Page 150 of Offside Devil

“Stay where I can see you!” Owen orders.

“I'm gonna put on some fucking pants,” I fire back, not breaking pace.

Mira is still on the bed. At least she’s sitting up now, but she’s shaking so hard the headboard is rattling against the wall.

She glances over, but she's a million miles away. Too lost in her head to even recognize me.

I kneel next to her, take her hands in mine. “Owen came over. Everything is fine.”

“The screaming,” she rasps, closing her eyes. “The banging…”

I brush her hair away from her face. “It was nothing. He thinks I'm using again, but it's a setup.”

I have no idea who would waste their time photoshopping old pictures of me. I don’t even know where the pictures came from. Even when shit got bleak before, pictures like that never leaked.

Whoever it is has seen my tattoo. They’ve seen me recently. That means they?—

One problem at a time.

Mira wraps her trembling fingers around my wrist. “Did he hurt you?”

“He wishes.” I manage a tight smile. “Owen is an asshole about it, but this is his job. If I lose control again, he's supposed to bring me back. I've lied to him so many times, he still can't trust me. He’s doing what he thinks needs to be done.”

I hear banging down the hallway. He better do what he needs to do quickly, though. I’m losing my patience.

Mira’s brows knit together. She opens her mouth like she might say something… then my bedroom door smashes in.

“Hands where I can see ‘em,” Owen snarls.

Mira flies back against the headboard. She collapses in on herself, eyes locked on the tangle of blankets balled in her white-knuckled fists, knees drawn to her heaving chest.

I stand up, putting myself between her and Owen. “I’m not hiding anything from you. Stop tearing up my house.”

“I’ll stop tearing up your house when I know you’re not tearing up your life.” He steps over the lacy scrap of Mira’s panties on the floor and goes into the bathroom. He tosses the wastebasket to the side and rips through the drawers. Q-tips scatter.

“Do you fucking mind?” I growl.

Owen whirls around. “If you think I want to be here at the bum crack of dawn, yer fookin’ mental. But I woke up to those pretty pictures in my email, and I rushed over to make sure you were alive.”

“Who were they from?” I ask.

“Dinnae ken.”

Of course the old coot didn’t read the email. It might be a burner, but it also might tell me exactly who’s trying to set me up.

“Did they say when the pictures were taken?”

“Last night.”

I snap my fingers. “There ya go. I didn’t even go out last night.”

He arches a brow. “Says who?”

“Mira.” I turn around and Mira is still staring down at her lap. She’s fucked up over this. More than she should be. I want to know why and, after I kill whoever faked those pictures and sent them to Owen, I’ll add whoever taught her to be this scared to the list.

“She looks like she’s still strung out,” Owen mumbles under his breath.

I throw him a warning look and then kneel next to the bed. “Tell Owen what we did last night, Mira. Where were we?”

---