Page 30 of The Entire Team

“You’re planning on being there, right?” Genie followed up.

“Man, I wanna be there. I wanna hear what happened,” Rave added.

“Did you show Sylvie?!” Red shot back.

“What? No. But she’d probably say the same thing. She’d high-five her, you remember how we met.”

The guys laughed, Rave wasn’t wrong. The guys had met Sylvie on a ship when they walked in on her beating up a Sailor harassing her.

“If it’s quiet yeah, I’d like to be there. I’m not sure she cares where I am honestly.”

“Does she know why that guy came after her?” Stitch asked.

“No.”

“Red, that’s not gonna work.” Stitch chimed in. She killed a guy. Best case scenario, she was in the hospital because of you. Worst case, that guy raped her.” Red turned on Stitch. “You can be mad at me but I’m not wrong.”

Rave pulled Red’s attention, “He’s right. You gotta give her a reason to trust you. First mission you leave on and she nearly ends up dead?”

Red threw up his hands, “What can I tell her! It must be so nice that all your women are fine!” He stormed off leaving the guys watching him.

“He’s not wrong either,” Genie muttered.

42

ASHE

Red sat quietly in the observation room watching Ashe settling into the interview room with the assigned officers.

After setting up the necessary information for the recording and going over Miranda rights the younger officer started off, “Can you tell us what happened?”

“I walked into my apartment. The door busted open behind me,” Ashe’s voice was quiet and raw. “I was on the ground, getting kicked. I got yanked up, stripped down, tied up, thrown against the kitchen island. Everything was so fast I couldn’t do anything; I couldn’t process anything. I was on the island, I heard him say he was fucked so, I knew what was coming and I was dead either way. I scrambled against how I was tied up, found a knife in the drawer, and stabbed him as he came down over me.” Ashe’s eyes closed, her face contorted in disgust as the image hit her of him leaning over her, his dick in his hand.

“What happened after that?”

“I rolled him off me, slipped on the counter and fell onto him. I had to get away, I squirmed away until I must have passed out. Next thing I remember, Police and EMS were there.”

“You have no idea why he targeted you?”

“No,” Ashe shook her head, looking at the table.

“You’re sure?”

Ashe looked up at the Officer, “I’d never seen the guy before.”

“Would it surprise you that he was linked to a drug cartel?” the Officers watched for her reaction.

Everything about her reaction said don’t know, don’t care. Her eyes widened, eyebrows lifted, shoulders shrugged. “Ok. Seems like a ‘you’ problem.”

“It doesn’t help make sense of anything?”

“I don’t do drugs. I don’t sell drugs. I treat people on drugs, but by then it’s already bought and paid for. So no,” her voice lifted as if ending in a question.

One of the Officers looked down at his notes. “A few months ago, you were involved in a bank robbery.”

After a pregnant pause Ashe questioned, “Do you think it’s connected?”

“Do you?”

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