They hauled me off to somewhere outside of the city.
Ashton kept glancing at me on the way. “Why are you so quiet?”
“Drunk. Also, what are you going to do?”
“They raided our warehouses tonight. Anthony sent word that after you went to restock, you took off, and it didn’t take long to find the security footage or to identify Detective Worthing.”
“Again. What are you going to do?”
“You knew an hour before the raids went off.”
“And you’re here super fast, so obviously they didn’t get a whole lot.”
He bit off a growl, reaching for me and yanking me toward him. “You knew. You could’ve warned him!”
I grabbed his hand on my shirt but yelled right back because the drunkenness was starting to fade. I was starting to get pissed. “And why would I? I’m a PO!”
“You’re with Trace.”
“Yes, I’m with Trace. I am not with what he does for a living or what his family does. I’ll never sign off on that.”
“Then you can’t be with him, because he is who his family is.”
“Please.” But I was done with him grabbing hold of my shirt. I twisted his hand, shoving him off of me, and I glared. “Don’t fucking manhandle me again, or you’ll find out my other basic training, asshole.”
The two ex-military guys were in the front seat. We were in the back, and the one in the passenger seat turned back to us. “You need help?”
I huffed. “Not a chance.”
Ashton’s response was more muted. “We’re good. We’ll wait until we get there.”
I rolled my eyes, but I wasn’t going to ask. He’d want me to do that, and he’d take pleasure in not telling me.
But, dammit. I wanted to know other things. “Is he okay?”
“Like you care.”
“I do care, but I am not a criminal. Nor will I become one.”
“You got a heads-up about the raids, and you did nothing.”
“I had to make a choice. I can love Trace and not what he does for a living.”
“Except when you could’ve stopped him from going to prison.”
I shot him a look. “Come on. You’re professionals. Your families have been doing this for decades. I’m betting that anything found in the raids isn’t going to be anything that’ll put Trace away. And again, you are here. That means if you were hauled in for questioning, you’re out. That means they aren’t looking at you. They’re going only at Trace, and I am, again, highly doubtful they’d find anything on Trace.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“Because it’s Trace. He’s smart.”
“And I’m not?”
“You’re both—” Why was I doing this? “Never mind. Interrogate me whenever we get where we’re going.”
We fell into silence, driving more north until they turned into a driveway that led to a small log cabin. The place was isolated and in the middle of woods. In this context, this was creepy as fuck. In a different set of circumstances, this could’ve been a romantic getaway. Either way, when we parked and I was led inside, I had the thought, Here we go.
Ashton took me to a back room, shoved me inside, motioning for the bathroom. “Wash up. Shower. Do whatever. Toss your clothes in the hallway and put on new ones.”
They were going to wash out any wire I might’ve had on me.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that’s what their suspicion was, but it stung for some reason. Still. I did as he instructed. I had nothing to hide, and twenty minutes later, I headed back downstairs with a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and cozy socks on.
No one was in the kitchen. The living room. I checked outside and spotted another vehicle, along with two other guys who were also ex-military. They looked it, both taking me in taking them in, but they didn’t move my way.
Okay then.
I went back inside, and this time, one of the guys was coming up from the basement. He saw me and whistled. “She’s here.”
“Bring her down.” That was Ashton.
He gave me a nod, jerking his head toward the stairs. “This way.”
I didn’t move, eyeing the stairs.
I hadn’t been scared going with Ashton in the beginning or riding with them out of the city, but now a whole different form of trepidation was filling me up. I didn’t like basements.
Dead bodies tended to accumulate in basements.
I didn’t want to be the dead body this time.
“He’s not going to kill you.”
“Yeah?” I shot the guy a look. “You’re well versed in situations like these?”
“Unfortunately, yes. This is an interrogation with padded handcuffs. If that helps?”
It didn’t. Going at me soft didn’t mean the end wouldn’t result in the way I feared.
“Is Trace here?”
“You really think he would let him come?”
I gave this guy another look because he was feeling super comfortable in his responses, but his expression was bland. Neutral.
Ashton had come up the stairs. “Come on. Sooner this is done, sooner we can move on to more pressing matters.”
The dread just lined all of my organs, moving down my legs, into my toes, up through my chest. It went down my arms, my hands, my fingers, and it was circling up to my shoulders. There was no good feeling anymore, but I moved forward, my legs feeling like lead.
I stopped when I saw the room and began backing up. “Nope. This is not going to happen.”
Ashton’s hand came to my arm as he stepped to my side. The other guy took my other arm, and I was dragged/lifted to a single chair in the middle of the entire basement. The walls, the floors, the ceiling were all covered in plastic.
“Jesus Christ, Ashton. Are you serious?”
They shoved me down and held my arms as the third guy zip-tied me to the chair. My ankles were zipped next.
I should’ve fought. I was 98 percent sure that I wouldn’t have been able to overpower them, but I should’ve tried. I just followed orders, sat down, and let them tie me up. But I knew why.
Hope.
In the back of my mind, I thought that if I fought them, that would immediately put me into the enemy category. Ashton might not even interrogate me. They’d kill me or simply let me go, but inform Trace that I had . . . I didn’t even know. I had no idea what they thought right now. This was as much my interrogation as theirs.
I had to remember that.
But damn. I still should’ve fought.
“You’re going to kill me, Ashton? This is a bit of an overreaction because I didn’t give you a little bit of warning for the raids.”
He came to stand in front of me, and it was like I’d never seen the real Ashton. Slowly, as he watched me, I saw a layer of him strip away. There were no more grins. No dark teasing. No smirks. No kindness. No patience. (Not that I saw much of those, but they’d been there when he interacted with Trace.) All that was gone.
In his place was someone who liked cruelty.
I saw the dark delight. Ashton just let some evil into the basement, and that evil was him.
“You’re going to torture me.”
“You’re not here because you didn’t tell us about a raid. That was the excuse. You’re here because we have a mole, and it’s my job to find out if it’s you.”
Then he started.
