Page 54 of Scars Run Deep

Actually, they’d made us more than that, the marker of us really joining together as one.

They’d meant a lot to all of us.

I really hoped he wasn’t about to go back on that promise.

I really hoped he could live up to it.

We needed him to.

I needed him to.

8

~Asher~

He certainly took clandestine to a whole other level.

Great minds most definitely.

I scanned the vicinity for the umpteenth time.

Nothing untoward.

No suspicious activity.

No movement at all, in fact.

Absolutely no change since I’d first arrived here thirty-six minutes ago.

That was twenty minutes ahead of schedule, so I could scout the area beforehand.

And that now made him sixteen minutes late.

Tardiness got under my skin as a rule, because it was disrespectful and unreliable.

But in this case, it was also dangerous. It meant something could be very wrong.

And, even if it wasn’t, being out here at all, meeting like this, and being off-territory, was a risk.

I’d played it down to Jonah, because I’d had to. He didn’t take well to me being in any level of danger, not even the slightest. And if he thought that was the situation now, he’d have no qualms about kicking over a shit-ton of hornets nests and raising absolute hell to get to me.

I absolutely couldn’t have that with this.

It was imperative that I handled it quietly.

And alone.

Bringing the three of them in on it would come later.

Possibly.

The outcome of what was about to happen would determine that.

I’d promised them full disclosure and I wanted to live up to it. But if tonight proved I needed to withhold information for the benefit of our mission, for their protection and safety, I would. Absolute honesty didn’t always play well in reality. Especially not our reality. It was a nice sentiment and I’d wanted to believe in it when I’d made them that vow in a rare moment of optimistic idealism. But it wasn’t always possible.

At least it had served its purpose.

It had rallied them.

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