Wasted Lust - JA Huss Page 0,1
physically—not to reach out for that photo.
I shake my head again. “No, sir. Sorry.”
“Hmmm,” Jax says. “Well, that’s interesting, Miss Aston. Or should I call you Miss Cherlin?”
I stare him in the eyes and do not flinch. I don’t deny or confirm. From this point on, I do not talk. I say nothing until I’m given a phone and then I call my dad and tell him I need Ronin. Ronin, the liar. Ronin, the one who talks for all the Team members if we get in trouble. Ronin. That’s the only name on my mind right now.
“They call him Santino down in Central America. But here in the US, they call him Holy Boy. He’s white with blond hair—but somehow, he’s the second highest-ranking member of the Mara Perro, Gang of the Dogs.”
“Very interesting. But what’s this have to do with me?” Shit, I just broke the no-talking rule.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, Miss Cherlin. If that’s who you are, it makes a lot more sense.”
“How so?”
“I think you know how so.” He grins at me and flashes a dimple. His eyes are blue and his hair is light. Not quite blond, but not quite brown, either. He’s handsome. That’s probably why they sent him to me. Thinking I’m easily distracted by a pretty face.
“I don’t have time for this. I don’t know that man—”
“He knows you, Miss Aston. He knows you very well. Because he’s sent more than two dozen people here to find you while you’ve been digging down in Peru this summer.”
“What?” My heart thumps.
“Did you two have some unfinished business? Before you took on this new identity?”
I can’t breathe.
“Or some prearranged agreement to meet up in the future?”
I shake my head no as I close my eyes to picture the prearranged meeting that never happened. “We didn’t.”
“But you do know him?”
I just gave myself away. I lean on the desk with my palms down and bow my head to try to think clearly. Agent Jax places his hand on mine.
“Miss Aston, I’m not here to arrest you or pry into your past. I understand your fear right now, I do. Better than most. But if you know him, and if he’s looking for you, you should understand… he’s probably planning on kidnapping you.”
“What?” I pull my hands away from the desk to take my mind off the fact that Agent Jax is touching me.
“We’ve intercepted several of these men he’s sent to look for you. Three of them confessed to this plot. Now I don’t expect you to tell me much. Just yes or no. Is this man, the one they call Santino, Nicholas Tate?”
I nod. “That’s him. I’d recognize him anywhere. But I haven’t seen him in ten years. I don’t know anything about this stuff. I was in Peru, not Central America—”
“You‘re not under suspicion, Miss Aston.”
“Then why did you ask me here?”
“We don’t want to arrest you, Sasha. We want to recruit you.”
My childhood flashes through my head. Stalking, hunting, shooting, killing. Being blown up, being tracked, being hated and wanted dead. The anger I had, the love I lost, the life that was ripped away.
Ford Aston did his best with me. It was better than anyone else on this planet could’ve done, that’s for sure. I respect him. I love him. I love my brother, Five, my sister, Kate, and my mom, Ashleigh. I had dogs, and cats, and a nice house, and trips around the world. I had my own room. I was sent to private school where I made friends and got good grades.
James, Harper, Merc and I made a lot of money off that final job we pulled. Nick never got his cut. Nick never got the chance because he took off with a Central American drug lord in order to save the rest of us.
And no, none of it was perfect. We ran into troubles here and there over who I am. Who we all are. But it got handled. I graduated college and I’m on the verge of completing my oral examinations and being fully invested in my career in anthropology as a PhD candidate.
I. Am. A success.
“I moved on,” I tell Agent Jax. But I know it’s a lie. And he knows it’s a lie. Because even though I’m the toughest girl you will ever meet—I am the killer of killers, for fuck’s sake—just one picture of just one man can take me back to the moment I realized… I lost.
I lost everything.
And