AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I dashed off down an alley to hide. I knew he was going to find me. And I couldn’t run anymore. I started to drift off. I think I fell asleep, but I remember someone talking to me. He said he’d get my brother. Then I think Cash must have arrived and the other guy said he had to leave. He called me Bebé . . .”
“Greer?” Hack asked, looking at her in concern. No doubt he thought she was losing her mind. Sometimes it definitely felt that way.
“DaddyO used to call me Bebé online.” She glanced over at Cash. “This guy . . . his name is Ortega, isn’t it? Was he DaddyO?”
“One of the guys you interacted with on that site?” Hack asked.
“Yes, but one of the nicer guys.”
“First time Ortega has ever been called nice,” Ralen muttered.
“Who is he? And how did he find Greer?” Aidan asked. “And why would he have been interacting with her?”
“Well, um, you guys aren’t going to take this well,” Cash muttered. And for the first time since he returned, he looked like that seventeen-year-old boy he’d once been. It made her heart ache.
“Tell us,” Aidan urged.
“You know how you were saying you had a stalker who did nice things?” Cash asked her.
“Yes, but what . . . wait, you don’t think my stalker was Drew? The guy who had the wall of photos?” she asked.
“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.
