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)
“Fuck. Maybe,” Cash said. “But how would he have known where you were?”
“He could have followed her?” Ralen suggested.
“He saw you that night?” Duke asked. “At Reaper’s?”
She nodded.
“So he knows you’re back in town,” Duke said. “Knows you saw him that night eight years ago. And maybe he was the rat and he’s worried you’ll tell someone he was there. So he follows you and gets you alone.”
“And tries to kill me,” she said hoarsely.
“She needs protection,” Hack said urgently. “We need to call Ink.”
“I’ll do that,” Duke said with a nod. “We’ll get her protection.”
“You’d recognize this guy if you saw him again?” Aidan asked.
“Yes.”
“We need to get some sort of artist to draw a picture,” Duke said.
“Or Greer could do it, she’s amazing,” Hack said.
Everyone looked at her and she blushed.
“We need to find this guy,” Hack said. “I won’t have him coming for her again.”
“We have to talk to our, uh, friend and see what he knows,” Duke said with clear reluctance.
“Could I talk to Ortega?” she asked. “I’m grateful to him. Am I able to say thank you?”
Hack grunted in disagreement but she ignored him.
“Probably not a good idea,” Ralen said. “We’ll give him your thanks, though. I’m hoping he’s in New York by now anyway.”
“He could be hunting,” Cash said.
“Hunting what?” she asked.
“Not what, who,” Ralen said. “The person who did this to you.”
She gulped. Right.
“This doesn’t explain why you came back now,” Aidan said to Cash.
Cash blew out a breath. “We heard a while ago that the Devil had disappeared. He’s been gone so long, it’s presumed that he’s dead. I wanted to come back then, but I wasn’t sure there was anything here for me anymore.”
“Oh, Cash,” she said sadly.
“I’m not the guy I used to be. And I wasn’t sure I could be your brother, certainly not the brother you knew before.” He looked from her to Aidan. “Then Dante had us come here because his stepsister wanted to move to Billings. We’re here to watch over her. For now.”
She frowned. There was something she should be able to connect here. Stepsister.
My stepbrother . . ..
“Bonnie?” she whispered. “She’s Dante’s sister?”
“Stepsister and yeah,” Cash said. “You know her?”
“Sort of. That was why you were talking to Titus that day.”
“You saw me?” Cash asked, shocked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Might pay not to get too close to Bonnie,” he warned her. “Dante is very protective.”
She didn’t like the idea of that. Bonnie was sweet. And she wasn’t going to let anyone dictate who could be her friend.
“I need to get Greer x-rayed and home,” Hack said abruptly. He looked stressed and worried.
“I’m going to call Ink,” Aidan said, glancing over at Duke. “You need to call you know who.”
“Fuck,” Duke sighed. “Why do I get all the fun jobs?”
61
Hack carried her carefully into his house. Stone was waiting by the door when they arrived.
“I thought you would be assigned to another job by now?” Hack asked him.
“Ink reassigned me back to Greer. And I’m glad he did.” He glanced down at Greer, who was lying sleepily in his arms. “We’ll keep her safe. One of my guys is doing a perimeter check. Once she draws that picture of her attacker, Brody will run it through the database to find this fucker. Unfortunately, the outside cameras at Reaper’s didn’t get a good shot of his face.”
“Boulder Manny, you’re here,” she said with a goofy grin.
“I dosed her up on painkillers for the drive here,” Hack told him as he heard a truck pull up behind them. He looked over to see Aidan and Duke getting out. Cash and Ralen drove up in their truck next.
They were waiting on the Fox to get back to them. Aidan and Cash didn’t seem to want to leave Greer. So it looked like he might have guests tonight.
He hoped they didn’t mind sleeping on the floor, because no one was going in her nest.
“She won’t be drawing anything right now.”
“I can do it,” she protested. “Boulder Manny, I missed you.”
Hack carried her further inside as the others walked in.
“I’m putting her into bed,” Hack said. “You can find yourselves blankets and pillows and shit. Duke, you staying?”
“Only until our, uh, friend, gets back to me then I’m going home to Sunny.”
“Good thing, the Fox is already here then.”
Hack turned toward the voice. An older guy with a slight pot belly stepped out of the shadows of the kitchen. He had a cap on over his mousy brown hair.
Stone started swearing. “How the fuck did you get in here? You can’t have gotten past my guy!”
“Course I can. I have vastly superior skills to that idiot.”
“Wait. You said you’re the Fox?” Cash asked.
“I am. You’ve heard of me then?”
“Uh, yeah,” Cash said, sounding ill. “A time or two. Jesus. Shit.” He looked over at Duke. “He’s not your friend? The one you called about the Devil?”