Page 73 of Wicked Heat

She cut herself off with a shudder, but he understood. His mind had already gone that direction. “This is about what happened to you and Anne. The kidnapping.”

He kept his voice calm, but it was hard. He hadn’t known his sisters or Bree back then. But he knew them now. The woman in front of him who had already stolen his heart. The little girl who laughed when he tossed her into the pool and sent him a letter at least once each month with a picture she’d drawn especially for him.

“Is it photos? Did that creep Rory take pictures of you?”

Her laugh sounded a little manic. “Something like that.”

“I don’t want to, but we both know I have to open this link. Maybe it’s not about you at all. God knows there’s enough shit out there that someone might think that blackmailing me is a good call.”

He started to rise. “I’ll do it alone. Then I’ll tell you what I find.”

“No.”

The word was so sharp it made him jump.

“Here. With me. Please. I know it wasn’t addressed to me, but I have to see. Not because they’re making me. But I just need to.” The words were barely audible.

He didn’t want to agree. He wanted to protect her. But he could already tell that wouldn’t be possible. Not fully.

So he simply nodded and said, “Of course,” then moved to sit beside her on the sofa. Whatever that QR code would reveal, he knew it was personal. And horrible. He forced his growing fury down—it wouldn’t help right now.

“Ready?”

She nodded, and he scanned the code, then held his phone so they could both see the screen.

It was black. Silent.

Then he heard a slight buzz, the kind of ambient noise when a microphone goes live but no one is talking.

Then the voice. A filtered voice that Ash was certain couldn’t be manipulated back to normal for a voice print. He couldn’t even tell if it was male or female. Just vile.

“Mr. Stone. How chivalrous of you to insist upon helping Bree play our little game. And as for you, naughty girl, we are so disappointed that you haven’t watched The Greatest Hits yet. Not even a single ping and bounce out of curiosity. And we went to so much trouble. You hurt our feelings.”

Ash glanced at Bree. Greatest Hits? But she was staring at the phone, and the only sign that the words troubled her was the fact that she reached out and twined the fingers of his free hand with hers.

“A pity,” the voice continued. “Those moments are so delicious. Perhaps it slipped your mind. But never fear. We knew you wouldn’t want Mr. Stone to miss out on seeing them, too. But before we begin—and, yes, you must watch to the end for our full message—we must express some concern, too. Is spending time with that man really in your best interest? Not just the time, but when you consider his particular character?”

The black disappeared, and bile rose in Ash’s throat when it was replaced by the photo of a woman’s body being pulled from the ocean, and above the photo a news-style headline blared out the question: Murder or Suicide?

His stomach curdled and he wanted to lash out. To reach through the damn phone and kill whoever was on the other side of that image and voice. Instead, he simply held onto Bree as grief and regret welled up inside him and the voice droned on.

“Poor, sweet Delia Gray. A young woman trying to put herself through school. What a stroke of luck for a girl like her to stumble into a relationship with your Mr. Stone. Too bad she got knocked up. And too bad your benefactor didn’t want to pay for the abortion.”

Ash’s gut twisted, and he kept his eyes forward, not wanting to see the disgust that surely painted Bree’s face.

“Perhaps he’s learned his lesson and that’s why he’s helping you? Are you the payment for his sins? We are impressed with your resourcefulness. We assume that you have charmed him into paying the bounty required to keep your naughty little secrets safe. But we are concerned. You’ve gotten in bed with the devil, dear Bree. And perhaps the ransom will harm you more than the past you so desperately want to hide.”

He tightened his grip on her hand, gratified when she didn’t pull away. He still didn’t fully understand, but he was getting the drift. And just the mention of Delia meant that whatever demons this voice had unleashed on Bree, he was fighting them, too. Not just for her, but because his own demons hid behind that code, and he’d do whatever it took to slaughter the lot of them.

He started to tap the screen and pause the message, aching to explain to Bree about Delia. But she pushed his hand back with a simple, “no,” as the voice continued on.

“So be wary, lovely Bree, before you let the devil share your bed. A devil in his own right as we have already shown. But also its spawn. You need look only to his mother. Psychotic. Brilliant. Dangerous. But who can blame her? A child of abuse—yes, Mr. Stone, your grandfather was such a charmer—and a victim of Damien Stark, who once claimed to love her, then broke her. Ah, gentle Bree. They are the man and woman with whom your protector shares blood. Do you truly wish to trust your fate to one who is—pardon our French— so very fucked up?”

Fury cut through Ash, and right then, he was on the verge of becoming the man the recording described. A violent, crazed monster who would destroy this room in a fit of fury, all the more insane because every single word he would be lashing out against was absolutely true.

If he’d ever been unsure that he was strong, that moment proved him to be a fucking Hercules. Because he managed to stay seated. To not explode. To try to be the man that Bree needed.

He turned to look at her, to see if she could discern his struggle. But he saw nothing on her face. No emotion at all.