Page 24 of The Bait

Asher pointed to the base of his throat. “You know where the hyoid is,” and then he showed the finger bruises higher up. “You weren’t going to hurt me.”

“The bruises on your neck say otherwise.”

“They match the stripes down your neck and chest,” Asher said, not fazed at all. “I’m actually disappointed that’s all I got on you.”

Harry smirked. “Your only hope of taking me out is from a safe distance, a good rifle scope, and no wind.”

“Or a kitchen knife,” Asher added with a blasé shrug.

“I’m starting to think I need to hide the cutlery.”

Asher chuckled, then picking up his jacket, he slipped it on. “All right then, let’s get this over with. Let me do the talking.”

“If it’s in Bosnian, I will be, yes.”

Asher seemedto know this city with a familiarity that Harry wasn’t certain he liked. It was a warm day, the sun shining brightly in a clear blue sky, and the taxi driver,ignoring Harry completely, spoke animatedly to Asher about god only knew what, all in Bosnian, of course. It made Asher smile.

And Harry didn’t care much for that either.

He watched the city pass by instead. Beautiful, in the way most European cities were. Where history warred with the twenty-first century, where a now-peaceful life and the scars of war were a contrasting landscape.

Not too unlike himself, Harry thought.

Hidden scars that ran deep, that the last few years of peace and quiet did not do enough to heal.

He wondered if Asher felt that too.

He remembered Asher saying he’d come to Sarajevo years ago in search of his past and how he’d felt nothing.

He wondered what he felt now.

“You okay?” Asher asked quietly.

Harry hadn’t realised Asher and the taxi driver had stopped talking. “Yeah, just thinking.”

Asher studied him for a moment before he slid his hand over Harry’s, giving it a quick squeeze. “We’re almost there.”

Their destination turned out to be an old warehouse in the industrial part of the city where the scars of war weren’t so hidden. Some newer buildings replaced the older ones, which had been shelled beyond repair, alongside older buildings where some walls still bore the damage of a darker time. Pockmarks of bullet holes like acne, and some buildings without roofs or windows, no more than external half-walls like jagged exposed skeletons of mortar and memories of a terrible time.

There were signs of life though. Cars, music from somewhere, the sounds of machinery and construction.

After the taxi drove off, Asher nodded toward thebuilding across the street. It looked like it may have been an electric power plant at some point. It was large, maybe half the block, with a dozen arch windows fronting the street. It looked maybe three storeys high with a fenced-off loading bay, and Harry assumed it was a depot of some sort.

“And this guy’s name?” Harry asked as they walked toward the door.

“Daris,” Asher said. He put his hand on the handle and gave Harry a smirk. “Play nice.”

Hmm.

What was that supposed to mean?

Why wouldn’t Harry play nice... unless... unless they had a history? As in aprivatehistory.

Harry stopped dead and cut Asher a laser-like stare. “Did you sleep with this guy?”

He might have asked that a little louder and a little angrier than he probably should have.

The two people in the foyer stopped and stared. They were behind a reception desk, a man and woman, he in his thirties, she in her late twenties. They wore white shirts with a logo on the breast that matched the large icon on the wall behind them.

---