Daddy's Angel (Montana Daddies 7)

“Mr. Longley deserved what happened. He yelled at me the day before. Just for walking on his lawn on my way home. He didn’t yell at your brother for doing the same. Because he thought I was nobody.”

Mr. Longley. Wait, didn’t she remember Mr. Longley? He’d lived next door to them for a while. Until his house. . .

“Wait. . .you. . .you set his house on fire.” Horror filled her. She vaguely remembered the flames. The screaming. “You were only what? Eight? Nine?”

“That was the biggest fire I’d ever set. I started small. Then I went on to bigger and bigger things. That fire was beautiful. Glorious.” His face filled with happiness. Was he a pyromaniac?

She tried to think. To remember. “Was he hurt?”

“Some third-degree burns. Nothing he didn’t deserve. He didn’t die.”

How could he be so callous? And how could he have done that at such a young age? And she’d seen it? Why hadn’t she told anyone?

“You saw me there.”

“Yes, of course I saw you.” He frowned. “I had to drag you back to the house. You started crying and screaming. So I put my hand over your mouth and told you that if you told anyone what you’d seen that I was going to hurt Squiggles.”

Squiggles. Her toy cat. She gulped. Oh God.

“I had to threaten him. I couldn’t let you tell anyone.”

She just stared at him.

“It was just a toy, Arianna. And I only chopped his tail off as a warning.”

She was going to be sick. She remembered now. Waking up to find Squiggles on the floor. His tail cut off and lying a few feet away.

A warning to a four-year-old to keep quiet.

That’s why she’d stopped talking. She’d been too scared to. In case she blurted out what she’d seen and then he would hurt her favorite toy.

“I had plans to have you be my little helper. Then that bitch mother of mine got caught stealing from your parents and we were out on our asse

s.”

She held back a sob. Poor Mr. Longley. All this time, she’d suppressed that memory out of fear. Until she’d forgotten it. How many more people had he hurt? Because she hadn’t said anything?

“Did you set the fire off at the concert?” Had he set someone else up to take the fall?

“Ahh, no, that actually wasn’t me. I wouldn’t risk you, songbird. You’re mine to protect.”

She shook her head. No. “Where’s Bain? Where is he?”

She didn’t care about Caleb’s warning any longer. What if this psycho had done something to him?

Jerome reached for her and she stepped back, stumbling and falling onto her ass. For once her clumsiness came in handy.

Her name was roared across the park and she froze. That sounded like Bain. Jerome bent over towards her, and she noticed something in his hand. A syringe? She scrambled backward just as someone slammed into him from the side. She was grabbed from behind, pulled onto her feet. She fought back. She wouldn’t be taken. She wouldn’t!

“Easy, Karisma! It’s me. Tavi.”

She stopped fighting. Tremors continued to rock her body, though as she stared down at Wolfe who had Jerome pinned to the ground, his hands were being twisted behind him. He was screaming.

“Fuck, quiet him before someone calls the cops,” Caleb said, racing forward.

But all her attention turned to the man running towards her, his face filled with thunder.

“Bain!” she screamed, wrenching herself out of Tavi’s arms. She ran forward and flung herself against him with a happy cry. “Bain! Oh God. You’re all right. You’re all right.”