Page 70 of Love JD

Kael gave her a half-lidded stare. “Yes.”

She blinked in surprise. “Fuck.”

“Mattie?” Isla asked, clambering off my lap and holding her skirt down over her ass awkwardly as she stood.

Recognition lit up the blond woman’s features. “Shortbread?” Her face fell into a suspicious squint. “Wait, did you sell me out, cutie?” Kael’s captive was wearing a pair of bunny-printed pajama shorts and a pink, fluffy crop-top hoodie with bunny ears on the hood. Her feet were bare, so I had to assume that Kael had ambushed her in bed. Seemed kind of ruthless, even for him.

“No,” Isla frowned, folding her arms. “Why is she in zip ties, Kael? What the hell is going on here?”

“She deserves it, trust me,” he drawled back. His attention skipped over the confused women and landed on me. “You need to call your sister. You’ve got problems.”

“What problems?” I asked, and suspicion tightened in my chest.

“Do you have a podcast app? Look up ‘Salties in Salt Lake.’ It should be the latest epi—”

“Excuse me,” Mattie demanded, pulling against Kael’s hold on her bound hands. He’d attached another zip tie to his left wrist. “You can’t just cart me around like this is ‘Take Your Prisoner to Work’ day.”

“I can do whatever I want with you,” Kael shot back, his voice lethally soft. “You’ve been a splinter in my ass for a year.”

“It’s not my fault you suck at your job,” she argued hotly.

Isla had her hands on her mouth. “What is going on right now?”

“I’m a bounty hunter,” Kael explained, his voice clipped. “Zev, pull it up.”

I bounced my gaze from Mattie to Kael, and then over to Isla whose face had gone pale with worry. I stood, picking up my phone from the table. “Is it absolutely necessary—sorry, legal—for you to handcuff this woman?”

“Yes,” Kael said.

“To which one?” I asked, tilting my head.

“Just pull up the goddamn podcast, Zev. Azura’s been trying to call you and she thought something had happened to you, so she asked me to check on you. As you can see,” he pointed out tightly, “I’m a bit busy.”

I pulled up my usual podcast app, typing in the name “Salties,” and clicked on the profile picture of a shaker dusting salt over the state of Utah. The caption read, “Have a beef? Salt it up with hosts Cherry Drake and Gethin Fate in this hilarious, rant-fueled weekly podcast.” Sighing, I scrolled down the episodes list until I found the most recent one. “I’m not listening to this for an hour.”

“Go to fifteen thirty-six,” Kael said, his tone bored.

I clicked it and listened, but my attention was half on the girl, Mattie, who had engaged Isla in a conversation. “Shortbread, you know this wet wipe?” she asked, flicking her head to Kael.

“Not really,” Isla replied defensively. She came to stand next to Mattie. “My brother hired him like a bodyguard or something.”

“I have the worst luck,” Mattie muttered.

“… sounds like quite a salty beef!” the female podcaster’s voice sang obnoxiously.

“It’s more than that,” another woman’s voice insisted. “This is literally a matter of life and death for some people.”

I vaguely recognized the second woman’s voice, but I wasn’t sure where from. Isla bent down and murmured something low to Mattie that I couldn’t catch. Kael rolled a glare to Isla that made me want to punch his straight nose.

“Wow, that sounds pretty intense,” the male podcaster said. “Care to elaborate?”

“Well, for starters, Zev Brady didn’t just get me fired—”

I tensed, shooting Kael a horrified look. He returned it with an arch of one dark eyebrow like he’d been waiting for my reaction. The voice belonged to the reporter who had climbed my walls, taken pictures of Isla, and then sold them to every news platform who would stoop low enough to broadcast them.

“—he’s protecting his dirty client, GreenTech.”

“Shit,” I hissed.

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