Page 48 of Chasing Danger

I slammed the knife into the desk, the blade sinking nearly two inches into the wood.

“Something isn’t adding up.”

CHAPTER 20

D’Angelo

The next day,just as I promised, I took Oliver to meet with his family.

We stopped at his friend’s place first to check on them. After what happened to him at the coffee shop, Oliver was concerned for Ashes’s safety, but he also knew that once he started questioning his family, he would probably be there for a while and wouldn’t have time to look in on his friend afterward. So, making a quick stop at Ashes’s place first was the simplest option.

“Your friend lives in a shack?” I asked as we sat in a car across the street from Ashes’s residence.

At first, I thought that the actual house on the property was our destination, until Oliver told me that the house belonged to Ashes’s landlord. Apparently, Ashes lived in the outbuilding in the back. It couldn’t hold more than a room or two, and looked like the kind of place where lawn equipment would be stored.

“Ashes uses it as a workshop for their jewelry business,” Oliver explained. “There’s a bed and a kitchenette in there as well, along with a small bathroom. It’s basically like a studio apartment. They could probably afford more, but the workshop is the only thing they really care about.”

I shrugged. “To each their own, I suppose.” I still didn’t understand why someone would choose to live like that, but I wasn’t about to question Oliver’s friend in front of him.

“Boss,” Eva called to me from the front seat of the car. “We’ve got a problem.”

Sighing, I resisted the urge to start tugging out my hair. “What is it now?”

“The security we set around this place. I can’t get a hold of them.”

That did not bode well. I only employed the best security. They wouldn’t be out of contact for anything other than an emergency situation.

There wasn’t time to worry about it. We needed to act.

“All right. I’m going in. Eva, come with me. Gavriil, stay with Oliver.”

“But, Boss—” both Eva and Gavriil started to argue.

“No. Do as I say. One of you stays with Oliver. Someone’s already tried to kidnap him once before. All of this will be for nothing if he ends up getting taken anyway. If we’re not seeing anything from out here, that means whatever happened is already over, or only a small group was sent after Ashes. Either way, we can handle it.”

Oliver tugged desperately at my arm, nearly pulling my jacket off my shoulder. “Did something happen to Ashes? They’re okay, right?”

Giving his hand a squeeze, I tried to sound as reassuring as possible. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m going to go in there to find out. You’re going to stay here so Gavriil can keep you safe.”

“What? No!” Oliver reached for the door handle. “If something happened to Ashes then I’m going in with you.”

I grabbed him by both arms and pulled him back before he could get the door open. “No. Oliver. You’re going to stay here. If you go in, you’ll only put yourself in danger and there’s nothing you can do. Don’t make me restrain you.”

He was panicking and his pupils were contracted to mere pinpoints, but he swallowed his racing pulse and managed to nod.

“All right, fine. But you better not take too long.”

I kissed his forehead. “Be back before you can blink.”

After quickly checking that all of my weapons were in place, I jumped out of the car with Eva. We went around the edge of the property, sticking to the shadow of the decorative pine trees that lined the street. It was dusk, so the fading light worked to our advantage and blurred everything into an indistinguishable gray.

The shack—I refused to think of the tiny little building as a home—had two doors. One in front and one in back. It was an easy choice which one to take. The only windows were on the front wall, so there was no way to see someone approaching the back door from the inside.

I didn’t even see any security cameras on the building. It really was an unsafe place.

The thought of Oliver spending a lot of time in this shack hanging out with his friend terrified me. When this was over, I was going to buy this Ashes person a new place to live just for my own peace of mind.

Without many windows, it was also difficult to check what was happening inside the shack before going inside. After quick deliberation, I decided an abrupt entry would be necessary. If we turned out to be wrong and there was no danger, I would simply apologize to Oliver’s friend later, but I was nearly certain that wouldn’t be the case.

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