Page 101 of Lock Up the Darkness

It took him another moment to push past it and break Asher’s glare, and then he was striding up to the table and taking a seat beside me, placing his messenger bag on the top beside my laptop. “I sought you out to see how the intel pooling is going. But I see it’s still a work in progress, with certain distractions slowing you down.”

Jeez.

As if the awkwardness and the tension in the room wasn’t already unbearable enough.

I laid my hand on his. “Stop,” I said, when his gaze snapped to mine, surprise and… something else… lighting his eyes. “It’s all okay, I promise.”

I felt his locked muscles loosen, his shoulders lose their tension.

I smiled.

He smiled back at me.

Asher shook his head, then rose to his feet, adjusting his still hard dick in his jeans, before walking to the windowsill and snatching up an ashtray. He returned and placed it down between us and stubbed his smoke out. “There are no distractions getting in the way. A program needed to be written, several algorithms, and a whole lot I won’t bore your non-technical mind with. That’s why it’s taken days. A few minutes ago, Aurora finished writing the last part.” He pointed at my laptop. “Do it. Run it.”

My fingers swept across my keyboard and then I sat back and watched as the program initialized. “Done.”

“Now what?” Killian asked, leaning over to get a look at my screen, his eyes roaming all over it, not knowing what he was really looking at.

“Now everything will be searched, cross-referenced, catalogued. All the research and intel Aurora and I have acquired separately will be pooled together, which will craft a bigger picture outlook.”

“Of what happened three years ago with your dad?” Killian asked me.

I nodded. “We’re hoping it will expose the vulnerability and entry point that he was able to harness, what had Carson Monroe so scared that he brought my dad to one of his slaughterhouses to take him off the board.”

“Not only that,” Asher cut in. “What had him so determined to break him so he could extract intel as to how the hell he’d come so close, how Lance had managed to get an in at all. There’s a weak point in the Infidels, possibly in Monroe Enterprises too, for all our fathers. Together, Aurora and I should be able to determine what that was.”

“And exploit it,” I said.

“And then you expect us to pick up where Revenant left off?” Killian asked, warily. “So that we end up tortured and then next in line for execution instead?”

“Execution is always off the table for me,” Asher said. “I’m his heir apparent, he can’t end me. So, I’ll take the heat if things go south.”

“He might not be able to kill you, but he could make you into a doll.”

Doll? There it was again.

Asher tensed up and I could see his struggle not to lose it like before. “That won’t happen,” he ground out, clenching his fists on the tabletop.

“Ash—”

“It won’t. That’s why we’re doing this smart. Carefully. It will take time for the program to compile everything, to work through it all. Patience, Killian. It’s vital we employ that, because we can’t afford to make a mistake, or one wrong move.”

“I say we make strategic strikes against the hearts of their operations and use the distraction of that to draw out Revenant and bring him onto our team, giving us a major leg up,” a rumbling voice spoke.

We all swung our heads to see Jonah walking in, his mammoth raven’s head belt buckle glinting under the lights of the dining room as his hips worked with his every wide stride, his abs rippling and straining against his tight white tank. He winked at me when he caught me checking him out, then eyed Asher. “What do you say to that?”

“I say that your plan is straight out of an Enforcer’s playbook.”

“Brutal and to the point. Effective.”

“Yes. But also dangerous. Brazenly bold.”

His lip curled up. “That means you like it, you’ll consider it, but fine tune it your way.”

Asher smiled.

“Did you include those recordings?” Killian asked.

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