The phone vibrated against my bloody palm like a living thing. I stared at the unknown number, my thumb hovering over the screen. Every vibra bones and my body became frantic. Was it the people that took Leo away? Or was it another threat call? Something told me to throw the device against the hospital wall, but something—a flicker of a connection I couldn't explain—made me swipe right.
I pressed the phone to my ear, my breath hitching in my throat.
"Speak," I rasped, my voice sounding like it belonged to a stranger.
"Leo is safe.."
The voice was a low, gravelly vibration that sent a shockwave straight to my heart. It was a ghost's voice. It was the sound of the man I had spent two weeks mourning, the man I had cursed in the silence of the Sonoma nights.
"Asher?" I whispered more in silence and shock.
My knees nearly gave out, but the rage got to them first. It surged through my veins, hot and acidic, burning away the shock. He was alive. He was alive, and he had let me bleed—literally and metaphorically.
"You," I hissed, stepping deeper into the shadows of the stairwell so Marcus and the rest couldn't see my face. "You bastard."
"Listen to me, Chloe. You should know by now that your life is in gravel danger. Don't say my name out loud and you have to come over here. We need to talk." Asher's voice was clipped, professional, and devoid of the warmth he used to reserve for me. You are damn well right we need to talk. Where the heck are you son of a b….
"The men who took Leo... they are mine. The Shadows. They've been trailing him since the day you left the St. Regis. If they hadn't been there, the masked men would have finished what they started at the hospital."
His words caught the rest of my words from my mouth. "The Shadows?" I whispered, my grip tightening on the stolen handgun in my waistband. "You've been watching us this whole time? You let me think—you let Leo think—"
"I did what was necessary to keep the wolves away," he interrupted, his tone chillingly cold. "They are at the Reed's fortress, Chloe. Those people can't touch it. No one can."
"You took my son to your fortress without my permission," I snarled, the relief of his survival being swallowed by the fire of his betrayal. "You had no right, Asher! He's five! He's terrified!"
"He's alive," Asher countered. "That is the only right that matters right now. Marcus and the rest are with you? Good. Follow their lead. They know the coordinates. And Chloe... do not mention my name to anyone.. To the world, I am still a shadow in the ground. Keep it that way."
The line went dead.
I pulled the phone away, staring at the black screen as if I could see his face through the glass. My heart was a chaotic mess of emotions—relief that the father of my child wasn't a corpse, and a terrifying realization that the man I loved was a stranger who played with lives like chess pieces. How dare he end the call on me like that? I wish I could see him right now, I will strangle him.
I stepped back out into the hallway. Marcus and the rest were watching me, their expressions wary.
"Who was it?" Marcus asked, his hand resting on his holster.
I tucked the phone away and wiped a smudge of blood from my cheek. I looked at him, my eyes cold and hard as flint. If Asher is alive all these while, there is no way his brother wouldn't have known.but I also remembered the weight of the gun against my hip.
"It doesn't matter," I said, my voice like a serrated blade. "We're going to the Sanctuary. Now."
"Doctor, you're shaking," Miller noted, moving to help me.
"I'm not shaking, miller. I'm vibrating with the urge to burn something down," I snapped, walking past them toward the exit. "Move. Every second we stand here talking is the second my son thinks his mother has abandoned him."
As we climbed into the black van, I looked at the hospital one last time. Before climbing into the van. Asher thought he was the only one who could play this game, but he had forgotten one thing: a mother doesn't need a "Shadow" to protect her cub. She just needs a target.
*****