Chapter 238: Asher
I made damn sure.
Before I let myself breathe, before I even considered seeing her again, I made sure that bastard was gone.
I called in a favor from someone who owed me big. Former military turned private contractor. Smart, quiet, loyal, I asked him to run the movements of the Vultures‘ so–called leader track phone pings, highway cams, license plates, flight manifests, credit card traces.
It took less than a day.
The coward booked a flight out of the state within hours of our visit to that warehouse. Took a one way red–eye, bounced to a second location, Switched phones and names. But not fast enough. Not good enough. My guy still found him.
And more importantly?
He hadn’t come back.
Good. He knows what will happen if he does.
Rooster and I returned to the warehouse last night. Just to be sure.
It was empty. Wiped clean. Whatever they were doing in there – weapons, money, girls, drugs – they packed it up and ran. Like rats when the lights come on. They even stripped the copper from the walls and burned any hard drives they couldn’t carry.
But the message was clear.
They’re done here.
At least for now.
That should’ve been the end of it.
Should’ve been enough.
But it wasn’t.
Because one of them still breathed the same air she did.
One of them put his hands on her.
One of them sat on her back like she was nothing. Like her body was his to pin down and toy with. Like her fear meant nothing.
And I saw red.
For two days I’d fought it down. Forced myself to stay focused. Logical. Strategic.
But last night, I snapped the leash.
I found him.
Took some digging. Fake names. Dead–end IP addresses. A few shady threads in the corners of the web. But I know how these men operate. They all think they’re clever. Invisible. But I was trained to kill men like them in their own backyards. I don’t need doors. I don’t need keys.
Jast time..
I found the guy’s apartment. Rented under a fake name. Top floor of a rundown building with peeling brick and rusted fire escapes.
I broke in through the window.
Chapter 238: Asher
He was asleep
I made sure he stayed that way until I was on top of him.
My knee hit his sternum so hard I felt the crack. He woke with a gasp, couldn’t even scream just choked on air that wouldn’t come.
I grabbed him by the throat.
“Tell me,” I said calmly, like I was asking the weather, “how it felt to sit on her back like she was your fucking chair.”
He blinked at me, mouth opening and closing like a fish. His hand twitched toward his nightstand.
Big mistake.
I reached down and snapped his index finger backward at the knuckle.
The sound echoed like a gunshot in the dark.
He screamed.
“Let’s try again,” I said, still calm. “Did she fight back? Did she scream? Or were you too busy pressing your fat fucking weight down on her lungs to notice?
He whimpered something.
I didn’t care what it was.
I grabbed his middle finger.
Crack.
Another scream. Wet this time.
He started babbling then swears, apologies, names, anything. I listened to none of it.
“You touched her,” I said, voice dropping low. “You made her afraid. You watched her beg.”
He tried to jerk away. I pinned him harder. Leaned in.
“She’s mine.”
Crack. Ring finger.
“You don’t get to walk away from that.”
Another scream. Muffled this time. His throat was swelling already. He was choking on it.
I grabbed his pinky, paused.
“You think I’m doing this because I like it?” I asked eyes boring into his.
I wasn’t shouting. I wasn’t even angry anymore.
This wasn’t rage.
This was cold.
This was what they taught us to be when the screaming stopped and the bullets were gone and the blood was still warm under your boots.
Chapter 238: Asher
“I’m doing this, I whispered, “because I want you to live in fear.”
And I snapped the last finger anyway.
He passed out..
I waited.
When he came to, I crouched beside him, wiped the blood off my knuckles on his bedsheet.
“If you ever breathe near her again,” I said, soft, quiet, surgical, “I won’t break your fingers next time. I’ll make you watch while I peel them off.
He whimpered.
Good.
I left the way I came.
Didn’t kill him. Didn’t even finish him.
Because that’s not what this is about anymore.
Let him live with it..
Let him look over his shoulder for the rest of his miserable life.
Let him wonder if I’m behind every door. In every shadow. At every red light.
That’s what he deserves.
Because Penny cried in my arms. She screamed into my neck. She trembled like a wounded animal while I tried to tell her it was okay, when it wasn’t.
And that kind of fear?
That doesn’t go away.
But this… this was the only way I could give her a little bit of peace.
So I did.
And now, finally, I can breathe again.
Because it’s done.
The Vultures are gone.
The warehouse is empty.
The one who hurt her won’t sleep again.
Now I just have one thing left to do.
Go see her.
Because I’ve never missed someone the way I miss her. Not even in war. Not even when I was halfway across the world bleeding into sand.
It’s been days.
Chapter 238: Asher
And I need her like oxygen.
Chapter Comments
Ness C
Thank you for the vengeance! I was feeling like a side order of blood thirsty revenge
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