"He didn’t," Caspian found his voice, "And he’s away on a business trip if you’re here to see him."
Gage wore a cozy knitted sweater and corduroy pants, and if it wasn’t for his striking resemblance to Asher and the gun he was previously wielding, he would have perfectly portrayed the image of a kind grandfather.
"Bah," The Alpha gestured with his hands. "I’m not here to see him. I’d prefer not to see him as a matter of fact."
"Oh," Caspian mumbled softly.
"I came to have a talk, with you." Gage went on.
That made Caspian’s heart rate skyrocket, "Me? O-Okay... um, just come with me."
He led the Alpha back to the room he just left so that they didn’t remain awkwardly standing in the hallway.
"How do you know about me?" Caspian blurted out the question bouncing around in his head.
He switched off the television as Gage Knight sat a respectable distance away from him.
"Getting information about my home isn’t that difficult," He shrugged, voice gruff. "Especially if it involves the first Omega Asher brought here."
Caspian fell silent at that, worry eating at him. Did Gage disapprove of his gender? Was that why he was here?
Was that even something the Mafia cared about in the first place?
"At first, I hoped it was a fluke," Gage’s voice dropped as he propped his elbows on his knees, "But it’s been a while now so I had to come down myself."
"Wh-" Caspian’s voice cracked and he had to pause to clear his throat, "Why?" He tried again, his voice small.
"To tell you in person to leave Asher."
It took Caspian a moment to process the older Alpha’s words, blinking rapidly as all his fears came to life.
"Why?" Seemed to be the only word in his dictionary, his voice getting frailer and frailer.
"Because he’s a little shit, and you’re clearly too good for him," Gage leaned back against the couch.
Caspian couldn’t tell if the Alpha was joking or not, getting whiplashed by his words.
"But even more than that, it’s because he’s going to be the death of you." Gage tagged on, his expression grave.
Caspian quietly processed his words, he couldn’t tell if Gage meant that literally or not but he was kind of sick of being told that without a reason for why that was the case.
"I don’t mind dying."
The words left him before he could run them through a filter, and maybe he was a little offended at being constantly told that.
Gage’s response was empty laughter, "I kind of expected that. Fate’s a sick bastard."
Caspian was tempted to ask the older Alpha all that he wanted to know, but at the same time, he really wanted to hear it from Asher.
He didn’t need to wait too long because the door was getting kicked down in next moment.
Gage whistled as Asher prowled into the room, "That was quick."
Jael hung back at the door, moving his weight from one leg to the other like he couldn’t pick between his excitement to see Gage and the apprehension of what Asher would do.
The psychopath pulling a gun on his father was the last the he expected but that was nothing compared to Asher pulling the trigger.
Caspian’s scream of horror mixed in with Jael’s horrified cries of Gage’s name to make a deafening cacophony.
Jael was ready to pummel some sense into Asher but was stopped when Gage chuckled.
The sound was mixed with pained grunts, the Alpha lifting his knitted sweater to reveal a bulletproof vest beneath, a bullet dropping to the ground.
"That’s an ugly sweater," Asher bit out.
"You don’t pull any punches, huh?" Gage wheezed and Caspian couldn’t be sure if he meant that about getting shot or Asher’s jab at his sweater.
Jael was the only one having a difficult time getting over it, "For fuck’s sake," He muttered under his breath, looking like he would like nothing more than to be away from here.
Caspian could finally focus on Asher, and he should maybe be worried about how easily he had gotten over Asher shooting his own father.
The Alpha looked a wreck, and he suddenly couldn’t be mad at him for staying away for so long.
Asher didn’t protest Jael quickly divesting him of any more weapons he had, not trusting him to shoot his dad again for the fun of it.
Once again, he hung on the fringes of the conversation like he wasn’t sure he should be here, and Caspian started to do the same.
Clearly, there wasn’t a lot of love lost between father and son, and he didn’t think he should be here for it.
"What do you want with Caspian?" Asher demanded, keeping a wide berth between them.
It was almost like he was wary of getting closer so that he didn’t tackle Gage.
At the sound of his name, Caspian refocused on the conversation, on second thoughts, this seemed to have him at the center of it.
"I came to tell him to leave you," Gage said without holding back.
Asher laughed at that, his expression a tad bit manic, "How fucking rich, how generous of you, Gage."
"It’s dad to you," He corrected.
"I’m not calling a murderer that-"
Caspian could do nothing but watch the conversation bounce back and forth, he had a feeling that Asher meant something else by saying that.
He had personally watched Asher murder more than five men in a single night, he doubted that he would throw that title around willy-nilly.
"Don’t call my name." Asher bit out, his eyes two pits of hellfire. "When were you going to tell me that you killed my mom..."
Caspian’s ears started to ring at that, surely he couldn’t be hearing right.
"Or was it something I was just supposed to find out for myself when I got old enough?"
The anger in Asher’s voice dissipated with every word he spoke, leaving behind dying embers and suffocating ash.