Logan…Present…
Asher had stormed off the moment we heard Devaro’s car tear off down the street. I was sure he was blaming himself and cursing himself a thousand ways to hell for hurting Emma. Some paragraphs are incomplete if you are not reading this novel on Jobnib.com. Visit Jobnib.com to read the complete chapters for free. The rest of us were a little stunned by the whole thing that we hadn’t moved except to sit around in the living room. The house was so silent except for the sound of Asher pacing upstairs.
None of us knew what to say. Would Emma come back? How bad had we messed up with her? Before I could open the matter for discussion my phone began to ring. When I see it’s Emma calling, I fumble quickly to answer it.
“Emma?” I ask desperately.
“Hey,” she says hesitantly.
“God baby I’m so glad you called,” I say letting out a sigh of relief.
“I needed to talk to Asher and make sure he was okay. I knew he would beat himself up about hurting me. Even though I’m pissed I still care about you guys.” she says and I can hear the bitterness in her tone though it’s more subdued now.
“The feistiness makes me smile though. This new side of her was hot as hell and so different from the girl we used to know. I think this side was always in her, she just needed to accept that darker side and let it free. Especially now that she was possibly going on a suicide mission, she would need that fight inside to get herself out alive.
“He threw his phone and shattered it.” I say cringing at the memory.
She lets out a sigh. “Can you put him on?”
“Sure baby,” I say getting to my feet and heading up the stairs. “Are you safe?”
“I’m fine Logan I promise. Though another warehouse was hit which means my plan will have to move forward sooner. Let me talk to Asher first and then we can talk about everything, okay?” she says softly. My immediate response is to object and fight her on this, but with how things are between all of us I know that it won’t help. Emma wasn’t wrong, we should have been open with her. We should have just done better.
“Okay,” I say before reaching out and knocking on Asher’s door.
“What?!” he growls out when he pulls the door open hard enough to cause a gust of wind.
I hold the phone out to him and force somewhat of a smile. “It’s Emma.”
He moves quickly grabbing the phone and closing the door in my face.
Asher…Present…
“Emma?” my heart is pounding in anticipation of hearing Emma’s voice.
It was the only thing that could calm me right now and I think she knew that.
“Hey, Ash. You okay?” she asks and I let out a sigh of relief, but my hand still shook.
My anger was palpable now, but the more I could hear Emma’s voice the sooner I would be able to calm down.
“Baby I should be asking you that. I’m so sorry Emma. I swear I would never hurt you, you know that right?” God, I hope she knew this.
“I know. Don’t be mad at yourself Asher, I’m fine, I promise.” I drop to my bed feeling a weight lift off me at her words.
I would die if she was seriously hurt. Or I would offer my gun to her so she could take her revenge on me. Even if she forgives me I would never forgive myself.
“Emma…please come back. I can’t stand you running from us.” I say my voice almost begging.
She was my weakness, my everything. I couldn’t live without her now.
“I’m sorry Asher. I need to do this and I know it’s hard for you guys to accept but this is my burden to bear. I can’t go back on my deal and I don’t want to. Zane will come for me either way, this way things will be on my terms.” She tried to reason with me but it hurts me to think of her being away from us.
She belongs with us, but I know she’s right. We kept her here like a princess locked in a tower and called it protection. We made a mistake and I wish I had done things differently.
“Emma please be careful. If anything happens to you…” I can’t even bear to imagine what would happen to us if we lost her.
“I promise to come back to you Ash. Now there is something we need to do Monday at school. It’s going to be hard for you guys but Zane will be watching. Can you go find the guys so I can explain?” I agreed and headed downstairs to where the guys were gathered.
I sat and turned the phone onto the speaker.
“Emma we’re all here,” I say.
“Hey Em, are you ok?” Leo asks moving closer to the phone, his anxiety obvious in his voice and face.
“Hi, Leo!” Her voice sounded so sweet and it makes me miss her even more. “I’m okay. I promise. Devaro brought me to his place and acted like a royal dick but everything is fine.”
I snort at her colorful wording to describe my dad, but truer words had never been spoken.
“Say the word and we’ll come to rescue you, babe!” Logan says with a smile.
“I bet you would, but I need to be here. I have such a short time to learn as much as I can and no offense but training with Jayden didn’t really get me very far.” She says an insinuation in her words, and we glance over to Jayden who is now sporting a smug smirk.
He had been doing most of the training with her, and apparently, they had some trouble. Only Emma could cause someone like Jayden to lose focus.
“As much as I would love to hear about how you were able to break Jayden’s insane focus during training, you needed to talk with us about something?” Logan says trying to move the conversation along, a hint of jealousy flashes in his eyes but it leaves just as fast.
As much as we tried to be okay sharing our girl, we had our bouts of jealousy just like every hot-blooded guy. These guys were my brothers but we lived to compete with each other. Emma didn’t seem to mind us always trying to one-up each other or didn’t even notice it.
“Right. So we have a lot to discuss….” Emma’s voice captures my full attention.