Chapter 15: In Which Things Go South

Ashton went back home after the whole ordeal with the Takaheshi mafia leader, his mood sour.
However, once he entered his house he was met with the divine sight of Sora shaking her hips to a rhythm unknown to him considering she had her headphones plugged in but nonetheless, he thoroughly enjoyed the view of her dancing around while cooking something in the kitchen. He momentarily forgot about what had went down not more than an hour ago.
It was one sight he could definitely get used to.
He let several minutes pass by before he decided to make his presence known because she seemed to be in a world of her own.
He took steps forward and snuck up behind her before encircling his arms around her waist.
And nuzzling his face in the crook of her soft and sweet smelling neck as he pressed her into him more.
A huge grin spread on Sora's face as she realised that Ashton was home and giving her one of his best back hugs.
She loves when he does this, his strong arms around her as he basically cocooned her making her feel all warm and fuzzy.
She turned around in his arms and stood in her top toes while simultaneously pulling him down a little by his neck as she placed her lips on his.
She tried her best to dominate the kiss just this was but she found it impossible to keep up with Ashton's skilful tongue that made her moan into the kiss. Aston chuckled at her adorable antics, still not breaking the kiss and lifting her off with ease as her legs automatically went around his waist.
That simple kiss turned into a full on make out session on the kitchen counter before the eventually pulled away breathless and flushed.
"I...I made vegetable rice and Manchurian" Sora said looking at him with those big blue eyes.
"Is that right? I guess we should go eat then, I am quite famished" Sora got the double meaning behind that comment and blushed bright.
Damn those Judith Mcnaught romance novels that she was a sucker for.
Ashton al but carried her to the dining table, setting her down on a chair before heading to her some plates and the already dished vegetable rice and Manchurian.
Once everything was on the table he took a seat right beside her and served her and then himself before digging in.
Sora waited patiently for him to finish a bite and say something but he didn't and just kept eating. She felt a sense of deja vu as she recalled the first time she had cooled for him and he did the same thing even back then.
Aston chuckled out seeing her pout. He did that in purpose.
"The Manchurianis amazing my love, it's very delicious. Now stop pouting and dig in if you want to go for ice cream afterwards" Ashton said and that made her beam as she dug into her food as well.
"Are we going to get ice cream or frozen yogurt?" She asked while he was driving.
"Whichever one you prefer pet" Ashton replied not taking his eyes off the road.
"Frozen yogurt please"
"Sure"
Soon enough they stopped in front of the sour berry Frozen yogurt shop that she loved so much and got out.
Sora got a large cup of green apple with all sorts of assortments on top while Ashton wasn't really a huge fan of frozen yogurt so he just sat with her watching her make conversation with him animatedly which he replied to with short replies all the while she ate her frozen treat.
Ashton felt good, he felt like he was living a completely different life from the harsh reality he actually belonged to.
However, he was brought back to the dark reality of his world when out of the blue his clean up partner Vincent took the empty seat beside Sora, catching both of them off guard and confusing Sora as to what was happening.
"What the fuck are you doing here Vincent? You know very well that under no circumstances do we meet outside the job so what the hell are you doing here" Ashton seethed out.
"Well, it couldn't wait any longer, you see I have an inside source who lets me know of all the cleaning operations that the mafia carries out, I like to keep track to get in on them, the money is good but of course you already know that. Now you and me usually get the same high stakes jobs together but imagine my surprise when you got a real classified clean up job that I expected to be in on with you but they didn't select me, only you. I had to check this out. So I followed you to that alleyway clean up and what I witnessed there would have you in so much trouble" Vincent smirked looking Ashton dead in the eyes.
Ashton's jaw clenched tight.
He was talking about the day that Sora stumbled upon the crime scenes. It was as if his worse nightmare was coming to life.
"What did you see Vincent? Spit it out" Ashton gritted out.
"I saw this sweet little bird on the crime scene and instead of reporting her you hid her and now you are dating her" this time Vincent turned towards Sora and reached his hand out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear but she flinched back away from him.
"Don't you dare touch her!, I will knock out all thirty two teeth in your mouth" Ashton threatened and his threat wasn't empty.
"Alright alright, I won't she is a pretty one though, I see why you didn't report her, it would've been a shame to waste such beauty on a petty incident plus, you'd later have to clean her up as well if that happened" Vincent chuckled out.
Ashton had enough of his games.
He took Vincent's wrist and twisted it at an awkward angle one that would take a second for Ashton to break it.
"Aaahhh!" Vincent helped out in pain.
Sora gasped at Ashton's sudden violent action.
"Now you get to the fucking point, what the fuck do you want?" He questioned, his tone menacing enough to have Sora scared even though she wasn't at the receiving end of it.
"Alright! Alright! Let go! I won't be able to tell you when my wrist is an inch away from snapping" Ashton reluctantly let go of his wrist which he cradled as soon as it was free.
"I want you to leak information to me about the next weapons shipment the Takaheshi will be receiving" Vincent confessed.
Ashton was confused at first until he connected the dots and the realisation hit him.
"You are betraying the Takaheshis" Ashton stated.
Sora was confused as ever through the conversation.
"Yes"
"Let me guess, it's the serpents" Ashton made a guess based on the bodies of serpent gang members that he cleaned up.
"Yes. Now I need you to do this and I know you can, you do the data wipe out for the mafia family as well, I did my homework on you" Vincent sounded pleased with himself making Ashton roll his eyes.
"Now what if I go rat on you or better yet, finish you right here right now, the Takaheshis would cover me if I did" Ashton said, his eyes hard.
"Right... you think I am stupid enough to walk in here without insurance? I forgot to mention that I made a video of you helping her out in the alley, if you kill me or rat on me, I have a man out there who would send the video to the Takaheshis and you know what that would mean for you and your girl"
Of course he knew, they would kill Sora and either have him killed as well or worse, make him do things that he wouldn't want to, things that would steal his remaining humanity.
"I do this and you let me off the hook?"
"For now"
"Fuck you. I do this for you and you hand me the tape without making any copies. I am not going to be your fucking lap dog that you hold leverage over" Ashton seethed.
"Well you don't have the upper hand here Hayes, I do. So you better do asi say before you get this little bird here killed and your life ruined" Vincent said with an evil smirk tugging at his lips.
Ashton knew he was right.
There was a pregnant pause after that before Ashton spoke, his jaw clenched.
"Fine"
"That's good, you have my contact, send the information there" Ashton didn't say anything to him after that as Vincent finally got up and left with a triumphant look on his face.
Ashton was absolutely furious. He did not like the feeling of not having things under control.
The feeling of things getting out of hands.