Chapter 53

“Don’t get your hands dirty when I’m right here,” Asher corrected, “Want me to cut him for you?”

“You’re not mad at me?” She asked tiredly, drained from the past two days.

“You have a little habit of assuming things,” He said lightly, not breaking his stride.

Celine sighed, she couldn’t help it, she had lived her life with everyone around her thinking the worst of her. “I’m sorry, I should have told you everything a long time ago.”

“You didn’t have to tell me anything,” He was quick to tell her, heading for the exit instead of their hotel room as she had been expecting.

“What?” She blurted out, straining to see his expression in her shock.

Asher made it out into the parking lot with a low chuckle, it was early evening, the hotel grounds flooded with fluorescent lights. “You know nothing about me, I expected nothing from you.”

Celine needed a moment to process that, strangely silent until she was put in the car. She broke out of her thoughts when she noticed that Asher wasn’t getting in with her, “W-Where are you going?” She asked with wide-eyed panic, trying to get out of the car.

Asher’s stalled her with a kiss that did nothing to soothe her, his hand sinking into her hair, “I’ve got messes to clean up.”

Celine had the hardest time letting Asher go, she knew that he would be fine, and if he was more willing to let her have her freedom, she could do the same. “You don’t have to trouble yourself about Noah and my old pack. They don’t matter anymore.” She added as a last-ditch effort to convince him.

Asher could clearly see her reluctance to let him go but his mind was made up. Celine might have not wanted to tell him about her past but her past was more than willing to give up the information. When Celine had asked to use the restroom during the Moonstone pack tour, Noah’s lips had been very loose when he talked about his ‘former Luna’. His pack members had also been very chatty as they discussed who would replace Celine.

All of that was hardly an offense as their oversight made Celine belong to him but he couldn’t let Noah get away with such disrespect, the fact that he was Celine’s shitty ex was merely a bonus.

He kissed her one more time, gentle, slow, and then stepped back. “I’ll be in Reef by the end of tomorrow.” He let her know, turning around to leave.

Celine watched his retreating back as the car she was in started up and she was driven out of the hotel. *She really shouldn’t have come on this godforsaken business trip*.

Asher straightened his coat as he strode back into the hotel, right in the main foyer, Noah was waiting for him, a bloody napkin held up to his neck.

“I take it that you’re here to return my mate,” Noah said with laughable confidence.

“And why do you think you hold any leverage over her?” He asked languidly.

“Because Moonstone pack made Celine what she is today.” He announced confidently, “Did she tell you how she became an orphan at ten? Or how my parents made her my mate because they felt bad for her dead parents?”

Asher absently scrolled on his phone while Noah ranted, paying no attention to him.

“Celine is nothing without Moonstone, and you’d be better off returning her to where she belongs…”

Asher put his phone back in his pocket, having no intention of engaging Noah further. The mouthy Alpha shut up without any prodding from him when his phone went off, Asher calmly watched him glance at the screen and then walk away to pick up the call.

His men that were left behind surrounded him then, one of them offering him a phone in turn. Asher took it, already knowing who was at the other end. “No one’s dead yet.” He said flatly into the phone.

“Yet?” Jael repeated, it sounded like he was pacing.

“You sound disappointed, want me to fix that?” Asher said, fangs flashing.

Jael’s frustration was tangible through the phone’s screen, “Moonstone is not a mafia town,” He said slowly, reminding his boss.

Asher knew that, and he had no intention of using weapons. He should probably be affronted by Jael’s assumptions but he could hardly blame his second in command. “I didn’t forget that.”

“Then why are you not picking up my calls?” He went right on, moving into nagging territory.

Asher was done listening so he hung up and watched Noah stumbled over to him, completely shell-shocked. “You withdrew your funding?”

Asher’s eyes went cold at that, “It’s mine. I can do what I like with it, unlike you.” He tagged on.

It had cost him nothing to withdraw his funding into the hotel project with the town and pack of Moonstone, but as the project’s main sponsor, it meant it would completely fall apart without him.

“Y-You… You can’t do that,” Noah stumbled over his words, a lost look in his eyes, looking nothing like the confident Alpha running his mouth from a few minutes ago. “You can’t just withdraw funding a project we’ve been working on for months,” He said in a rush, trying to reason.

“On the contrary.” Asher replied calmly, “You should have thought about that when you had the security treat me like a thug,” He went on to calmly explain, “And when you treated my mate like property.” It was really taking a lot for Asher to keep his hand off his gun but Jael was right, he couldn’t use his authority as he liked outside of Reef.

“I’ll be finalizing the rest of the contract nullification via email,” He tossed over a shoulder, striding off.

He actually intended to return to the hotel guns blazing but at the last moment, he had remembered that if he did that, it would keep him away from Celine for longer than he liked and it was easy to choose a less violent path.