The chain links on Asher’s wrists jingled like a foreboding alarm, his eyes lit up like a blaze.
"M-Mafia King Asher," Toma choked out, his hand tingling.
The Mafia King wasn’t supposed to be here, he hadn’t even been expecting Jael to bother coming down, much more the Mafia boss himself.
Caspian’s lip was split, a visible red handprint on his face. The image of Asher blurred, teardrops gathering at his eyes, refusing to fall down his face.
Asher had come for him.
The occupants of the warehouse seemed to be put under a spell, standing frozen.
Only Asher moved, he closed the distance, dark red hair wild, his dress shirt unbuttoned halfway down.
He towered over Toma, grabbing the Beta’s jaw like he had done to Caspian a few moments ago.
"I heard you had a deal for me," He continued calmly, the black leather straps still around his wrists.
Toma lost his voice, shaking his head in spasms, pupils still dilated.
Asher tilted his head to the side, "No?"
Toma snapped at this point, the drugs he took mixing badly with the terror and adrenaline pumping through his veins.
"Fucking take him down!" He yelled in a panic to the men he hired, "If I’m dead, there’ll be no one to pay you!"
That broke the men out of their haze of fear, a decent amount of them taking instinctive steps back.
There was no amount of money that could convince them to go after a Mafia King. But a handful did have devious sparks in their eyes, like they just wanted the chance to take on a Mafia King regardless of the price.
Asher picked Toma up with a single hand, the Beta struggling because he was only held up by his face.
He was unfazed by the men slowly forming a semi-circle around him, stripping Toma of his weapon.
He fired off the first shot, his aim impeccable.
The goon that was shot stared right ahead, blood dripping into his eyes from the bloody hole going right through his forehead.
He fell backward like the trunk of a felled tree, his eyes staring right ahead for an eternity.
That plunged the warehouse into chaos, the men who had chosen to back away running for safety while the men who had chosen to attack Asher fired off their weapons.
"Fuck! Fuck! Stop! Fucking stop!" Toma wailed as he was used as a meat shield, the burning hot bullets burrowing into his flesh.
Asher tossed the bullet-ridden supplier to the side, calmly standing in front of Caspian while facing off four men.
"Want to go another round?" He offered magnanimously like they were playing a game of Russian roulette.
The men shared hesitant looks, there was no way for the Mafia King to protect himself this time but no one wanted to be the scapegoat.
Asher slowly walked away from Caspian, leading their attention away from the shell-shocked Omega who sat stiffly, blue eyes wide.
He easily had them all pointing their guns away from Caspian but one of them made a dire mistake.
He pointed his gun back to the Omega who was clearly important to the Mafia King, firing a shot.
Caspian felt his breath get wrenched out of him when a bullet went right through the back of the chair he was seated on, his ears ringing.
The man that had fired off the shot, had the misfortune of missing. He didn’t get a second chance, Asher in front of him at his next breath.
Looking into the Mafia King’s rage-filled glare was like falling head-first into hell.
It happened so fast, time didn’t even get the chance to slow down. One moment he had his gun pointed ready to fire another bullet, and in the next, he was lying on his side on the ground.
Only that he couldn’t feel the rest of his body, his bulging eyes bouncing around frantically as he was attracted to a thudding sound.
It was the rest of his body falling to the cold ground some distance away.
The men instantly knew they were fucked, Mafia King Asher had ditched his gun, ripping the man’s head off his body with sheer strength alone.
No one dared shoot at the Omega again, they simply had too much on their plate.
Asher was cutting down their ranks with ease, and although they were shooting at him they were too shaken up to hit him, their aims haphazard.
One of the two left alive looked like he was having a seizure when Asher ripped out the throat of the man beside him, a spray of burning blood splashing on his face.
Caspian watched Asher cut the men down like a literal force of nature, Jael’s words sinking in.
Asher could be a danger to him.
He squeezed his eyes tightly shut when Asher put the gun of the last man into his own mouth, pushing down his finger on the trigger.
Although he was expecting it, the loud sound of a bullet firing made him flinch, the sounds of the man’s death gargles making him nauseated.
He kept his eyes shut for several long minutes, tasting his own blood at the back of his throat.
Asher’s quiet low voice made his eyes flip open, the blood-stained Alpha keeping some distance between them.
Caspian didn’t hear him coming over, and he should be terrified of him but his heart didn’t get the memo, doing flips in his chest.
"Hi," He said breathily, finding his voice.
Speaking made his face sting but other than that he was no worse for the wear.
"Are you alright?" Asher asked, fiddling with the odd leather accessories he wore.
"I’d be better if the cuffs were off," Caspian said with dry humor.
Asher almost looked nervous, a strange adjective to describe the Alpha with but it was almost like he expected Caspian to be frightened of him.
"Right," Asher muttered, walking over to kick over the limp body of Toma. He frisked the bloody body clinically, easily finding the keys to his cuffs.
Caspian wasn’t tied down to the chair so he rose to his feet and closed the distance between them that Asher was wary to cross, holding out his bound hands.