What I find leaves me completely off kilter, the sight not making any sense as it unfolds around me.
“What’s going on?” I ask voice raspy. My focus bounces from body to body. Daylan stands by the doorway of my room, Jacob by the side table, leaning against it with a hard look on his face, his eye’s unable to meet mine.
And Asher.
Asher sits in front of me, eye level, in a chair dragged from somewhere else. His expression is devastation poisoned with venom. Rage I’ve never seen from him, rage aimed at me.
My heart lurches when I see the gun resting on his thigh, his finger already on the trigger.
“Asher,” I whisper, the sound of his name catching on my tongue. “Please. What’s going on?”
My voice cracks, and his nose wrinkles like the sound disgusts him.
“The scared, broken rich-girl act won’t work on me,” he snaps. “You can drop it now,”
I flinch. My mouth opens, but before I can speak.
“The jig’s up, Ruella,”
The words hit harder than the ropes biting into my skin.
He knows.
My eyes dart around the others again and this time Jacob’s gaze is lit like a match, an angry fire behind them that makes a shiver roll through me.
I have no one to blame but myself, I knew I should have told them sooner. Every time I planned on doing it, something else took priority.
“Can you untie me and…” I start but Asher scoffs and stands, the gun tight in his grip.
“I don’t want to hear you try to deny it,” He holds something up in front of my face and I flinch at the speed of his hand. He looks taken aback for a second, ashamed, shifting away to compose himself then slowly raising it again. It’s the photobooth print out of me and Marlowe I stupidly left out on the bedside between the pages of my book.
I nod.
“Who’s this,” He asks.
“Marlowe Astor,”
“And how do you know Marlowe Astor?” He grits out between a clenched jaw. Jacob shifts closer, his hand clenched at his side. Daylan is surprisingly the only one who looks like he might not want to physically hurt me right now.
“I don’t think anyone truly knows Marlowe,” I scoff knowing I am being difficult now, but they are rubbing me up the wrong way. If I feel attacked, I turn into a bitch. It’s something I am working on with my therapist. Or was.
Asher snaps but his touch is gentle as he takes hold of my chin and angles me until we are eye to eye. “Don’t start messing baby. I know you haven’t seen much of my dark side, but I can assure it is there and ready to be used at the drop of a hat,”
I wrench free. “Aw don’t you already know I like to walk on the dark side handsome,”
Before Asher can speak again, Jacob shifts forward and points his own gun at my head, and a little piece of my heart cracks inside at how Asher stays silent. There is nothing of the Asher I have known standing before me now apart from a glint of betrayal shining through along with the venom.
“Cut the shit Ruella. Answer the questions or I put a bullet in you brain,” Jacob snarls, his gloved finger calm over the trigger. Asher looks at the floor, almost unable to observe at the scene unfolding before him.
“Who do you work for and what do you want with my sister?” He demands.
I shake my head. “I want nothing but to keep Piper safe. This isn’t what you think…”
“Liar!” He shouts.
Jacob pushes the gun to my head, the metal cold between my brows. My stomach drops and I feel my eyes burn as the lump in my chest begins to make it hard to breathe.
“Enough Jacob,” Asher finally growls as my tears begin to fall. His hand twitching beside him as if his own body is trying to stop this madness.
