r thoughts froze until she managed, “You’re Damon’s brother-in-law?”
“Was Damon’s brother-in-law—or Andrew’s brother-in-law, I should say, since that’s how we knew him,” Lars corrected. “He left my sister two years ago, and it’s taken me that long to find him.”
Remy drew another deep breath and blew it out slowly, trying to get a grasp on this new development. “I’m sorry that he did that to her.” And she was sorry. So damn sorry. Even more sorry that she was wrapped up in all this. “But if you know that Damon is gone, why are you sitting outside my shop?”
“Ah,” Lars said, projecting a sense of calm and ease. “I’m curious about his life here.” His gaze darkened. “About you.”
A sudden sense to flee washed over her. She rose, not liking the scary intensity in his gaze. “Believe me, I’m not that interesting.”
Lars smirked. “Somehow I doubt that. I think you’ve got lots of secrets to tell.”
Her heartbeat raced, nearly exploding at his dark smile. Last time, she ran, scared shitless. Not this time. “I want you to stop following me,” she told him firmly. “Stay away from me.”
His grin only darkened further. “I find it cute that you think you make the rules here.”
“I do make the rules,” she said, proud her voice didn’t quiver. “And I have no qualms about getting a restraining order against you.”
He barked a laugh now, stretching his arm out against the back of the bench. A laugh that made her jerk and her blood run cold. “Go get that restraining order, sweetheart. I dare you.”
She wanted to hit him with an epic comeback. That’s not what happened. Her feet were moving her across the street, as far away as she could get from his lifeless eyes.
Chapter 14
The day had passed by slowly as Asher sat behind his desk, glancing down at the evidence of a recent burglary at the pharmacy. No matter how much he tried to focus his thoughts, his mind kept drifting back to Remy and their talk last night. He finally felt like he was getting things right. He wasn’t moving too fast with her, but he wouldn’t stop moving forward until she trusted him again, fully and completely. For the first time in years, there was a bright spot in the darkness, and that happiness was having Remy back in his life. He glanced up at the photograph on the wall of the night they’d gone camping. He’d taken her virginity under the stars, and somehow fallen even deeper in love with her.
A lump began forming in the back of his throat and he cleared it quickly away. He missed hearing his mother’s advice. She’d know exactly what he needed to do to fix everything and get his life back on track. When he’d left Remy for Washington, he knew she wanted to get married, but the idea of marriage freaked him out, and that hadn’t changed. He saw what commitment did to people, how that vow of sticking it out through thick and thin destroyed lives when people gave themselves completely to someone else. Remy had loved Asher blindly, not realizing the danger he could be to her. After his mother died, Asher couldn’t function normally, let alone find a way to make sure he didn’t become his father. A man who took and took from a woman until she had nothing left to give. It occurred to him now that he could do the friends with benefits thing as long as Remy wanted, but he would eventually have to let her go. Not falling for her again was challenging, but he only needed to look back into his memories of his mother lying in the hospital bed to remind him why he wanted more for Remy than he could give.
“Asher.”
He jerked toward the voice coming from his door, realizing that hadn’t been the first time his name had been called. Boone and Rhett burst out laughing as they filed into his office.
“Got a certain woman on your mind?” Rhett asked, dropping down onto a chair.
Asher nearly answered but then felt the tension coming off Boone as he took the seat next to Rhett. “What’s up?”
“There’s been a development,” Boone said, handing Asher a thumb drive.
Asher plugged it into his computer, then opened the file. The moment the video popped up on his screen, he realized the development hadn’t been a good one. “Shit.” He leaned in toward his computer monitor, watching Damon being stabbed with a homemade shank in the jail’s hallway surrounded by a dozen or so men in orange jumpsuits. “Did this happen today?” he asked.
Boone nodded. “Yeah, earlier this afternoon, but we just got a hold of the video now.”
Asher kept watching the video, seeing the exact moment that Damon took his final breath, his jumpsuit completely covered in blood. The man attacking him eventually jumped up and a moment later, the guards stormed in. Asher sat back in his chair causing it to squeak beneath him and crossed his arms. “What do we know of the killer?”
“Not much, except that the killer’s wife received a large cash gift in her bank account a few days ago from an offshore account,” Rhett reported.
Asher didn’t like the sound of this. “A hired hit?”
“Looks like it,” Boone agreed with a nod.
“Damn,” Asher grumbled.
“Speaking of that hired hit,” Rhett said. “I did a little more digging on Violi and am beginning to get an idea of why he’s here.” He hesitated, then said slowly, “Violi’s sister was one of Fanning’s victim.”
“You’re fucking kidding me?” Asher asked, incredulous.
“Shocked the hell out of me too,” Rhett said, lifting a file folder in his hand.
Asher took all this in. The Damon he knew was a fool, but to have this level of stupidity seemed unbelievable. “Fanning actually scammed the sister of a known dangerous criminal?”