Page 84 of Burn It Down

He nodded. “Being away from his secure off-the-grid setup is a risk with every moment that goes by. He would have normally come in and out exceedingly quickly. He wouldn’t have stayed after the job was done.”

“Then why do you think he did?”

He grimaced, then eyed me, actual worry sparking in his eyes. “Asher has gone dark.”

“He’s… what?”

“There’s no time for him to heal psychologically from what they subjected him to in that slaughterhouse, not even physically all the way either, so he’s bypassing it.” He shook his head to himself. “He should be sitting it out, but he’s chosen this route instead. He can’t allow Carson to be taken down by anybody else. He can’t give up control.”

“Bypassing what he went through? That doesn’t seem like something real, something possible. How would he even do that?”

As I asked the questions, I realized how much I needed to hear the answers. Not only to understand what was going on with Asher, but also for myself.

To shake the twisted imprint Carson had also made on me.

My dad and Olivia had both asked me what had happened in that room at the auction that night—both of them coming at me at different times and in different ways—and I’d told them that Asher had been beaten and I’d been made to watch and threatened by Carson. I’d left out the rest. It wouldn’t have done any good for them to know. And I didn’t want them looking at me like I was a damsel in distress any more than my dad already was. It would just have reinforced his wish to keep me off-the-grid and away from all of this.

I doubted we’d even be here tonight heading for the guys’ safehouse.

Well, after the move they’d made to get at my dad and force his hand, maybe we would, but my dad would then take me away right after they’d been able to see me for a few moments.

“It involves some complicated compartmentalization,” my dad said, pulling me back to the immediate moment, as he continued scanning the area and the traps barring our way any further toward the house. “The most dangerous part, however, requires Asher to unleash that monster in him.”

A shudder rolled through me.

Before I could even begin to process it, or get a word out, my dad grasped my hand and started dragging me.

“What are you doing? Dad?” I demanded, struggling against him and his insane grip.

“It’s too dangerous now. Hell, it was too dangerous before. But with him in that state, it’s just reached another threat level.”

“You’re right about that,” a voice rang out, pulling us both up short abruptly.

A very familiar voice.

That commanding baritone.

That sexy edge.

My dad reacted, shoving me behind him, then pulling his gun and cocking it, aiming into the depths of the dark forest.

“Guess again, old man.”

I jolted as a blur of movement caught my eye coming from the other direction to where my dad was aiming, somehow managing to fool even him.

It slammed into him in the next second, ripping his gun from his grasp, then taking him down to the floor.

And then I zeroed in on Asher straddling him and wailing on him as my dad struggled beneath him.

He was only wearing a pair of his black jeans, his chest bare.

His hair was fucking wild.

But as I rushed over, it was his eyes that sent a chill through me.

They were utterly black.

He was snarling, his punches a blur of motion as my dad grunted and his head snapped to the side.

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