Vengeance (Master's Protege 1)

It’s definitely not.

“Yep.”

I flip through the phone. “They met… a week ago… online. He asked her out for drinks and they agreed to go out last night.” I don’t say anything for a minute, because I’m not sure he wants to hear what’s going on in these texts.

“Oh. Oh wow. Then there’s a text here, she says, Don’t call me back. I don’t ever want to hear from you again.”

“I want his address.”

With the tone he uses, he could replace what he said with give me the coordinates so I can bomb his ass.

“And then it looks like there might’ve been more communication between them, but maybe it was a phone call or several because there are no more texts.”

“And there’s nothing else?”

I sigh. “I don’t see much of anything. She’s got some social media stuff... but even that…. Well, there’s just Wiccan stuff.”

I don’t tell him what. He’s obviously not a fan of her lifestyle, and I don’t know how much is relevant anyway. I scroll through text after text, and it makes me feel shitty. I don’t like invading her privacy like this.

But I share his concern. She’s in danger, and we need to find her. I look for something, anything at all that will clue me in.

On a whim, I pull up a browser and scroll through her history. Now this is starting to feel more invasive. I ignore the growing unease.

My cheeks scald at the first dozen or so searches.

Doggy style

Reverse 69

Best tantric sex moves

Cowboy

“You’re blushing, Miss Price,” he says, as he flicks on the directionals and gets off the highway.

“She, uh… not sure how much you want to know. Let’s just say I think I know why she calls him Cowboy.”

His jaw firms. “Fuck.”

“There are maybe some things you don’t need to know about your sister.”

With a grimace, he shakes his head. “Everything. I need everything.”

“She… had a pretty rich sex life, it seems.”

He looks like he’s just bitten into a lemon. A rotten, mold-covered lemon.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

I scroll a little more.

“Oh. Oh, wow.”

“What? Will you please stop that?”

Fuck, I need to find a better poker face.

I shake my head. I will not tell him I had no idea that was a position one could put themselves in. I mean, honestly… someone would have to have… like a really, really big… in order to fit that way…

“We aren’t going to work together if you’re hiding things from me.”

“I just don’t know if you want to know what I’m seeing over here about sexual positions, Mr. Master.”

He clamps his mouth shut.

“Some of these are—” I stop talking, as a cold shiver runs down my spine.

Baby’s breath.

She has six search histories involving baby’s breath and three more with purple irises.

Why?

He pulls into a parking spot outside the restaurant. I remind myself to tell him about the flower search history later.

I need to call my bestie Candi but have to find a way to do it without him knowing, since he doesn’t want to involve the police.

I pull out my phone and shoot her a text.

Babe, off record. You were telling me something last night about a recent string of sexual assault victims… what can you tell me about it?

No response. I tuck my phone in my left pocket and Skylar’s in my right. He parks the car. I pull up my pants leg to make sure my knife’s secured, inwardly groaning when I see the purplish bruises along my shins from getting into his truck. I look like I fell off my bike when my mom took my training wheels off. Great.

I don’t miss the way people look at us, and I don’t think it has anything to do with my odd choice in attire. I can tell that people recognize him, and those that don’t, notice him from afar. He’s large and intimidating, but that isn’t what garners attention so much as the way he walks.

Some people walk like they know you’re watching them. Others walk timidly, as if they don’t want to step on toes or offend you. Cain walks into the restaurant as if he belongs here and anyone who doesn’t ought to fuck off before he makes them. His confident gait and the take-no-prisoners steel in his eyes are silent declarations that he isn’t afraid, that if anyone does something dangerous, they’ll deal with him. He drips arrogance and violence through his goddamn pores, something that should turn me off.

It doesn’t. It doesn’t at all.

A few women vaping to the right of the entrance look him up and down, and one even hands her bag to her friend and steps toward us. She gives me a quick look and easily dismisses me as someone who isn’t competition, because she doesn’t even bother to hide the fact that she likes him, thinks he’s hot, and wants to sleep with him, probably right this very minute.