Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 146666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 587(@250wpm)___ 489(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 587(@250wpm)___ 489(@300wpm)
“Well, it sounds like he was a fucking stalker, too,” Ralen said. “But he likely wasn’t the guy doing those other things for you.”
“That was Ortega. I . . . I sent him to watch over you,” Cash admitted. “He was the only one I trusted, but with Ortega . . . well, he does things his own way. What exactly did your, uh, stalker do? If it was anything untoward . . . if he touched you . . . hurt you . . .”
“What? No. No, he didn’t do any of those things to me. I think he did things like make sure that my landlord didn’t raise my rent . . . maybe he arranged to pay for my car. I don’t know. There could be a lot of things that he did, that I didn’t realize at the time. I didn’t know there was someone, um, interfering in my life for a long time.”
Cash’s jaw clenched. “It took a while for the news to reach me about what had happened to you. I sent him to check on you soon after.”
“Cash snapped,” Ralen said. “He wanted to go back to you.”
“Then why didn’t you?” Hack asked.
“Because he likely would have killed me, Aidan, and Greer,” Cash said, his eyes haunted.
“Who?” Aidan snapped. “Who were you hiding from?”
“The Devil.”
“Fuck,” Duke said. Then he winced. “I mean fudge.”
“Actually, I think fuck is an entirely appropriate word for this situation,” she said dryly. “Don’t censor yourself because of me.”
“We have to call our, uh, friend who might know something,” Duke said. “If this Devil was his old mentor, he’s the only one who might provide answers.”
“Who?” Ralen asked.
“Someone had the Devil as a mentor?” Cash grimaced. “Jesus.”
“Wait, go back to this Ortega who you sent to watch over me. He really did those nice things for me? I had a kind benefactor rather than a stalker?”
Cash rubbed his head. “Kind benefactor? Hell. That doesn’t really sound like Ortega. He was only meant to keep an eye on you. Make sure you were okay.”
“Yeah . . . but I think he grew to like her,” Ralen said with a wince. “So he might have done those things.”
“And what about the other things?” Hack asked.
“Like what?” Cash glanced over at him.
“Killing the guy that robbed us?”
Cash and Ralen shared a look that said a lot. She sucked in a breath.
“That actually sounds like something he’d do,” Ralen admitted. “I find that easier to believe than anything else.”
Holy. Heck.
“It’s entirely possible that he’s threatened or taken out anyone who was a risk to you,” Cash admitted.
Her mind couldn’t even compute that.
“Like kill another stalker that she had? Could he make a murder look like a suicide?” Hack asked.
Who was he . . . oh God. DaddyDrew? Seriously?
“I don’t feel so good.” She trembled. Why would this man who didn’t know her do those things for her? She didn’t want him going around hurting everyone who she had a bad interaction with.
“I don’t like him watching her,” Hack said.
“We’ll talk to him,” Cash reassured them. “He isn’t supposed to be watching you anymore. Although I’m grateful he was today.”
Yeah. She guessed she was too.
“How did he find me today?” she asked. “He followed me here?”
“Uh, probably,” Cash said. “He’s probably got some sort of tracker on you.”
Hack started swearing then. “I want to talk to him.”
“That’s not possible,” Cash said.
“Call him. Now. Tell him to come here,” Hack demanded.
Ralen looked at them all, his gaze dark. “We can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Hack asked.
“Because nobody tells the half brother of Dante Diaz what to do and keeps their tongue in their mouth.”
60
“What?” Aidan said. “How the hell do know Diaz’s half brother, Cash?”
“Because that’s where we’ve been all this time,” Cash replied wearily. “With Diaz and his men. Hiding away from the Devil and praying like fuck that he didn’t go after our families. Sending Ortega to watch over Greer was all I could do. He was the one who could slip into the States. His mother was American, and his other half brother lives in New York.”
She pushed all that information to one side. It didn’t seem important right now.
“Maybe you better explain what happened all those years ago,” Aidan suggested in a voice that said it wasn’t a suggestion at all ,but an order.
Cash sighed and looked over at Ralen. “Ralen and I had been hanging around with these guys. They were low-level members of the Rykers. Anyway, they sent us to scout out this warehouse in Devil’s Kingdom territory to see if we could find any goods being stored there. We were idiots back then. We thought it was a boring as shit job. We wanted something with glory. But we went along with it.”
“When we got there, the place looked empty,” Ralen said. “So like fools, we just wandered on in.”