The junkie twitched his eyes between the two of us and took a couple of stumbling steps closer to the bar. His skin was an alarming yellow color and his pupils were so dilated that there was no color in his irises, just scary, endless black.
“This is her old man’s bar. She has a right to that money. You and that asshole army guy took what was rightfully hers. So her taking that money wasn’t stealing.”
Asa grunted and moved to cross his arms over his chest. I wanted to tell him that the other guy was way too hyped up to try and reason with or to try and physically intimidate, but I couldn’t take my attention off of what I knew was a major threat. A junkie didn’t just wander in off the streets in the middle of a high this late at night for a friendly chat.
“Yeah, well, what about the stash you took from your supplier that had guys showing up at your place to work her over? I suppose that wasn’t stealing either. They could’ve killed her because of you.”
You couldn’t argue or reason with a junkie and I knew Asa had to be aware of that fact. I shifted just a little so I could keep an eye on Jared and still see Asa in the mirror behind the bar. He was jerking his head to the side as he talked, obviously trying to get me to move toward the back office. I narrowed my eyes at him in the reflection and shook my head ever so slightly in the negative. I dealt with guys like Jared for a living and I was armed. I had my off-duty weapon stashed in my purse if the situation called for it.
“That was a mistake. I didn’t mean for her to get hurt.” The guy moved even farther into the bar and his zealous attention was focused solely on Asa.
“Well, she did, all because of you and your habit.”
“She loves me.” The junkie rubbed a hand over his face and my spine snapped straight as one of his hands dove into the pocket of his hoodie. I slipped my hand inside the opening of my purse. I wasn’t going to leave anything to chance.
“Yeah, and loving you is going to end up with a bullet in her damn head. You want a fix, then leave your girl out of it.”
The junkie swore and an ugly flush worked up into his face. He almost frothed at the mouth like a wild dog when he lurched toward the bar screaming, “You don’t know anything about it!”
Asa just laughed, and if I had been closer I would have kicked him for antagonizing the unpredictable man. I knew he was doing it on purpose, but still.
“I know more about it than you think.” Asa’s voice was full of memory and warning.
Jared drew up short and rubbed a hand across his mouth. His eyes flicked to me and then back to Asa, and I let out a long and steadying breath when he pulled a small, black gun out of the pocket of his sweatshirt. He pointed the barrel right at the center of Asa’s chest and the entire world stopped moving. Everything narrowed in on the barrel of that gun and what it was pointed at.
I saw Asa’s eyebrows twitch up, I saw his mouth pull tight, but other than that, he didn’t move a single muscle.
“You’re gonna give me every single dime that’s in that cash register. I’m gonna take the money and my lady and blow out of town.”
Shit. Drugs and desperation were not a good combination. I saw Asa’s eyes lift up so that he was looking at me over the top of the junkie’s head.
“Avett know you’re doing this?” I bet the answer wasn’t going to make Asa very happy.
Jared just laughed and waved the gun around with more animation. “Just hand over the money.”
Asa slowly turned toward the cash register all the while peppering Jared with questions about his girlfriend. I could see the agitation building and could feel the tension rising. Dealing with someone on drugs was always volatile. Dealing with someone on drugs who was looking for a way out of the trouble they had found themselves in took me right back to that alley and the way things had gone so horribly wrong with Dominic right around Christmastime. I refused to live through a repeat of that night. I refused to watch Asa get hurt like that. Moving at the pace of a glacier, I slowly slipped my off-duty weapon out of my bag, careful not to make any kind of noise or any kind of big motion that would draw Jared’s attention to me.
“Are you the one that sent Avett’s old man after me or was that the army guy?” I watched as Jared took the gun and aimed it right at the back of Asa’s head while he was turned around fiddling the register. The junkie’s hands were shaking and the drugs that were fueling him had him all over the place emotionally, but at that close of a distance there was little chance a bullet was going to miss whatever it was pointed at if he pulled the trigger. Asa stopped what he was doing but the register didn’t open. He kept his back turned for a few minutes and then twisted his head just a little bit and I saw his eyes widen at the sight of the gun leveled directly at him.
“What difference does it make? Every father should have the right to confront the asshole that hit his little girl. Just wait until he hears you tried to rob his bar. There won’t be a hole deep enough for you to hide in when Brite gets word of this.”
Asa was antagonizing the unpredictable man to a dangerous level and I didn’t want to wait until he crossed the line. I let my purse hit the floor with a clatter and leveled my own weapon at the junkie. Jared’s eyes bugged in his face and the weapon swung away from Asa and ended up pointed right at me. I refused to show any reaction or look away even when Asa barked my name like a swearword.
“Jared, you need to listen to me and drop the gun.”
“What the fuck!” He sounded scared, which wasn’t encouraging.
“Put the gun down, Jared.” I made sure I sounded calm and kept his attention on me.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“That’s not important. What’s important is that we all want to walk out of here without anyone getting hurt.”
“Fuck you, lady.” I heard Asa growl and saw Jared start to turn in his direction when suddenly sirens could be heard outside the bar. Jared looked from me and back to Asa, who just shrugged and held up his cell phone. Instead of opening the register when he turned around, he had called 911.
“Sorry, dude, I’m not letting you rob this bar.”
Jared howled like a wounded animal and swung the gun back toward Asa. I knew he was going to pull the trigger, so I didn’t hesitate to pull mine first. The blast of both gunshots simultaneously was deafening and had my ears ringing and my nose twitching from the gunpowder. A bottle shattered behind the bar and I watched as Asa suddenly vaulted over the top of the long bar and took a flying leap through the air to tackle Jared to the ground. I hadn’t aimed to kill the young man, just to get him to drop his weapon. The gun was lying on the ground at Jared’s feet and he was struggling in Asa’s unrelenting hold as he bled from the gunshot wound I had just put in his arm.
I walked over to kick the gun away just as the front doors flew open and several of my coworkers stormed into the building. I laid my own gun on the ground and lifted my hands up in the air, knowing it would take a second to sort out who was who. Luckily one of the guys on scene had gone through the academy with me and Dom, so I got to put my hands down and gave a rundown of the chaotic scene pretty quickly. I knew I was going to have to go through another investigation since it had been an off-duty shooting, but luckily the bar had cameras and there was a viable witness, so I wasn’t too concerned about the fallout this time around. I made sure they knew Asa was a victim and not a suspect because if they ran his background it would raise more questions than the situation called for and he had enough of being accused of crimes he didn’t commit already.
I was sitting on one of the bar stools recounting the events to one of the detectives and Asa was sitting next to me telling his version to another. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point he had reached out and taken one of my hands in his own. His fingers curled around mine and let my fingertips rest against where his pulse was steady and strong. Even if it really was the end of us, I was so grateful for the fact that nothing had happened to him.
“So do either of you know the girl?” The detective
that was talking to Asa looked between the two of us as he asked the question. I moved a little closer to Asa so that my side was pressed into his side.
“What girl? Jared came in on his own.”
“He might have entered on his own but he didn’t arrive on his own. There was a girl waiting in front of the building with the car running when we pulled in. She said she was just waiting on him, that he was running in to apologize for some stink he caused, but that sounds suspicious as hell. What kind of junkie needs to make amends in the middle of the night?”
Asa sighed. “Does she have pink hair?”
The detectives shared a look. “Kind of.”
“She’s his girlfriend. Her dad used to own this bar. Jared has her all twisted up and acting crazy. She probably had no idea he was planning on robbing the place.”
“She was in a running vehicle while an attempted armed robbery was taking place. She’s going to get charged as accessory to the crime.”
Asa stiffened. “Don’t do that. I really doubt she understood what he was up to.”
I squeezed the hand I held in mine. “They have to charge her, Asa.”
He sucked in a breath. “Jesus. Brite is going to lose his mind.”
One of the detectives snorted. “She wouldn’t be the first girl to get in trouble for a no-good man. Get her a good lawyer and hope for the best.”
Asa swore and the detective rushed through the rest of the questions as the crime-scene tech finished up all their pictures and measurements. It took a few hours and it was almost dawn by the time we were finally alone. Asa looked worn out and even more haggard than he had when I walked in the door what felt like a lifetime ago. I laid my head on his shoulder and asked him, “Are you okay?”
He laughed and it sounded ugly and hard. “Yeah, but I have no idea how to explain any of this to Rome or what I’m going to tell Brite about Avett.”
“I think maybe you could worry about that after you take a second to be happy nothing terrible happened. You just had a gun fired at your head, Asa.”
He turned his head until his lips touched the center of my forehead. “I know, but that wasn’t nearly as terrifying as watching him point that gun at you.”
“It’s part of my job.”
“Your job sucks.”
I laughed a little. “Sometimes, but today I was so happy that I got to do it.”
We fell into a heavy silence again and I knew I needed to get up and walk away from him once and for all. I just didn’t know that I was going to be able to do that.
“Is this really the end, Asa?”
He made a noise in his throat, then climbed off the chair he was sitting in next to me. He walked around the front of me and put his hands on either side of my face. He tilted my head back and bent down so that his lips brushed softly against my own.
“I don’t know, Royal. Do you think you can love me enough to let me lie to you for the rest of our lives?”
I jerked back from him just a little bit and blinked at him. “What?”
He kissed me again and this time put some force behind it. His tongue snuck out to touch the center of my lips and I felt the scrape of his teeth when I let him in. He kissed me until neither of us could breathe and I was forced to hold on to him or melt away into nothing.
“I love you, Royal. I love you enough to live for you, to be awake for you, to be here in this moment as long as you are in it with me. I love you enough to let you know every little dirty secret I have and to tell you all the terrible things I have done and how those things left their marks on my soul. I love you in a way that makes me want to be more than I ever have been before, but I also love you enough to want to protect you from things that I know are going to hurt you. If you love me enough and trust me enough to let me keep those things from you for an eternity, then maybe we have a shot. I know it’s asking an impossible thing, but that’s the only way.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I pushed him away and jumped to my feet. “You love me, but you won’t tell me what drove you away in the first place and I’m just supposed to accept that? Is this another one of your games, Asa? Because if it is, you’re going to lose big-time.”
“No games, Red. Just me, you, and a secret you’re going to have to live with if you want us to be together. Believe me, I totally get it if you can’t do it.”
“Why do you always make me want to love and hate you at the same time?”
“It’s part of my charm.” A tiny grin pulled at the corner of his mouth and I shoved my hands through my hair in frustration.
“I’m a cop. I don’t do secrets.”
He reached out and pulled me to his chest. I was finally wrapped in the hug I had been longing for ever since he walked out of the door at my mother’s place.
“I know. That’s why this situation between us is impossible.” He rubbed his cheek against the top of my head and then let me go. “Being with you gave me something I never had before.”
“What’s that?”
“Something to sacrifice. I never wanted anything or anyone as badly as I want you for my own, Royal. If I have to sacrifice you for your own good, then that’s what I’ll do.”
He was talking in riddles and it was all so frustrating I wanted to scream. “I don’t think I can go down this road with you, Asa.”
I saw the light in his eyes dim but the tiny smile on his mouth never wavered. “I didn’t think you could. I really do love you.”
“I love you, too.”
We just stared at each other, him silently begging me to accept his terms and me pleading with him to just open the vault and let me know whatever it was he was hiding. It was obvious neither one of us was going to give. After about five minutes I turned on my heel and headed for the front door, all the while praying he was going to call me back.
He didn’t.
CHAPTER 19
Asa
Waking Rome up at the crack of dawn to explain the craziness that had gone down my first night back at work proved to be the easy part. Talking to Brite and Darcy about Avett’s involvement was much more difficult. Darcy was all for bailing the girl out of jail as quickly as possible, while Brite was so furious with her and her poor judgment he wanted to let her sit and stew. Either direction they finally went in, I gave them the name of the lawyer that had helped me out when I ended up in hot water last year, and wished them luck. The guy cost a small fortune, but he had the reputation of being a ruthless opponent in the Denver court system, and I knew eventually Brite was going to want to wade in to save his little girl. If anyone could sort out the mess Avett had made of her life, it was Quaid Jackson.
Rome decided to shut the Bar down for a few days so that it could get set back to rights and so that I could have a few days to get my head back on right. I needed the time more to handle Royal walking away for good than I did to process having a gun shoved in my face for the second time while working at the Bar. I didn’t tell Rome that, though; instead I asked him if I could come over one night. While Cora made dinner and RJ ran around banging pots and pans in the kitchen, I wrote him a check for a hundred grand and told him I wanted to be his business partner.
There was a moment of silence and I could see him debating if he wanted the check or not when Cora leaned out of the kitchen and hollered, “Take the money, Rome.”
That shook Rome loose of whatever he was turning over in his head and he took the check and shook my hand. For the first time in my entire adult life I had endless, legitimate opportunities laid out in front of me and I almost didn’t know what to do with all that good fortune. The feeling of being satisfied and situated only lasted as long as it took me to go home to an empty apartment and a silent phone.
Weeks passed with no word or no sight of Royal. I went back to work. I asked Wheeler to work on the Nova, and I even started looking for a new place to live. I looked at a few condos and town houses but none of it felt right. It took me a minute to realize I didn’t want to move into something temporary.
I wanted a home, but I didn’t want to live there alone. The more time that passed, the more it solidified the fact that sometimes love really wasn’t enough.
Ayden called me once a week to check up on me. It was nice that our calls no longer consisted of her being panicked and worried about what kind of trouble I was going to get myself into. Now she just wanted to make sure I was still moving forward, even with a broken heart. She told me to just cave and tell Royal the truth, to which I answered repeatedly that the only person that benefited from being honest was me. Yeah, I could get my girl back if I spilled the beans about all the ways her mom was fucked up, but I would alienate a mother from her daughter and I refused to put Royal through that kind of turmoil. She didn’t need to be up close and personal with the kind of heartache that would follow if she realized just how far off the deep end her mother had gone. Plus I was intimately familiar with the fact that a truly screwed-up person could do really good things with a second chance, if they took it. Maybe Roslyn would be one of them. For Royal’s sake I really hoped her mother would take the opportunity she had been given and do something with it. She was another one that my sister would say just needed to let herself be loved and stop purposely sabotaging her own happiness.
Eventually Ayden let it drop and decided to focus on all the good things I had going on instead. When I told her I wanted to look at buying a house in the Baker neighborhood, where the Bar was located, it almost brought her to tears.
“I wasn’t going to question anything you decided to do with all that money, Asa. But I have to tell you that it makes me ridiculously happy that you’re planting some roots with it.”
The idea of roots, of something permanent here in Colorado, was so strange. It felt right and it was a way to show her, to prove to anyone that questioned it, that I was officially awake and making every moment I had right now count.
Asa (Marked Men #6) Page 25