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24

THE EDGE OF MADNESS

ASHER

I t’s a date then. Vincent’s voice was like chalk scraping against the board. My head hurt, and the need for violence overtook me as I glared at them.

Date.

I wanted blood.

I gripped the fork in my hand tighter.

It wasn’t going to be a fucking date if I had anything to say about it. The jealousy was an uncomfortable second skin. I wasn’t familiar with this feeling before this woman came into my life.

She looked at Vincent with a smile that could make a man’s heart tilt, turn, and tumble.

She shouldn’t go around flashing that smile just to anyone.

I wanted to scream at her to never smile at Vincent like that. I had never killed a man who didn’t deserve to die, but right now, I wanted to kill Vincent and bury him six feet under.

The last, small thread of sanity left in me snapped as I stalked toward Vincent. Common sense told me I must stop, but I didn’t.

“Take your hands off of her.”

Diya gasped. Vincent smirked. The challenging look in his eyes made me want to gouge them out.

“Or?” he said, staring at me, as he pulled her hand to his lips. She didn’t move.

Did she want him to kiss her like that?

She just stared at me, her eyes ordering me to stop. I couldn’t stop.

I yanked his hand, and slammed him against the wall, pressing his palm against the rough surface of the brick.

“Fuck, you bastard—” Vincent cursed. I plunged the fork into the back of his hand, and he screamed. “Fuck! I can arrest you for this.”

“That’s enough, Asher,” Diya said, shaking her head. “Let’s go back.”

“You saw it, Diya. Why are you… Are you helping him?” Vincent stared at Diya, eyes narrowed.

“What do you mean? Helping him? I’m his doctor.”

“Cut the bullshit. Do you know what he’s doing?”

Diya cut him off with a shake of her head. “So, Vincent, are you seriously accusing me of aiding and abetting a murderer?”

Vincent gulped as Diya whirled toward me, shaking her head. “Count to six and go.” She pointed to her car. “To the car. Now.” She looked like she was ready to cut both our cocks in half just to put us in our place.

“He is—” I started.

“Not another word from you. I brought you here to help you, not for you to assault a police officer. You know what you did, Asher, and it’s not right,” she said, pointing to the car. “Go.”

When I left, I could hear her saying, “So, let me just clear this up. Did you or did you not accuse me of helping Asher Maddox kill someone?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

I slowed down, sharpening my ears.

“Well? What did you mean then?” Her voice was sarcastic as fuck. If words could cut, Vincent would have lost an inch or two right now.

He said something under his breath, and Diya shook her head, before she stormed toward the car, and glared at me.

“Are you a fucking snail?” She opened the door, slid into the driver seat, and opened the door to the passenger side for me. “Get the fuck in. Let’s go.”

“Are you really angry?”

“What do you think? You assaulted him with a fucking fork,” she said, her voice incredulous.

“I forked him.”

She glared at me.

“Shutting up. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I just hate to see him grabbing you like…”

“Grabbing me? He wasn’t fucking grabbing me. He took my hand, and Asher, if it was any other time, any other day, I would’ve loved to see you make a mess, I would have even cheered when Vincent handcuffed you, but…”

“You wouldn’t cheer,” I cut her off, and she glared, eyes spilling poison.

“If you act like a reckless fucker, it will only solidify Vincent’s suspicion against you.”

“I don’t care,” I snapped. “He deserved that fork in his hand.”

“How can you not care? You came here to avenge Riley’s murder. You’re not done yet, Asher.”

“Because when he touched you, I just... I lost it.”

She looked bewildered. “What the hell are you saying, Asher?”

“I meant what I said. I don’t like it when someone else covets what’s mine.”

She scoffed. “You’re unbelievable. It was… it wasn’t—fuck. It arouses me when you try to be dominant during sex, but this isn’t the time.”

I glared at her. “It wasn’t just some nonsense I spouted in the heat of the moment, Diya. I’m glad it arouses you, but I meant every word I said.”

“That you’d break the hand of a man who touches me?”

I nodded with a shrug. “Yes. And that you belong only to me until the debt is paid.”

The fucking debt is never going to be paid. I’ll make sure of that.

She shook her head.

“So… you won’t be going on a date with him, right? I mean, after he accused you of being my accomplice, any self-respecting—”

“Shut the fuck up, or I’ll feed you the fruits of nightshade, and you’ll never be able to talk.” Her voice wasn’t loud, but I heard the warning loud and clear.

“Okay, okay.”

No response.

“I’m sorry, okay. I am sorry.”

“You put yourself at risk, Ash. For what?”

For her. And I’d do it again and again.

“All the years of work, and is this how you’re going to go down?” She turned toward me and speared me with a cutting look.

“I don’t know what came over me.” I knew, but that was more disturbing than the lies.

She nodded. “I hope he won’t say anything to Doctor Stanley. He’ll get us in trouble if he even mentions this.”

“He won’t,” I bit out, gripping the side of the seat. The need to break something was a violent call in my head, but I knew Diya would lose it if I did that.

“You sure?”

“I am. He’d do anything to save you. From me. He’s in love with you,” I said.

If I was a decent human, I would let her go. She wouldn’t be in constant turmoil and danger with him.

But I wasn’t.

“Bullshit. He doesn’t even know me. He couldn’t love me,” she whispered, eyes wide, lips pulling down.

“I know him, and he used to look at Riley the same way he was looking at you. After all that, he… left her.”

Vincent, Riley and I grew up together. Best friends for life. The Three Stooges. We did everything together. In high school, she started dating Vincent, and I was happy for my two best friends. Riley was more my sister than a friend, and Vincent was my brother.

After her parents died, Riley changed. The first time she got caught with drugs at school made everything worse.

Vincent told her they should break up.

She begged him not to. I begged him to stay, to not leave her when she needed him the most. I told him she was just lost, and we needed to be there for her until she could pull herself together.

“I can’t be with a drug addict,” he had said. “I won’t.”

And that was it.

I’d never forget the look on Riley’s face that day. Something inside her just... cracked. She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t even sad. She was empty. And she used more drugs to filled that emptiness.

If he had tried, if I had, we could have saved her. Together.

I blamed myself just as much as I blamed him.

“Death and tragedy have a way of pushing people together or completely ripping them apart.” She sighed. “It brought us closer.”

“Your sisters…”

She nodded.

“They’d kill for me, and I’d do the same for them. Love and trust is a luxury, and I have only opened myself enough to love and trust Layne and Trina.”

“And?”

“And you. I trust you,” she said, her voice so soft it made my whole heart expand.

“Thank you for that, and I promise never to break that trust.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s the only reason I trust you even though you once tried to kill me.”

I pouted. “That was in the past. All in the past.”

We stopped by the post office on our way to Hollowhaven. Diya packed the zip-lock bags in paper after paper before she pushed it inside an envelope. After asking me to wait, she walked in and came back after a few minutes.

“Now, all we have to do is wait for Liam to do his job,” she said as we drove silently toward Hollowhaven.

I stared at the looming building, wanting to never reach it, to stretch this moment, but life was waiting.

“Don’t worry. We’ll find him. We’ll bury him.” She exhaled softly, her voice brushing along the quiet night.

“It was hard to do it all alone, Diya. Now that you’re here, it doesn’t feel so horrible, and I don’t feel like I’ll simply pass out from the pressure.”

She parked the car inside the compound, avoiding looking at me.

My walls were already down, but I knew hers weren’t. Even if she trusted me, she’d never let me in, not fully. Not like her sisters.

“Don’t… don’t look at me with those eyes, don’t tell me things that would complicate this.”

“Why?”

She avoided looking at me as we got out.

When we reached the main entrance of the building, I turned to her with a smile. “I enjoyed our date, Little Poison.”

“Fuck you.”

“Maybe tonight.”

“You won’t. We’ll be working.”

“I love a proper work-play balance.”

Scoffing, she shook her head, walking toward the nurse station to complete the sign-in paperwork.

“Well, you’re not getting one this time.”