CHAPTER 21
Less than an hour later, Naomi walked into Casino Moda carrying a Las Vegas souvenir tote bag filled with eighty-seven-thousand dollars cash in large bills. Everything she had left from all of her repeated hits on Leo Slater’s casinos.
Asher had been calling her repeatedly since she left Michael’s house, but she had yet to speak to him. She felt awful for silencing her phone, but she knew what he would say if she told him she was heading in to give Slater what he demanded. Or, part of it, at any rate. She hoped the money she had to give him would appease him enough to back off and not hurt anyone else close to her.
If she had to work the rest of days to earn back the remainder of what she owed him, she was fully prepared do it. She just wanted him out of her life now and forever.
She just wanted to be able to grieve for Michael and bring home Tyler and Penny and the rest of the kids and never let them go.
Those plans bolstered her as she marched through the casino toward the glass central elevator that would take her to the executive offices on the top floor. Her finger only trembled a little as she pushed the button on the panel and waited for the car.
Someone was on the way down.
As the lift descended smoothly to the lobby level, she found herself staring into the face of a man she’d never seen before. A dark-haired man with arresting silver eyes who she would never mistake for human.
The massive Breed male who stepped out of the car stood easily as tall as Asher, and was built just as solidly beneath the crisp white button-down shirt and graphite-colored dress slacks that strained over his muscled physique. In the open V of his shirt collar an elaborate tangle of dermaglyphs curled and twisted onto his neck.
Every instinct in her body told her this was not only a Breed male, but the trained assassin Asher had warned her was on Slater’s payroll.
Cain.
Those shrewd silver predator’s eyes glanced down at the bag in her hands then back up at her in glowering suspicion. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
“I need to see Slater.” She tried to step around him, but he was too enormous. His body blocked the elevator doors, which had slid closed on a whisper behind him.
“Like hell you do. What’s in the bag?”
She knew the only thing she should be feeling under this menacing male’s gaze was fear for her life, but she was still too numb and in shock from Michael’s death to feel anything but fury now that she was staring up at one of the men likely responsible for taking his life.
“I’m sure you know why I’m here. To deliver your boss what he’s demanded. His blood money.”
Cain shook his head, his scowl deepening. “I can’t let you do that.”
“What are you going to do?” She scoffed. “Kill me right here in the lobby of the casino? Or take me somewhere and string me up to make it look like I killed myself the way you and the other thugs working for Slater did to my friend?”
The vampire’s lips pressed flat on a low snarl. “I had nothing to do with that. In fact, I just heard about it from some of the men on the security team.”
She glared at him, bitterness in her voice. “Like I’m going to believe you? I’m sure Slater and the rest of you thugs have been up there patting yourselves on the backs for killing a man who had little chance of defending himself.”
A tendon jumped in Cain’s tense, beard-shadowed cheek. “You couldn’t be more wrong, at least as far as I’m concerned. And on the occasions that I have killed someone, I’ve never needed an excuse or a reason to make it look like something else.”
She swallowed, seeing a glimpse of the coldness that lived inside him. “I’m sure you must sleep like a baby knowing you have such high standards. Now, get out of my way and let me pass.”
“Naomi.” His hand clamped around her wrist like a band of iron. His face darkened, even while his irises lit with amber flecks of irritation. “If you go up there, Slater will never let you leave. At least, not while you’re still breathing.”
She tried to wrench loose, but there was no breaking his hold. From his expression, that kind of strength came easily, without even a thought.
“Cut your losses and leave town as soon as possible,” he told her. “There are plenty of places you can go. As a Breedmate, you’ll find safe shelter in any of the Breed communities around this country or any other. Go there. Stay away from Las Vegas.”
Strange how different this advice sounded coming from someone other than Asher. In the beginning, he’d insisted on nothing less than her getting the hell out of town and staying gone. As much as she’d balked at the idea then, the thought of being driven away from her city and her life here was something she’d never consider now.
Especially if Cain were suggesting she should leave Asher behind too.
She glanced down, realizing only now that Cain had a black leather duffel bag at his feet. “Where are you going?”
He grunted. “I don’t know. Anywhere but here. I’ve spent too much time working for slime like Slater. I’m done.”
She frowned, shocked and not quite sure she could believe him. But as he held her stare, she saw deep shadows in his cold silver eyes. She saw the same haunted, bleak abyss that she still glimpsed in Asher’s deep blue eyes sometimes.
“I’ll help you get somewhere safe,” he said, his tone too solemn to be a lie, even for a killer like him. “You can come with me right now, Naomi. I promise, you can trust me on this.”
Maybe she could, but she didn’t want what Cain was offering her. Her life was here, and if she needed a safe haven she had Asher.
She shook her head and stood her ground. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m already right where I belong.”
Cain studied her, then exhaled a slow breath. “You’re making a mistake.”
“I don’t run for anyone, not even Slater. Especially not him.”
“No,” he said. “I’m not talking about Slater. I’m talking about Asher.”
That took her aback. Suspicious of this killer now, she hiked up her chin. “You’re going to warn me about him? That doesn’t mean much coming from someone like you.”
“Like me?” Those sharp eyes narrowed on her in question.
“I know what you are. Asher told me. You’re a cold-blooded killer. A trained assassin.”
Cain said nothing, not for a long moment. “I am all of those things, Naomi. I was born a Hunter. But so was he.”
“What?” A frisson of uncertainty crept along her spine now. She knew the term Hunter, if only in broad terms. There had been a madman among the Breed twenty years ago who’d been raising a homegrown army of killers in his hidden labs for decades. All boys, all bred off the same monstrous father using dozens of imprisoned Breedmates. The babies born inside the lab were enslaved from the moment they took their first breath and raised to be killing machines by Dragos until he was finally destroyed by the Order.
Was Cain saying he and Asher had been part of that awful program? If so, why wouldn’t Asher have mentioned it?
“You didn’t know.” He chuckled, but it was a sympathetic sound, one that said he might even pity her. “I’m not surprised that you don’t, considering the fact that he actually seems to care for you. Never would’ve thought a bastard like Asher to be capable of the emotion.”
The bag of money in her arms had been heavy before, but now it was beginning to feel like a lead weight. “Tell me what you know.”
He gave a gruff shake of his head and started to walk past her. “Never mind. It’s not my place.”
“It is now,” she said, taking hold of his shirt sleeve. “Dammit, tell me what you know about Asher.”
“You already know the worst of it just by saying his name.”
“What are you talking about?”
“One of the tenets of the Hunter program was obedience to our master, Dragos. But there were always some who resisted, headstrong boys, cocky teens . . . adult males who refused to be broken. Dragos believed in discipline. He believed in making examples for others to follow or to learn from. And to help him maintain his control he had mind slave servants to monitor us, but he also had enforcers—other Hunters who’d excelled in their training and who could be called on to mete out justice as he deemed fit.”
“What does any of this have to do with Asher?”
After the wracking pain of what she’d already been through today, she was surprised she still had the capacity for more fear or dread. But she did. They were carving a chasm in her as she waited for Cain to tell her the rest of what he knew.
“All of us in the Hunter program wore ultraviolet collars that would detonate if we tried to run or if we fought back against our training. Or if we gave Dragos any reason to want us gone. There was one enforcer he relied on the most. One Hunter within the program who had no qualms about pushing the detonator that would ignite the ring of UV light around a Hunter’s neck—his brother’s neck—and reduce him to smoldering dust.”
Naomi closed her eyes as a wave of understanding swamped her. “Asher.”
Cain grunted. “There were rumors that he enjoyed his role so much he would touch the condemned in the seconds before he killed them. Just to savor their pain. To feel their terror while some of them begged for mercy in the seconds before he ashed them.”
Naomi felt sick thinking about Asher’s gift to recall—to relive—the worst of someone’s memories with his touch. God, if this were true it would make him an animal. Worse than an animal, a sadistic monster. She didn’t want to think it. Part of her refused to. She’d only known Asher a handful of days, but she could hardly reconcile the man she loved with the cold killer Cain was describing.
“I can’t believe he’s using that name after all this time. He could’ve chosen to call himself anything once he was freed—we all had that choice.” He shrugged. “Hell, maybe it’s a badge of pride for him.”
“Stop.” Naomi shook her head, overwhelmed with everything she’d heard. She had wanted to know, but she couldn’t take any more. Not now. Not after today.
“He hasn’t told you any of this.” It wasn’t a question, because the look of shock on her face must have been enough to remove any of Cain’s doubt. But then he seemed to clue in on something more. “Ah, Jesus. You’re in love with him?”
Part of her wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t force the words out of her arid mouth. Not even when Cain’s steely gaze was looking at her as though she were the biggest fool on Earth.
“Walk away, Naomi. From Slater. From Asher. From all of this shit. Do it for yourself . . . before you end up regretting it any more than I think you already are.”