Page 9 of His Asset

The helicopter’s searchlight lit up the street where I’d left six men for dead.I swallowed forcibly.I had no doubt Adam had seen the carnage, suspected I was behind it.

I took a backward step as the searchlight traveled up the street ahead, then backtracked and began moving up the dank alley where I’d convinced myself I’d stay hidden.

Reuben had to shout above the thunderous rotor blades.“They’re looking for you, aren’t they?”

I turned.Though he was somewhere between the light of his door and the shadowy alleyway, my superior vision noted him reassessing everything about me.I nodded.There was no need for words.For shouting.

He didn’t ask questions.He held out his hand, giving me the choice.I could stay and face recapture or trust Reuben and hope he was the lesser of two evils.I hesitated, my instincts telling me to run—from both men—while my sore, aching body begged to accept Reuben’s help.

Despite my enhanced healing and a stamina that rivalled an athlete’s, I was on the brink of exhaustion.The last few hours had been harrowing to say the least and all I wanted was to have a hot shower, something to eat, and a bed to sleep in.

Adam would give you that and more.

I glanced back at the searchlight closing in on me, my heart in my throat.It was themorethat worried me most.I couldn’t subject myself to a man who not only supported experiments on subjects like me, but who funded them too.A man who’d not only waited for me to become an adult to become intimate, but who’d now no doubt want to teach me a lesson thanks to me escaping from him.

I might have been labelled a monster by the scientists who’d done everything to break me, but I’d learned it was humans who were the true villains.

Turning my back on the searchlight, on Adam, I accepted Reuben’s hand.It was nice to be given a choice.He nodded, then drew me back toward his building.Pushing open its door, he pulled me inside, the door slamming shut behind us and muffling the chaos outside with a brutal finality that made my stomach clench.

Time would tell if I'd handed my life to my greatest ally, or gift-wrapped it for my nemesis.

Chapter Four

Reuben slammed thebolt across the door, the metallic clang echoing in the sudden quiet, the roar of the overhead helicopter all but ceasing to exist.His cramped quarters felt like a sanctuary I had no right to enter, but I drank in every detail anyway, greedy to uncover how normal people lived.

Not that I suspected Reuben was close to normal.

Aged floorboards creaked underfoot.A worn boxing bag hung from the ceiling, skipping ropes dangling from a nearby wall hook, while a faded red, two-seater sofa dominated much of the room in front of a huge screen television that showcased a kickboxing fight.

At the far end of the room, the rest of the space was taken up by a kitchenette, featuring a small refrigerator, a skinny pantry and a couple of overhead cupboards, while the white laminated island counter with its couple of barstools appeared to double as a table and chairs.

To the right above the two-seater sofa was a cramped level that sat a few feet below the ceiling, where a mattress—his bed—slotted into the narrow space.The only saving grace was a narrow window just above the bed.I still shuddered.Not even my bat genetics would allow me to sleep in such a narrow space, not after living half of my life in little more than a cage.

“The shower is this way,” he said grandly, as though having such an item was extraordinary.

Perhaps it was in this neighborhood.