Page 162 of Hate Me
He hesitated, looking between me and the phone.
I rolled my eyes. “Bastian, you nearly dated her. You didn’t actually. You don’t need to feel awkward. Especially with Jeremy factored in.” He growled at that. “She’s your friend. Go ahead, take the call,” I insisted.
He nodded, then answered, “Sebastian, what’s up, Ashley?” He went stock-still as he listened to whatever she was saying. His grip tightened around the phone to the point of painful pressure, his eyes flashing. “What about the cops? Okay, yeah, I get it. I’ll be right there. Do not open the door. It’s gonna be okay. Take a breath, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
“What’s happened?” I asked, as soon as he hung up.
“Her troublesome ex is wailing on her apartment door. Sounds like he’s high out of his mind. He’s claiming she owes him money.”
“Drug money?”
“Pretty much. But she paid him back. Paid him off, is more like it, so he’d stay out of her life, and so she could stay out of his and get clean. Like I said, high out of his mind.”
“And you’re heading over there right now?”
“She needs help. Calling the cops has her worried it’ll draw press attention and fuck up her image and rep she’s spent months trying to piece back together.”
I nodded my understanding. “I’m coming with you.”
“Sky—”
I grasped my pendant. “Together, right, Bastian?”
He smiled and came to me, wrapping his arm around me. “Together, beautiful.”
Apartment had been understating it.
Ashley Morrison lived in one hell of a swanky penthouse.
Ultra-modern, open concept with a pastel palette guiding the décor. Particularly pink.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to give it more than a cursory glance as I followed Bastian through. The door had been wide open, the top hinge ripped from the door frame, when we’d arrived.
Thuds and screams guided us onward through the main living area and we veered down a brightly lit corridor, silver-painted walls lit by fairy lights and pink pot lights illuminating the way.
I swung my head toward the left to another open door. “Here,” I told Bastian, discerning the voices as coming from within.
A female scream shot right through me. “Stop! Please, Billy. I don’t have anything here for you! I don’t!”
“That’s her,” Bastian confirmed.
We bolted inside to see a lanky guy wearing board shorts and a tank ripping a drawer out of a dresser and tossing it across the room. The whole place was turned upside down, clothes, jewelry and photo frames, along with shattered glass all over the floor, the pastel-pink sheets of the heart-shaped bed rumpled, the sliding glass closet doors shattered too, one ripped partially off the track and hanging there precariously.
The guy kept wiping his nose, as he opened the next drawer roughly and started rummaging.
He pulled up short when he finally noticed us, and jerked his head our way. “Who the fuck are you?”
Ashley’s screams through another door—an ensuite bathroom from what I could make out from my vantage point—had Bastian shuddering. “Go,” I told him. “I’ve got this one.”
He hesitated for a moment, before taking off.
“Motherfucker!” I heard him growling a moment later, followed by several thuds and the grunts of a guy within.
“You’ve got me, do you, sweet cheeks?” Cokehead sneered.
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“This shit here isn’t your business. Get out while you can. It would be a shame to mess up such a pretty face.” He shoved his greasy gray hair out of his eyes and eye fucked me. “Or that smoking hot body.”