Page 79 of The Bait

No chance of escape. Left to die and rot like garbage. It wasn’t the dark and cold that bothered Harry.

It was the silence.

He could no longer hear the voices, the yelling, the boots on the ground as soldier’s walked the hall. He couldn’t hear anything.

Except Lucas’s raspy, too-shallow, too-quiet breaths.

Harry had no clue if Asher was in another room, beaten and bound, behind a welded-shut door. If he’d been taken somewhere else. Or if he was already dead.

He didn’t know how long he’d been out of it. How much time had passed? What had he missed?

He couldn’t believe it was going to end like this.

So fucking stupid.

It was all... pointless. What had they accomplished? What had they done but every single thing the bad guys had wanted them to?

They’d fucking walked into this, willingly.

Harry had known something was off with Asher. He was too resigned, too quick to agree. Harry had put it down to Yunho being kidnapped, to being back in Serbia, to where his fucked-up childhood began. He’d found out Daris, his oldest friend, had lied to him and sold him out, was part of some political faction that did all the shit Asher had spent his lifetime trying to forget.

And Asher had found out that Yunho was keeping secrets from him.

So Harry knew Asher wasn’t thinking clearly. He knew Asher was scared. He’d never seen him so scared. But there was no way Harry was letting him walk in here alone. Absolutely no fucking way.

And if he could go back, Harry would do the same all over again.

At least that way Asher would know Harry would choose to be by his side, regardless of the outcome.

God, it was all such a mess. None of it made sense.

“What the fuck happened?”

Lucas’s breath hitched, rasped. “Caught.” More raspy breaths. “Taken.”

“Yeah, I know you were taken,” Harry said. He had to lean into his side, with the stab wound. And his sore ribs.

The pain was biting, making him sweat.

“What does Istomin want with Yunho? Or did he want Asher?”

More raspy breaths, faster now and getting shallower and more rattly. He didn’t speak.

“Lucas,” Harry snapped.

Lucas jolted. “Sorry.” He lifted his face some, and Harry saw him better, then. Even in the dark, Harry could see the mess that was Lucas’s pale and purple face.

Beaten, almost unrecognisable.

Both eyes swollen shut, cuts on his cheek and nose, split and swollen lips, blood drooling from his mouth.

Jesus Christ.

What had they done to him?

“Fuck, Lucas,” Harry breathed.

He slumped back down, his head a muted wet thud on the ground. “I never told,” he said, barely a grating breath. “Never said a thing.”

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