“No,” Asher growled. “Naomi, no!”
Too far away to warn her and hit with a new barrage of gunfire, he couldn’t reach her before Slater realized she was there.
Asher roared. “Naomi!”
She was in the open elevator car and had the sobbing girl under her arm as Slater pivoted around and saw them. Without a second’s warning, he slammed his fist into Naomi’s jaw. She went down like a stone, crashing into the back wall of the glass compartment.
Asher tore forward on a leap and a thundering war cry.
He was only a second too late. His bloodied body collided with the closed doors as the car began a swift upward climb with Slater looming over Naomi’s unmoving body and Penny slumped in the corner dissolved in terrified screams.
CHAPTER 25
Naomi opened her eyes on a groan. Her face was pressed against the cold marble floor of the elevator as it rose swiftly through the center of Casino Moda.
Penny’s thin arms were wrapped around Naomi’s shoulders, the girl sobbing over her slumped body. Naomi’s jaw hurt like hell, but she was alive. Penny was alive.
Oh, God.Asher.
She’d seen him under heavy gunfire from casino security and Slater’s personal bodyguards. He was Breed, so she knew it would take a lot to slow him down, but that didn’t ease the terror that was sitting like ice in her stomach.
“Barnes, get up to the helipad and start the chopper.” Slater was talking to someone on his phone a couple feet from where Naomi had dropped after he struck her. “Just me. I’m on my way up now.”
Naomi pushed herself up onto her hands, her vision swimming. A heavy foot slammed into the center of her spine, knocking the wind from her lungs as she was pinned to the marble tile once more.
“Leave her alone!” Penny wailed. “Stop hurting her, you asshole!”
Like a viper, Slater struck hard and without warning. The savage blow sent the girl flying backward into the wall of the elevator car. The instant her blonde head hit the sharp chrome hand rail, she slumped bonelessly, leaving a trail of blood on the glass behind her.
“You son of a bitch!” Naomi vaulted to her feet, adrenaline and fury surging into her bloodstream. She would have jumped on Slater in attack, but when she wheeled around to face him, she found herself staring into the business end of a big black pistol.
His expression darkened with menace. “Let’s go, Narumi.”
The elevator car stopped and the doors slid open soundlessly on to a private floor of the building. Naomi managed a furtive glance at Penny and was relieved—if only marginally—to see her chest rising and falling even though she hadn’t moved.
“Start walking.” Slater fisted his hand in the hair at the back of Naomi’s head and marched her at gunpoint toward a steel door markedRoof Access - Personnel Only.
“You always were a pain in my ass,” he complained. “You and your mother both. More trouble than either of you were worth. Doesn’t surprise me that you turned out just as uppity as she was.”
Naomi didn’t miss the past-tense reference he used. “Is that why you killed her?”
He chuckled. “I didn’t want her dead, but what choice did she leave me? That last night she came to my place with her fucking ultimatum—get help for my anger issues or she was going to press charges on me? Stupid bitch had a camera full of photos, all the bruises I gave her, the broken bones. I mean, who the fuck did she think she was?”
Naomi’s bile rose to hear these facts now. After years of wanting the answers, thinking her mother hadn’t been strong enough to walk away from a deadly relationship, the truth hurt even worse. “So, she stood up to you and you had some of your thugs get rid of her? Or did you have Cain put his special skills to use for you?”
“Cain.” Slater scoffed. “That Breed bastard turned out to be a goddamn traitor. I paid the asshole a million a year to look out for my interests—inside and out of the casinos—and what did he do? Stab me in the back. He must’ve known for months about your thieving, but I had to learn it from one of the pencil pushers in accounting over at the Gold Mine.”
Naomi drew in a breath, more than surprised at that information. But Slater still hadn’t totally answered her question about her mother. “What happened to my mom? It doesn’t matter if you tell me. I’m sure you have no intention of letting me live.”
And as terrified as she was at the idea, she took small comfort in the fact that Penny was alive back in the elevator, and if Asher was at all able to reach her, he would make sure the girl was safe.
She didn’t want to consider all of rounds Slater’s men had fired at Asher.
She’d seen him in action. He was unstoppable. But he wasn’t immortal; even one of the Breed could be killed if the wounds were catastrophic enough.
She refused to let the thought take root. She couldn’t let herself imagine that he might be suffering . . . or worse.
“Tell me, you cowardly piece of shit,” Naomi pressed. “Did you have your men kill my mom?”
