Page 8 of Dirty Deadly & Mine
“Ahhh.” I force my eyes back up to his, not missing the slight smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “Did you have a nice shower?”
Why the hell is there a squeak in my voice?
Panicking about my damn reaction to him, I quickly re-envelope the photo, and Asher frowns, watching me fumble.
“Yeah,” he nods, eyeing me curiously. “It was nice not to have a bunch of thugs checking me out for once while I washed.”
Shit.
Here I am, checking him out, which is totally messed up regardless, doing the one thing he’s had to worry about in prison.
Sighing, my shoulders drop, and I place the envelope down on the kitchen counter, needing to remind myself of how much Asher has been through.
He didn’t deserve to go to prison. The arsehole who invited himself to live with Asher’s mum is the one who should be locked away. The cops should have been thanking Asher for what he did, not punishing him.
Unfortunately, I know all too well how this fucked up justice system works, so it wasn’t a surprise when Asher was charged.
As soon as it happened, I considered reaching out to my cousin Barrett and asking him to help protect Asher while he was locked up. I knew he could help. Hell, any one of my family could, but I avoid talking to most of them. I’ve kept my distancefrom them after they demanded I abort my pregnancy when Alexander knocked me up with the twins all those years ago.
There was just one problem with asking for Barrett’s help. If Asher found out, he’d question how my cousin had that sort of sway, which could lead to him finding out who my family really is.
No one locally knows Barrett and I are related, aside from the twins, Asher, and Alexander, my good-for-nothing ex-husband. The twins and Alex think Barrett is a wealthy businessman, which, I guess, in a way, he is, but they think he works in the wholesale packaging industry.
It’s a lie we came up with to ensure they don’t suspect anything more and hopefully sounds boring enough that they don’t ask too many questions.
I hate lying to my sons, but it’s for their own safety.
The boys love each time their uncle visits, which isn’t all that often, maybe once or twice a year in person. But they are never interested in what he does for a living, their conversations sticking to whatever gift he brings them.
I, however, see Barrett every time he sets foot on British soil, which has become more frequent over the past few years.
One reason is that he does a lot of business over here for his family… my family.
The Marx family.
But mostly, he’s hiding because of something that happened at home… I mean,hishome, in Australia.
My home is here in England now.
Barrett often helps me with research, and sometimes even field operations relating to Hedgwick and the surrounding town’s trafficking ring. A world I’m anonymously a part of, but not to do business in. No, I’m the one they all fear.
Since I didn’t have anyone else to ask for help, I called Barrett and made it clear that Asher was never to know he had a hand in helping to protect him in prison.
Barrett moved fast to get the protection in place, telling me some guy called Poe had Asher’s back. Which he did, for the two years Asher was incarcerated.
He was only beaten twice. Once on his first day, which waswhile I was frantically trying to get him inside protection, and the other was during a riot, when the prison guards got to him, even though he was trying to help end the siege.
Those guards got what was coming to them, though. Barrett and I made sure of that.
“I’m sorry.” My eyes soften as I round the bench, approaching Asher, trying to ignore the sight of his sculpted bare chest and how badly I want to study the ink there.
He’s grown into such a strong man, and it’s clear that he used his time in prison to work on building his muscle mass. He no longer looks like the teenage boy he still resembled when he went in. Now he looks so much older than his twenty years.
“I wish I could have done more to help clear your name,” I add, speaking the truth.
His whisky eyes drop from my face, travelling down the length of my body as I approach, and I feel warmth flush over my skin.
Is he… checking me out?
