter Seven
Asher
Rushing into the room he grappled with the panic filling his system.
The black tiled floor glittered in places where the lights hit it, only emphasizing the emptiness of the vast room.
“Gone,” he moaned, trying to understand. “It’s gone. All of it, gone!”
Emma was standing nearby, but she wasn’t saying anything just yet.
“This can’t be.” His words were turning from shock and horror to anger with a swiftness that surprised even him. “Someone broke in and stole it all,” he growled, feeling blood swell his muscles as they prepared for violence.
But against whom? Who would have done this to him? Better yet, he thought, how did they do this?”
“Asher.”
The voice echoed flatly through the room. Even the acoustics were wrong now, without all the gold and boxes of jewels to bounce off of. When it was full, just speaking in the room gave one’s voice a rich feeling.
“Asher!” Emma said again when he didn’t immediately respond.
“What?” he growled, prowling around the room, trying to understand how such a tragedy could occur, and coming up blank. Yet there was no doubting it had happened.
“What the hell is going on here? You bring me out in the middle of nowhere, to an empty room?” Emma said, walking forward, gesturing around at the blank floor. “Was this whole thing a setup?”
Asher gaped at the woman, stunned by her lack of caring, her complete and total disregard for what had happened to him. A lifetime of accumulating his wealth…
“A setup?
” he asked, his voice hard. “A setup? Are you daft? How could you ask that right now?” he yelled, taking a step toward her.
Emma’s hand came out of her purse the instant he took that first step. A black rectangular box with yellow markings on it was pointed his direction, her thumb poised above a red button.
The taser didn’t exactly hum with power, but it was threatening enough. At least, to her it likely was. So, it wasn’t a gun she’d been holding, but that. A fair precaution, even though she wouldn’t need it.
“Stay back!” she shouted. “Just stay right where you are, Asher. You tell me everything that’s going on! If you take one more step toward me, you’re getting fifty-thousand volts straight to the nuts.”
Asher frowned. “What? Seriously? Why would you threaten to hit me in the nuts of all places? That’s just…that’s mean, Emma. Couldn’t you have just left it at hitting me with fifty-thousand volts? What did I ever do to you?”
She blinked, likely at his odd concern. “Are you even thinking straight?”
“Clearly not,” he fired back, looking around in dismay, trying to keep his temper, his emotions in check. Now was not the time to let loose, to display his true feelings. “I’ve been robbed.”
“Right. Or, you’ve used this all as a lie, to get me out here with the promise of gold and jewels, and now you’re going to trap me in a vault, under the mountains. How about that for starters as to why I might be a little, oh I don’t know, defensive?”
Asher snapped, his temper shining through for just a moment. But it was enough. “For the last time, I am not out here to hurt you,” he thundered, his voice reverberating off the rocky interior of his vault.
Emma took a step back, but she didn’t turn and run. Nor did she continue to threaten him. “Explain this then,” she said, waving at the empty room.
“I can’t,” he growled, reigning his voice in. “Someone broke into my vault. They stole my treasure. And I intend to find out just who it was.”
