Page 16 of Moonstruck
“Asa.” Jericho said his name like a warning.
“Fine. He’s just some guy I hate fucked on my floor an hour ago.”
“Wow,” Zane said. “I’m flattered.”
“Did you follow me? How could you have followed me? You had time to change clothes. There’s no tracker on my car ‘cause I left it at the garage.”
Zane huffed out a breath through his nose, his expression mutinous, as if he was the wounded party here. “I didn’t follow you. You wrote the fucking location down on a sticky note.”
Jericho’s eyes went wide. “Seriously, man?”
“You can’t kill me. I live-streamed your entire conversation. I bet the cops are already on their way to arrest your whole fucked up family,” Zane spit, scowling at Asa like he really was a supervillain.
Asa and Jericho both rolled their eyes.
“No, you didn’t. This cabin’s in a dead zone. Nice try, though,” Asa said.
Zane’s shoulders deflated, defeated. Asa would have thought there would be more histrionics. Finding out you fucked a guy who came from a family of murderers seemed like it would be life altering news.
But Zane didn’t look shocked. Disgusted. Furious. But not shocked.
Asa hunkered down in front of him. “Is this why you went home with me, Lois Lane? Were you hoping to use me to get to my family?”
Zane sneered at Asa. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about. I let you use me first. If you’re gonna kill me, just do it. Preferably not with the same ax you used to chop up that guy.”
Asa’s lips twitched in an aborted smile. Zane was much more comfortable when faced with death than he’d been when Asa had him crowded up against a door. That was interesting. “Damn, that’s cold, Lois Lane. Maybeyou’rethe psychopath.”
Zane thrust his jaw forward in a look that shouldn’t have been cute but somehow was. “I’m a crime reporter. You think this is my first dead body?”
“You fucked a crime reporter?” Jericho shouted. “Are you kidding me? Your father is going to kill us both.”
“I’ll take care of this,” Asa said.
“Take care of it, how?” Jericho asked. “Do you know how much he heard?”
Asa’s temper flared, and he wasn’t sure if he was more pissed at himself or at Zane for putting him in this situation. “I said I’ll handle it,” he snapped.
Asa went to his go-bag, pulling out duct tape and tossing it to Jericho. “Bind him. Wrists and ankles.”
Jericho sighed, still furious, but he shoved Zane to the ground, sitting on his thighs, so he could yank his arms behind him. Asa had him in that position not that long ago. With his wrists bound, Jericho jerked him to his knees, binding his ankles.
“Just fucking kill me already,” Zane muttered.
Jericho’s eyes went wide at Zane’s cavalier attitude towards his impending demise. “Suicidal ideations aside, he’s not wrong. The safest course of action is to put a bullet in his head and throw him in the lake with that dude.”
Asa stared at him, incredulous. “Do you know what my father would do to both of us if we killed an innocent guy? We might as well throw ourselves in right after him. We cannot break the code. It’s the only unforgivable rule.”
“How very Harry Potter of you,” Zane muttered.
Asa flicked his gaze to Zane. “Pipe down, Lois Lane. Nobody’s talking to you.”
“If you’re trying to convince me you’re the good guys and I’ve got this all wrong, it’s not going to fucking work. I’ve just spent the last twenty minutes watching you hack this guy to pieces while casually discussing about ten different felonies. You’re fucking—”
Asa picked the taser up off the counter and jabbed it into Zane’s chest. Whatever he was going to say became a garbled mess before he crumpled at his feet for the second time in five minutes. Well, that was unexpected. Who passed out from a stun gun? Did Zane have a heart condition? Why the fuck did he care? He squatted beside him and pushed two fingers against his pulse, relieved when he felt the reassuring thud.
“How the fuck are you going to fix this?” Jericho asked again.
“Just help me get him in the back of the van.”
