Chapter 46: Chapter 46

JACE ‘JR’ ASHER/ TRIGGER

“I’M SORRY”

She hiccupped.

I really didn’t give a fuck she’d cried her way here or that she’d soaked my handkerchief with tears and snort I almost felt sorry I didn’t have another one to hand it to her.

“It’s okay”

There was no shame in mourning, no shame of expressing how you actually felt and normally this type of pain didn’t end.

If she could have seen her father’s body sprawled across the living room like some dog left to rot, damn it, she would have been crying harder than she was now.

The pain of losing someone didn’t just evaporate from your system in a day. It would take years, eternity even to process that you were alone.

And in this case, Lucia Amato was alone. Her father was gone and I’m pretty sure Michael Markovich made it his mission to eliminate the fiancé too.

“W—Where are we going after this?”

Her glossy dark eyes searched mine and I was tongue tied for a minute.

I wasn’t supposed to fucking save her, the mission was over but I had paved my way across lunatics, killing them one by one just to get her out of that fucking circus.

Knowing how chief followed protocol to the fucking bone, Lucia Amato would fall into witness protection by default. Probably end up somewhere isolated where no one would reach her, have a new identity, a new job and far away from my clinging ass.

The thought of it wasn’t as good as it sounded.

She’d be far away from me but what the fuck would I offer her if she stayed?

My life in Miami was shit.

I had money of course from my job and from my inheritance left to me by my father, I could set her a nice little home and shower her with luxury but what about the shit that I dragged from B&A?

I did that job because it was the fucking oxygen hoisting me up from sinking. Could I really put an end to all that because I wanted to get in the pants of a woman who might or might not have wanted me the same way?

“Jace?”

She nudged, I stared at her not sure what right answer I would give her.

“With everything that happened and Callum Pallis also being a threat, witness protection is the best choice for you”

Her eyes moved away from me to the window and to the clouds that fluttered without a care in the world.

“Where?”

And that’s the thing, I really didn’t know.

Maverick settled such matters and as far as I knew those places were discreet. Too many men knowing the exact location could have led to the witness being in danger.

“I don’t know”

I gave her the truth. She deserved it.

“Will you be there?”

No princess.

“It’s way past my territory”

“Okay”

Though that okay came out as a pained whimper for help and shit ate me up from the inside.

I wanted to wipe those tears from her eyes, assure her that witness protection was the best course of action even though it was complete bullshit in the first place.

She didn’t speak to me after that. Instead, she looked at the window long enough to cry herself to sleep and I sat there possessive shit eating me from the insides and outsides.

Witness protection was the route to take but on a scale of one to ten how sure was I she would be safe, she would be happy, she would be able to move on?

And what if the men hired to protect her were a bunch of shits with no good training whatsoever.

I watched her sleep, I brought her head down to my shoulder and watched her face relax like it was the first time she was doing so and, in that instant, I knew what had to be done.

I wasn’t letting her go.

She trusted me.

I fucking liked her.

The only way she’d end up safe was with me and I would fight anyone-including Chief’s anger for disobeying a direct order—just to keep Lucia and I together.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“You disobeyed a direct order, Junior. I don’t know what shit you were trying to prove but if you fucking died, I’d unearth you from your grave and kill you again”

That wasn’t fucking possible though none of the things chief said when he was sober made sense.

“I fucked up, I know-“

“No you do not fucking know and sit your ass down, boy. If something happened to you, you know what would have happened? If Bates wouldn’t kill me first, Misha would and if she didn’t finish the job your aunt Nance would be breathing down my neck right fucking now.

It was not your call and the last thing I needed was for you to go rogue on a mission like this”

“It won’t happen again”

I felt like a fucking kid again being scolded by him for my shenanigans. And this was the downside of having your boss exist in your personal life and your work life.

“I know you well enough to know when you are lying through your goddamn teeth and this is one of those moments. You saved the daughter, well a medal for you hero but that’s the last time you get involved in shit that isn’t your shit in the first place and I mean it Junior. We are done here, get out”

With a tongue lashing like that, I should have left his office and mopped over the fact that Jason would hear about this and Misha would call me all fucking day to make sure I was alright and not stupid enough to jump in dumpster fires that I couldn’t very well extinguish.

“What happens to Lucia Amato?”

Chief swirled in his seat, throwing me a stare that could slice through bread.

“You know what happens”

I knew. I was trying to test the waters subtly and failing at it.

He wouldn’t like it. Christ he wouldn’t like my idea one bit.

“I’m the only one she fucking trusts and with her father’s death, the girl’s got no one”

“And you want to be her someone”, He quipped, I was at a loss of words.

“I could protect her better”

And that was the damn truth.

Chief knew it. I didn’t even want to fucking brag but I was the best in B&A and he knew it.

“Protect her? I was not born yesterday Asher but indulge me in your proposition”

“I can do a better job at protecting her, she wouldn’t need witness protection”

“And where do you plan to protect her at? Miami isn’t the safest place we all know that”

I hadn’t thought about Miami when I thought of us staying together and co existing till she could stand on her own two feet.

She needed to be around people.

Good people who would teach her how to live, how to be free and I had just the place.

“Home”

Texas would be a good change for her.

Flames lifted a brow, shot me a passive look before he said,

“Jason and Misha are not going to like this one bit”

The translation for that being- ‘yes and if shit goes sideways, you are to blame’.

LUCIA AMATO

HAD THEY EVEN BURIED HIM YET?

WOULD THEY BURY HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE?

I sat by the hallway, spooked by the memories of everything that had transpired in the last 48 hours and now as my nails dug into my palm creating red painful lines on them, I couldn’t help but run the conversation I had with Jace over and over.

Witness protection.

Another way of telling me that I would continue living like a caged bird all my life because I would never be safe, because bad guys would be after me, after my inheritance, after my neck for the death of Michael.

I wiped the tears with the back of my palms but they didn’t disappear. On the contrary they kept on spilling and spilling till my snorts were the only sound filling the hallway.

Jace had gone in the big door next to me and had told me to sit tight.

And for some reason I sat there because I didn’t want to move without Jace. I didn’t trust anyone but Jace and if this witness protection was going to be shoved down my throat, then I would cling to Jace’s arm and be shoved down with him too.

The door with the ‘Petrakis’ gold inscription smeared at the top creaked open.

I caught sight of Jace’s boots, my gaze skating over all six feet five inches of him as he closed the door behind him.

“We have to go”, he said.

I stood clinging to his leather jacket that had been my only source of warmth. The dress I was wearing chafed my skin, the places where Michael had touched me flayed like butter under heat.

I needed a good shower, a good bed to lay off the jet lag and most of all no matter how desperate I sounded.

I needed this man standing in front of me looking at me like fragile glass. He’d protect me better than anyone in this building. I felt it in my gut and in my heart too.

Swiping my hair from my face, sniffling back tears, I leveled him with a look,

“This witness protection thing, I don’t care how the place will look like, where the place will be, i—I just can’t be there with people I don’t trust, with people I-I don’t know. With everything that happened with Michael, the last thing I want to do is be with people I don’t know, be protected by people who might want to kill me at any second.

Point is, I’ll agree to go or hide under witness protection under one condition”

He didn’t seem surprised, not that I had ever seen him surprised in the first place.

Instead, he stood there, like a sentinel watching my every move and suddenly my heart was pounding and nausea swirled in the pits of my stomach.

Could I really ask him to sacrifice his life just to be with me at some isolated prison somewhere in the edge of the world?

God, my life was in shambles but he had a life.

He had a family, the woman he kissed at the mall might have been waiting for him to come home and here I was clinging to a man who-

“Talk to me, princess. What is it?”

Princess, he was still calling me that after everything.

“I-I thought I wanted you to come with me but I can’t do that to you. You have a life outside your job and I was your job. You protected me and I guess it’s time I said goodbye Jace”

His finger landed on my chin lifting it slightly.

“I didn’t argue with my boss for half a fucking hour just to lose you again Lucia. Fuck witness protection, I’ll do a damn better job at protecting you”

Tears welled my eyes.

“What does that mean?”

“You are stuck with me in the meantime princess. Quick question though, you are not scared of cows and horses, are you?”

Elated, I would have said anything to make sure we were not separated. I had never had the pleasure of seeing cows with my bare eyes and I think the last time I petted a horse was a decade ago but still, I replied with,

“No, am not”