"Terry, pass me your phone." I state, urgently.Terry doesn't hesitate, handing me his phone. I dial Jace's number, hoping desperately he's with Damian right now.Jace picks up on the first ring. He recognizes the number, so answers immediately."Huxley." Jace remarks into the phone."Jace. Is Damian there with you?" I ask, getting straight to the point."Yes. Why do you ask?" "Are you somewhere private, where no one can listen in on you- including tech?" I ask."No. But I can be. Just a second." He comments. The line goes quiet before I hear Jace pick the call back up."Asher? You still there?""Asher? Is he ok? Where is Sienna?" I hear Damian frantically remark in the background. "Ya, I'm still here. Pass the phone to Damian. I need to talk to him." I state.Jace isn't happy but ultimately obliges. The sounds are muffled slightly as I can only guess that Jace is switching to his headset, giving an earbud to Damian in the meantime."Asher? What's going on? Where are you? Where's my
The next hour is extremely chaotic. As suspected, Damian's team managed to locate several bombs throughout Stone Enterprises. They took comprehensive pictures of all of them and sent them all to me. Terry helped me organize each of them to make sure I could properly figure out how to disarm them. Damian informed me that the person behind the bombs is known for always having a backup plan. Which would mean we would need to find more than one way to disarm the bombs. I would need to work on a way to disrupt the signal to not only the bomb itself but from any communication devices in place to trigger it as well. While all of this was completely out of Hunter's understanding, he still proved himself to be an asset. He watched to see where he was needed and then helped to organize a game plan. Once I was satisfied that I had managed to identify every way to disarm the bombs, we went through our game plan as many times as possible. Because of the trackers inside of us, Hunter and I would
...Sienna POV......Present..."So... wait... you're telling me that not only is Silvio alive, but my dad's business did, in fact, blow up? I thought it didn't since I'm still alive." I comment, unsure as to what's going on. "Yes.. and no..." Ash comments. I furrow my brows at him, unable to understand what he could possibly mean by that. A building blowing up can only ever be a yes or a no answer. Not both. You can't somewhat blow up a building. Either you do or you don't."The tower blowing up was faked. Stone Enterprises never blew up.""Care to explain?" I ask."Your dad would be the better person to ask. But essentially, he created a sophisticated program that mixes AR and AI technology to create an interactive scenario. So to put it simply, the building exploding was nothing more than a computer program." Ash remarks, making my eyes go wide.I watch as Ash pulls out his phone and searches for something before showing me the phone. On the screen is the video feed of the building
"What about Silvio?" I ask, desperately needing to change the topic."He's disappeared. As we had suspected would happen. We believe that he's using Kevin's finances to hide from us. It seems as though Silvio managed to syphon a large number of funds from Kevin's company into offshore bank accounts. We're unable to trace it from there, but we believe Kevin was oblivious to this. As Kevin was under the impression that it was your father working against him, which was causing his funds to go sparse."I continue to nod my head in response. In all fairness, my dad was, in fact, doing that. I know my dad has been after Kevin for years. But it just goes to show that you can never be too careful. Kevin had thought Silvio was on his side. When in reality, he was just biding his time, waiting for the opportunity to get rid of Kevin. To Silvio, Kevin was nothing more than a convenient placeholder.Ash seems to grow silent, making me wonder if there's something else he's not telling me."What is
I shoot a look over to the announcer, challenging him without uttering a sound. The look on my face says it all. "Get me a real contender." The announcer gulps and nods his head. Searching his list for someone else. Someone that is worth my time. After a brief pause, a much bulkier man than before walks into the ring with a wicked glint in his eye. He stares at me before spitting on the ground, showing his dominance. I hold in a laugh at his attempt to intimidate me. Even after everything that happened, things never changed. Men like him will always think they have the advantage just because they're taller and bulkier than women. But he will soon realize that strength isn't everything.The announcer begins the fight and unlike my previous contender, this man just stands there waiting for my advance. I look him up and down, searching for his weak points. The giant before me, however, considers my gaze to be one of longing and appreciation rather than calculative. That was his second
...Ace POV...The moment my men told me that Sienna had forced her way inside, I knew tonight was going to be sheer chaos. I hadn't seen this girl for years now. I thought for sure she had smartened up and would stay away from here. This wasn't a place for someone like her to be in. Not only was it dangerous, but she could get herself killed. She was too much like Hunter. Both of them fought as though they were untouchable. Their level of cockiness far outweighed anyone else I've ever known. I'm afraid that if I can't get her to stop one of these days, she may not make it out alive. I know why she's here. But what she doesn't realize is that no one has heard from Hunter in almost a year. It's been so long that I had actually forgotten that Hunter still owns the place. Not once has he reached out or made an appearance in the past year. I don't know what happened, but something must've happened if Sienna was back here making noise in hopes of finding Hunter.I look down from the wind
...Sienna POV...It's been three months since I first started coming to the club. I was growing tired and impatient. What else could I do? I've done everything I could think of to contact Hunter, but for whatever reason, I know he's keeping his distance from me. The question is, why?Ace has become a good friend during these months. Even though I know he doesn't want me doing this, he doesn't say anything about it. He's there to help me when I need him. Since I was coming to the club practically every day now, Ace and I had begun a sort of routine. We would go out for food then he would help me train at the gym located on the upper floor of the club. After, I would beat the crap out of all the contenders, and then Ace would take me to Hunter's house. I spent my nights there, desperately attempting to feel closer to him.I hated that I felt like this. I hated that Hunter had made me into the type of girl I had despised. I hated the girls that longed for their boyfriends, that acted as
...Ace POV......Six Hours Later...I could see something was wrong. Ever since this afternoon, Sienna's been off her game. Her first fight was against a novice fighter. He hadn't heard about her reputation and had severely underestimated her abilities. Sienna would easily be able to take him out in a matter of seconds. So call me surprised when he managed to get a hit on her.I wasn't the only one surprised. The entire crowd grew silent. What was going on? The infamous Firecracker was just hit. It seemed like an impossibility. Sienna was a seasoned fighter. Not only that, but I had been training her as well. She was already a master in multiple forms of mixed martial arts, but I was training her to improve her abilities. No one with her skill set should ever take a hit from a novice. She was much better than that. So what was going on?I watched on in eagerness to see how the rest of the fight played out. For all I know, the guy may have just landed a lucky hit. Caught her unaware. S