Chapter 185

Grayson was going to kill him if Ryan didn’t.

The mark on Cecilia’s face didn’t fade for days. She hid it around her mother using makeup or wearing sunglasses or simply avoiding her at all costs, but she couldn’t hide it from Grayson. He noticed every time she walked in the room and it made his blood boil.

He loved her and that was not a secret to anyone, but it was obvious that Cecilia was hurting with the loss of Asher—that they could do nothing to improve her mood after what she’d gone through. And day by day, the gray cloud overtaking the mansions seemed to grow and grow.

“What do we do about her performance?” Grayson asked. He was sitting in the living room beside Sebastian and Ryan—neither of them all that interested in Viola Moon. They were too compelled by Cecilia, who had been walking around the mansion like a ghost.

Grayson was growing tired of it.

He stood and left them there, following Cecilia’s slowly drifting frame from one room to another as she moved aimlessly through the mansion. When he stalked her into an office, he pulled the door shut behind him and blocked her path.

“Cecilia, you have to stop this.”

Cecilia looked up, her eyes a bit red. She hadn’t cried in front of them, but her depression was palpable.

“Asher isn’t the only one who exists in your life!” Grayson said.

Cecilia’s eyes widened a little in realization. “Oh, Grayson—no…I didn’t mean to…”

He hadn’t meant to make it about him, but suddenly Cecilia was touching his face, holding it in her warm hands. “I love you, you know that.”

It was the first time she’d said it to him, but Grayson’s heart didn’t soar like he thought it would. It was weighed down instead by pity. “It’s not that,” he said, pulling her hands away. He gave a deep sigh and felt his heart heave. “I don’t like seeing you like this. I didn’t know Asher was so important to you.”

“You’re all important to me,” Cecilia said with a frown. In a way, Grayson understood. Despite how awful Asher had treated her in the past, they were family now. And she’d lost a family member. He reached for her face and she winced as he touched the mark on her cheek. It was still enflamed, and seeing her flinch the way she did put a spike in Grayson’s heart.

His eyes narrowed and his arms fell to his side. “I’ll be back,” he said.

A look of worry snapped over Cecilia’s face. “Wait—what? Where? Where are you going?”

But Grayson was already breaking for the door. He leapt into a spare Benz they usually kept parked under cover for backup and pulled out of the mansion. He wasn’t used to being the one to drive around places—especially in the dark—but Grayson couldn’t sit at home and put up with this. The pain Cecilia was feeling had leaked into him—or maybe it was his own.

Maybe it was knowing that days ago they’d been a family. That Asher had been his best friend for over a decade and now he was just…disappearing to become some other person. It pissed him off.

He pulled into the parking garage to the sound of a sleepy city. It had taken a long time to get there, and by the time he’d arrived, everything was dark. The city had gone into hibernation.

He knocked on Clover’s door, and she opened it with a smile. “Hey cutie. What can I do for you?”

Grayson had never really understood the fascination with Clover. He, too, had thought she was a stunning woman at one point in his life, but her manipulation had always been so clear to him. Something about her never settled well in him and he was beginning to understand what. “Where’s Asher?”

“Dunno,” said Clover with a shrug. “He left.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“He said…home. Had a business meeting tomorrow. Not sure if that’s true or he was just making excuses.” Grayson didn’t stay to chat. He didn’t acknowledge her for more than a moment as he turned away and trudged back down the steps. “Do tell him to give me a call,” Clover called after him. “We have some plans to go over.”

Grayson wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but whatever her intentions were, they didn’t feel good.

He made it back to his car and took off again, out of the city and into the suburbs. If Asher was going home and home wasn’t the mansion, that left only one place. He didn’t knock as he arrived at his apartment; Grayson had a spare key. Instead, he let himself in to the sight of Asher, standing at the kitchen counter, stirring sugar into his coffee.

He didn’t look at Grayson. It was as if he already knew who had walked in. “Strange how many people have access to my private home,” Asher muttered.

“This isn’t your home,” Grayson spat back. “You’re an idiot.”

“Funny, I remember signing to papers. Paying the mortgage. It it’s not my place, whose is it?”

“You live with us,” Grayson spat through his teeth. The more aloof Asher acted, the more frustrated he was growing. “Why are you acting like this? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I don’t remember the last year of my life,” said Asher, rather calmly. He took a sip of his coffee and wrinkled his nose. “Did I always make such shit coffee?”

“You love Cecilia,” Asher said. “How dare you lay a fucking hand on her.”

“Cecilia?” asked Asher, seemingly oblivious to the name. “Ah, that Omega from earlier.”

Grayson wasn’t used to having to stand up for anyone, himself included. All his life, Asher had been his guardian. And now he was standing up to the one person who had always stood up on his behalf. “You hit her.”

Asher looked him over with a scoff, flashing his teeth with a keen little grin that stuck under Grayson’s skin. “She’s an Omega. What’s the problem?”

Grayson threw a punch. He could count the number of times he’d ever hit a person on one hand and he wasn’t used to it. He wasn’t fast enough. Asher caught him by the wrist and sent a fist of his own into Grayson’s stomach. He buckled over in pain and coughed out. “What the hell is your problem?”

“Why do you give a shit about some random Omega bitch?”

“She’s not some random Omega bitch,” Grayson hissed back at him, pain splintering through his insides. “You love her. More than you love anyone—”

Asher threw his head back and roared out in laugher. “Love her. Love her? You know damn fucking well I’m into Clover and no one else.”

The pieces fit together suddenly. Asher had gone back into time to the days when he lusted over Clover. When she was the most important thing in his life. A deep dread filled Grayson’s stomach like an empty pit. He straightened out, ignoring the pain that rained through him.

“Fine. If you don’t want her, I’ll keep her to myself.”

“You say that as if I’d ever give a shit,” said Asher. “An Omega is like a dirty sock you keep in your nightstand table. Why the hell would I want a piece of that?”

“Because she’s the best thing that ever came into your life,” Grayson snarled. “You just don’t remember.”

“What do you care?”

“I love her!” Grayson shouted. His voice echoed back from the apartment walls and the look on Asher’s face changed suddenly. Something darker had taken over him, and Grayson wasn’t sure just what it was. It couldn’t be that he was jealous…he didn’t recall Cecilia. Now that he had him shaken, Grayson steeled himself, standing tall in front of Asher.

“Touch her again and I’ll kill you,” he said.

Asher brushed him off. He dumped his coffee in the sink and started the kettle for tea instead. “I’m not going to pretend I understand your sudden fascination with Omega trash, but your scrawny ass can make all the threats you want. You want me to fuck her? Fine—she’s a good lay, I know that much.”

A twinge of rage shot through Grayson.

“You fucked her? And then you laid your hands on her like that?”

“What else do you do with an Omega?” Asher asked with a laugh.

Grayson through another punch. This time, it did strike Asher, right on the cheek. He was on top of Grayson in no time, pinning him down against the hardwood, fighting his hands still on the wood by his head.

“Not another fucking word about it,” Asher snarled in his face. “I don’t care how much you love this bitch, it’s not my problem.”

His wrists ached under the pressure of Asher’s grip as he shoved himself up, leaving one has good punch in Grayson’s gut. He curled there on the floor, pain panging through him. Asher stood and walked to the kettle, which had already begun screaming to be tended to. He picked it up and poured the hot water into his mug.

“I’m leaving,” he muttered over his shoulder.

Grayson clutched his stomach and sat up, his jaw tight as he seethed through his teeth, “Where?”

“Vegas,” said Asher, turning to him with his hands in his pockets. “Clover and I are getting married.”