Page 63 of The Bait

Oh, Harry had every intention of making him suffer. “What did Yunho say? I didn’t quite catch what he said.”

“He said, ‘Ojima hajima,’ before he was cut off.”

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t come, don’t do it. He was begging us not to come.”

Fucking hell.

“Still want to go home?” Harry asked.

He had that blank look in his eyes now. “No.”

“How far is it to Bukovac?” He checked his watch. “How much time do we have?”

Asher walked back to the Jeep. “Enough time to kick the hornets’ nest first.”

TWELVE

Any hintsof Asher’s self-doubt were gone. He was focused, navigating for Harry as he checked guns, mag clips, pistols, and then he was googling, reading, searching...

He was hyper-focused.

And after his emotional outpour before, opening old wounds that had been left to fester with no attempt at healing, Harry was more than a little worried.

Asher had said before he worried that he’d hesitate out of fear and get them killed. But also not taking the time to assess every detail, to charge in blindly out of anger would just as likely see them both killed.

He was like this before. In Thailand, when he was in a flux about Yunho, and Harry had needed to calm him down. Almost shake some sense into him, telling him to get his head in the game.

He needed to do it again now, but he wasn’t sure he should.

Asher had spent his entire fucked-up life with his emotions sewn up so tight, and then after spending thelast two years living a civilian life, basking in love and happiness. For the first time in his life, he’d allowed himself to feel something. The wound was being unpicked stitch by stitch, emotions festering and bubbling, every other emotion was rising to the surface.

And now, like a dam about to burst, those emotions were threatening to spew out and annihilate everything in its path.

He had so much rage inside him.

Valid rage. Heshouldbe angry. Hell, Harry was angry for him. But now was the worst possible time. They couldn’t attempt any rescue when Asher was about to go nuclear.

As they arrived at their destination, Harry pulled into the parking lot and shut off the engine. “Hey,” he said, taking Asher’s hand. “Are we good?”

Asher drew his eyes from the building to Harry. “We? As in us? Yes, why would you ask that?”

“I don’t mean us... I mean are we good to do this?”

“You mean am I good to do this?”

Harry squeezed his hand, his gaze locking in on Asher’s. “Are you good to do this? Asher, baby, it’s been a crazy few days. Emotional, heavy days. If you want to stop and regroup?—”

“I want this to be over,” he said. He looked at the building again, where a crowd was gathering. “I don’t need to regroup. I need to get this over with, then go find Radovic and rip out his heart, then see what the fucked-up cold-war wannabe colonel fuckface has to say before I kill him too. And then we save Yunho and Lucas. Where they will tell us everything, andthenI’ll decide if I want to kill them as well.”

Harry sighed. “Asher.”

His eyebrows knitted. “I know what you’re going to say, Harry. Please don’t. I just need to get through this, then I’ll deal with the aftermath... God. Fucking feelings. I never asked to feel anything, I’ll have you know. I was quite happy living my numb life, disassociating from everything I’ve done. Everything I’ve been through. And now I have more questions than answers and more emotions than I know what to do with. And fear. I’ve never been afraid before.”

“I don’t think you’re in the right frame of mind to do this,” Harry tried.

His eyes hardened. “You said before you needed the old Asher Garin. Well, here I am. The only thing that will make me feel better, give me back a sense of control, is to go kill a lot of assholes who deserve it.”

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