Page 65 of Crave Me

I hadn’t allowed myself to consider it before as my issues when it came to him and Caleb had gotten in the way. But with him here in person now, spending time with him, working with him, and strategizing with him, it had become undeniably apparent that there was a depth of understanding there that I wasn’t used to having. Well, aside from with Dante. But that relationship was strained with him condemning my recent actions.

But this new connection, it was borne from a similar thing. He and I were both leaders who carried heavy burdens on our shoulders, who had to be virtually infallible to those under our charge. He knew the pressure of it. More importantly, he understood the complexities. He was the strength to his foursome like I was to mine. We had a great deal in common. It was something I hadn’t wanted to allow myself to acknowledge before because of the way he’d delved so deeply into the dark and embraced it. More than that, he’d used it as a source of his power. It was something I’d worked hard to avoid, to ensure I didn’t allow the temptation of it to get its claws into me.

Things had shifted now, however. It was what I needed to be in order to defeat the enemy.

What I’d seen at that mansion a few days ago combined with failing to bring Caleb back, had solidified that and erased any doubts I’d still had remaining of listening to Dante and Luke’s warnings—along with Skylar’s pleas—to step away from the edge and pull myself back.

There was no pulling back.

Sometimes it took a monster to destroy a monster.

I needed to let the dark swallow me.

It was the only way to end this.

There was no room for my humanity.

As I made my way to the sub-level, my phone buzzed with a text notification.

I opened it to see a message from my other ex-military contact.

Boris: Nothing on Wheeler. Those rumors Jace heard are bullshit, don’t trust it. Wheeler is off the grid. Got movement from another ghost.

King: Name?

Boris: Riley Hutchins.

King: No records on her.

Boris: Not surprised. She’s beyond ghost status. But she’s on the move, taking a risk. Only person she’d do that for is Frank Bennett.

King: She’s searching him out?

Boris: Somebody’s asked her to. She wouldn’t actively interfere otherwise. Not in this risky way either where her movements have been picked up on. I’m good, but she’s another level.

King: All right, keep me posted.

Boris: Will do.

I pocketed my phone.

Somebody’s asked her to.

I headed down into the sub-level and found Asher moving back and forth from keyboard to keyboard as he continued working away like a machine compiling every shred of data and intel we’d acquired so far in the search for Caleb, so he could feed it into a program he was coding rapidly.

Jesus. I’d thought Caleb had been a whiz at this sort of thing, but Asher was another level.

He was so immersed in it all that he didn’t even hear me walking in and approaching. The center two monitors concerned the program he was working on regarding tracking Caleb. But the one on the right caught my attention as I approached from that angle.

“What are you doing?”

He swung his head, managing to hide his surprise that someone had been able to sneak up on him. He followed my line of sight to that monitor where details regarding Caleb’s businesses were all over the screen. “You granted me access to everything,” he answered, matter of fact.

“Everything that pertains to the task you agreed to take on.”

“This is adjacent to that,” he insisted. “Caleb’s holdings. His facilities. They require managing in his absence. You’re stretched thin, I’ll handle it in his stead.”

“I need you focused on tracking him.”

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