The car took a steering stop in front of what looked like an abandoned palace but was home to me. The surrounding screamed of dead cavern and a foul smell of the grass that nauseated both of us. The once-ornate iron gates hung askew, rusted and creaking with the whisper of the wind. Broken windows, like hollow eyes, stared out over the overgrown garden.

“Come on, we have to move inside.” Flapping the backdoor open, we quickly carried Asher’s body inside the palace. Crumbling statues, weathered by time and neglect, lined the cracked marble pathway leading to the main entrance. Flickering memories of my childhood gauged in and out of my mind like a slumber of dreams. 

My hands tightened over Asher’s chest feeling every muscle of his upper body.  There was a part of me that desired Asher the moment my eyes laid on him. Although he was dying or might be dead, all I could think about was the tough hood of the car and my body grinding against it with the tiny flicker of heat that would be generated every time Asher thrusted inside me harder from the previous thrust. My body is screaming for breath because of his hand roughly gagging his mouth rolling in and out after every thrust. Our screams would be a symphony of a royal melody that if gotten a chance could be sold in an auction but only for people to hear this melody live.

“Where’s the bedroom?’ Troye asked me. My sinful breath was carving a canvas over Asher’s body while we carried him, my fingers deeply tasted the veins and muscles as if he wasn’t just dead but his body was calmingly alive in timespace screaming for my name to make it red all over. “Given his body’s lost a lot of blood, I can still feel his faint heartbeats. I think we have some hope. I will quickly call the doctor from our agency’s private HQ that will do his treatment. So first tell me where the bedroom is?”

“God Damn! How tall is he? I can barely feel my legs with his weight.” Troye noticed a flickering in my eyes, my hands pressed tighter on his body. “Rowan!” Troye’s shout broke my melody, bringing my hell to the living. 

“Yeah.” I said with a nod. 

Rowan raised his brow, “So?

As if a bird had caught my eye, I almost shook my head which brought a dismissing twitch over him. 

“The hell are you thinking about man, I am asking you where’s the fuckin bedroom?” 

“Uhh… Y..Yeah there are few, but let’s go to mine for now, It’s cleaner than the others.”

“And where’s your room?” 

“It’s upstairs.” 

“For fuck’s sake.”

Troye's exasperation echoed in the dilapidated hall as he adjusted his grip on Asher's body. The grand staircase, once polished to a gleam, now creaked under our combined weight, but we pressed on, leading the way with an unsettling mix of urgency and detached calm.

“Lost in.. memories?" Troye grunted, a hint of concern cutting through his usual gruffness. My room was the unfinished ride in this whole palace. I couldn’t stop myself from looking around the shelves crammed with books, papers from my research messed up over the large desk, the futon and lounge looked deathly hollow as if somebody was just sitting on it and now it’s all empty calling for its owner. 

I shook my head, forcing myself back to the present. "Just... remembering what it used to be like."

Troye eased Asher down, grumbling about his weight, yet being careful not to hurt his injuries any further.  "What's stopping you from tailing his business? Isn't he the one who is linked with all the big people that you are looking for?"

"Are you asking me that right now?" How selfless are you?"

Troye sighed.

"Check his briefcase, drill-head."

I quickly ran towards their car, an elongated worry draining down over me as if this place was observing me quietly, asking questions at each, making the air heavy, suffocating him till I gave in. I reached the car with lightning steps and hastened to remove the briefcase.  "Let's see Asher, how much you have seen this darkened tapestry of the mafia and underground businesses." 

As I moved inside I heard Troye speaking hurriedly on the phone. "There's a situation," Pacing quickly inside the bedroom, my ears were bombarded by questionable noises coming from the phone.

"I don't care, we want the doctor ASAP, send him here to Rowan's old palace." Troye murmured something to himself ghastly and then threw the phone on the lounge.

"Trouble at your paradise?” I asked, locking the door, a sense of uncertainty running through his eyes. 

“It’s always trouble,” He sighed and plopped down on the chair in front of the desk. “You open that briefcase first.” 

“I cannot believe that people like you believe that there’s paradise on the other end.” Troye mocked me while watching the suitcase getting opened with just the fast trick of my hands.

"What the hell are you talking about man?" The suitcase reeked of a smell that carried the memories of numerous. The agent was taken aback with the amount that was found inside his suitcase. 

There were two suitcases that Asher Bane carried that day, one was to deal and the other was to kill. 

I pushed through the claps and opened the second compartment, an old photo fell out of it. "Huh, it looks like it's him, but who are the other guys beside him?" I said as I felt Troye stepping near to take a look, his alarming movement a second away to rush in case Asher wakes up. 

I took a look at Asher's sleeping face, a dying melody was dreadening like a slow carcass, and that's when it hit me, this people were someone he knows, he knows them more better than anybody else, but he deliberately let those photos be flowing in the suitcase of ammos and a whole lot of confidential documents. He wanted people to know that he is working on a client's case and hence the photos and the diary.  The diary was scribbled with circles, a few groceries, numbers which ideally weren't phone numbers. The numbers were written upside down, each pointing towards the grocery or the next thing that was scribbled. 

A tiny flicker caught my attention near his eye, and I knew that he was fine. The doctor was treating him. Troye pushed open the suitcase multiple times to find out any clue he might have, but could only see the floating meshnet compartment that slapped right at his face when he opened it. 

"Shit what the hell is this? It doesn't even look like it's a part of this suitcase." I flashed a stance at him carefully nipping my hands at the meshnet. It had a mechanical lock similar to the suitcase only this one was made of strong metal and there was no doubt this lock could be open. 

"Cut this damn thing." Troye said and I snuck out a sharp knife from under my jacket. A paper could cut easily through it even if thrown away from afar, yet this mesh net was somehow different. No amount of force could open and no sharpness could tear it. 

"If only there was something that we knew about this dead one to open this." 

Troye and I look around his suitcase, his wallets, both of his watches, one on his wrist, and one in the first suitcase. The first suitcase had a few of his business attire, his daily essentials, wallet, passport, his client documents, ipad and a laptop. But the other suitcase was a drastic differentiator than this. The lower one was packed with a pistol, a gun, a shotgun, renegade, stop watch, stakes, and god knows some short pins. The middle half was loaded with what we call cocaine in one packet, marijuana in one and chalk in one packet. The most upper part had his dairy, short note, that photo, and a few confidential documents that Troye sent back to headquarters to get it checked. But the most surprising thing is that Asher is a clean guy, his whole history of records is clean. Even though he carried blood on his hands, there was no one in this world, in this life who could put a question to his head. Because he had that power. And my mission was to get that power in my hands. 

"There's nothing here," Troye exasperated loudly while shuffling on the bean bag. 

I watched Asher, how his breathing was rapid when the doctor opened his wound. I feasted my eyes on his Tattoo, his name was written boldly on his chest with the hollowed branches that looked like veins on a muscled body was effortlessly carrying his chest and his name. 

"This dude is crazy, I mean who writes down bread, avocado, nuts and extra virgin olive oil for a day, I mean what the hell did he eat?? Oil coated nuts spread down on bread Bwahahaha" Troye choked on his nauseated mouth. 

"What? That doesn't make sense." I said snatching the dairy. And as I checked it was correct. The date was 24th May 2024, and his grocery list was rice, eggs, honey, a few names scribbled black and then it continued spinach and apples. 

"Rice, eggs, honey, spinach, apples,... and on the next page it was bread, avocado, nuts and extra virgin olive oil. Wait, this means." I snapped hurriedly as I walked near the mesh net compartment lock. My leg twisted in between but I ignored it skillfully and rushed there. 

"What? That he is a psychopath who eats people's flesh?" Troye soared looking at him. 

"No, check the initials of the list, bread, avocado, nuts and extra virgin..."

"It's his last name." Troye answered without really listening to the whole conclusion.

"And look at the list on the front, if you see it from right to left, that's his first name."

"Wow, and check the numbers against the list, between two lists there was one number. So that means...?"

We both looked in trance at the lock and then at the diary. And at that moment I don't know why but somewhere I thought that Asher and I were similar. We both work for things that calls for our life, and still we work with our life on the line. That's why Asher Bane was never caught. The hottest, sexiest Alpha who had pheromones that could make you lie down on the floor asking for more, his muscular body that asks for nothing but pleasing eyes and a bow. His light brown eyes captured the essence of his overall personality, cold shrill of icy blizzards passing by every time his eyes met anyone. And I knew if I looked at his eyes, I would be going down, downer than any kind of hell.