Page 19 of The Bait

Asher’s nostrils flared, his eyes full of rage. “I need to kill something.”

Harry lessened the grip on his arm and rubbed it instead. “We need to put together a plan. We found nothing here, and the cops are gonna be all over this placeas soon as those men on that boat get to the island and alert authorities. And we need tonotbe here when that happens, okay?”

Asher sighed, and Harry took that as his acknowledgement.

“We need to think about what we know so far.”

“We know nothing.”

“Yes, we do. We know Yunho and Lucas weren’t killed on sight. That means they were taken because they know something or have something that someone wants.”

Asher’s eyes narrowed, like that hurt to hear or as if he hadn’t considered that.

And he should have.

God, they were so out of practice.

“And the other thing we know for certain is that Yunho and Lucas were taken around the same time three Croatian military guys turned up at our place. That’s not a coincidence, and that’s all we have right now.”

“So we go to Croatia,” Asher said.

Harry nodded. “So we’re going to Croatia.” He thought about that for a second. “I don’t know where exactly to start in Croatia, but?—”

“I do,” Asher said.

There was a coldness in his eyes, a detached and calculating darkness that Harry hadn’t seen in a long time. Maybe ever. When they’d been on the run in Northern Africa and Asia, Asher had thought it was the most fun he’d had in ages.

Until he was captured and tortured.

Then it was Harry who was ready to burn the world down.

But this was different. This was Asher on the back foot, threatened and at a complete loss.

Whenever he’d been on an assignment before, he’d had Yunho on call with his intel and insight. Yunho was Asher’s eyes in a dark world.

He didn’t have that now. But he had Harry.

“We’ll find them,” Harry whispered. “I promise.”

Asher nodded, and there was a flicker of light in his eyes for the briefest moment before it was gone, darkness taking its place. “Let’s go.”

“We’ll need to dump the guns,” Harry said. “We can’t take them with us; we can’t get them into Croatia.”

Asher’s eyes met Harry’s. “We can store them. In case we ever need them. We can get whatever we need in Sarajevo. I know a guy.”

Sarajevo?

“Bosnia? I thought we were going to Croatia.”

“Sarajevo first.”

Harry shrugged, going along with it. “Okay. Sarajevo, it is.”

Storing the guns made sense.They way overpaid the storage company outside Ranong airport, ensuring silence and their storage room would remain off the books for as long as they needed. Harry got the impression this guy had made a few shady deals in his time, but he knew a handsome deal when he saw it. And expensive watches.

He also knew Asher wasn’t the type to be double-crossed.

Harry was used to people shying away from him, not Asher. But the murder in Asher’s eyes was kinda terrifying, Harry had to admit.

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