Page 70 of The Huntress and Her Hound

She mumbles incoherently, but the tantrum doesn’t sway me. She might belong to me, but she doesn’t deserve my attention right now. She has no idea of the path she’s going down though. I might not slit throats or choke women out with leather belts, but I can still fucking destroy someone if I want to.

I start the coffee pot and open my phone to her location, deciding I’ll keep a closer eye on her today. I thought we’d made it past this stage, but clearly not. I head back to my room and dig into the pocket of my jeans from yesterday. I pull out the phone and grab a charger. I plug it in and power it back on.

Maybe she’s into sex work, and she’s just playing innocent.

Maybe this is her burner phone for whatever reason.

There’s a million reasons for this device in my hand, but right now, I’m starting to wonder if someone is trying to warn me about the woman who rode my unprotected dick this morning. The lock screen pops up, and I’m once again met with that young version of Cher, her porcelain skin untouched by an ink gun.

My stomach flips as I unlock it.

“Just a photo gallery,” I say aloud, talking myself through it as I click to open it. But bile instantly rises in my throat. I don’t have to enlarge the thumbnails of the pictures and videos to know what I’m looking at.

What. The. Fuck.

The first picture in the sequence of many, many explicit photos is a screenshot of a typewritten bit on the notepad app. I open it first.

She was mine first, and she always will be.

“Fuck you,” I mutter, and then bracing myself for what’s to come, I swipe. It’s explicit photos of Cher, but they’re clearly taken without her consent. In fact, based on my experience, I don’t think she’s conscious in most of them. I swipe through them as fast as possible, anger boiling with every single one.

But then I make it to the videos.

“You’re a good little girl for me,” the voice behind the camera coos as he cradles her mostly limp, naked body. She mutters something, but her voice slurs, her eyes are heavy, and everything is wrong. “In time, you’ll like it when I touch you.”

I stop the film, set the phone down, take a deep breath...and then punch the coffee mug sitting on top of the bar. It busts on impact with my fist, and shards scatter across the kitchen. I was right all along. Something broke her.

And now I know what it is.

“Or part of it.” I rip the phone from the charger, and head straight for my computers in the spare room. They’re not set up, but it shouldn’t take me that long. To keep the murderous rage at bay, I focus on my setup, randomly checking every so often to make sure Cher made it home.

If someone is watching close enough to feel the need to give me this phone, then that means they’re probably always watching her—and I can fix that. I also am certain there’s more copies of these photos and videos.

And I’ll delete them all. They have no idea who the fuck they’re messing with.

An hour later, I’m plugging the thing into my computer. I don’t have to watch anymore of the videos to know why Cher is a roller coaster of reactions.

But does Henry know?

I saw the school uniform. She was so fucking young. Heart pounding, I run a program to pull a transcript of the audio. I scroll through it and find myself swallowing vomit over and over again.

“Come on, little girl, you don’t want your brother to find out. I’ll be gentle.”

“I’ll give you the best recommendation letter.”

“You’ll be nothing to anyone else, so just let me in.”

“No one will want you after this, so just let me have you for a while.”

“All the girls at your school will be so jealous.”

I pull the necessary information from the revolting rape videos, compiling it into a file. As much as I hate what I’m reading, I have to find this fucker—and then I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll kill his entire family one by one if I have to. He will pay for what he did.

My hands tremble as I try to dig through Cher’s past as quickly as possible, searching for who the bastard could be. I can already guess it’s related to her stupid private school. But could someone have found the images online somewhere and they’re fucking with me? Or is this direct from the source?

I have hours of work ahead of me, but...I also have to keep Cher safe.

She needs to stay with Henry. But what about her lunch plans?

---