Page 81 of Crave Me

God, I fucking loved that woman.

As I made my way down the corridor, hushed voices caught my attention.

I pulled up short using the cover of one of the alcoves to remain concealed as I took in the sight of Dante and Asher embroiled in a heated conversation.

Well, the heated part was on Dante’s end. Asher was just standing there with his arms folded across his chest that was now covered in a black shirt. He looked completely unaffected. And I would’ve gone with that for sure if I hadn’t noticed his eye twitching once or twice as Dante went at him.

“Telling him while circumstances are what they are was irresponsible.”

“It wasn’t my intent to tell him at all.”

“Excuse me?”

“I was investigating you on behalf of Caleb. Once I’d completed my investigation, the information would’ve been passed onto him with it being his decision on what to do with it.”

“Yet you allowed Caspian to come to know.”

“I was focused on tracking Cal when he walked in and saw what else I was working on.”

“You’re a highly-trained combatant, always aware of your surroundings.”

“I was immersed in the program. The complications pertaining to tracking Caleb, tracking Elijah, are… another level.”

“Even for you?”

“Even for me.”

“You’re worried that it can’t be done.”

“I don’t stop when I set my mind to a task or a mission. We will find him. But the time that it could take… that’s my concern. While I know Caleb will survive what he’s enduring—and there’s also the fact that Elijah would be foolish to take his life when Cal is the closest person to Caspian and could provide a font of useful intel—what he might do in order to survive and play Elijah’s game is disturbing to consider.”

“There are too many leads to sift through?”

“There are too many gaps in the intel. My program works off discerning patterns, which can’t be drawn effectively with so many missing pieces. It can infer, yes, but that means a loss of accuracy, and leads generating not being solid enough.”

I heard Dante cursing in Italian, then he scrubbed his hand over his goatee, trying to quell the stark emotion all over him. He reminded me of Caspian in that moment. He felt so much and didn’t hide it from us, his inner circle. He embraced it, valued it, and gave it all to us in such a courageous way.

But lately that had been missing. He’d been shutting down—just like I used to.

And nobody knew the dangers of doing that more than me.

But I also understood the believed need for it.

He was in so much pain, so burdened, so full of frustration and rage at the situation.

And he was also so beyond tired, which was just serving to exacerbate everything else.

“Frank Bennett being here now will help to fill in some of those gaps. If he doesn’t wake up soon, I’ll make it so. We can’t afford to wait much longer. Every moment that goes by is unhinging Caspian. With the kind of power he wields, it’s beyond dangerous.”

“I don’t disagree.”

“Then I expect your support should I need to employ extreme methods.”

“The same extreme methods you’ve condemned Caspian for?”

“It’s different for me.”

“Yeah, that’s what I told myself too. I’m sure it’s what Caspian is telling himself.”

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