Page 115 of Blue

“His name is Carl Douglas.”

Once I started, I kept talking. I didn’t look in their eyes, and only paused to take another drink. Somehow, the bottle joined four shot glasses, and these three Hellers drank with me as they listened.

Periodically, Rogue would roll his shoulders and smoke another cigarette. Bullet was silent, but he twisted the rings on his fingers. And Cruz’s knee bounced as he kept the shot glasses filled.

“Shit really started fucking with my head when I got with Kiss.” I wiped my palms on my thighs. Finally, I glanced at Bullet. “Nothing had happened with her until—”

I swallowed the thick, sticky lump in my throat. My relationship with Kiss was none of their business, butthey were going to want to know what set me off. Fuck, I’d told them everything else, so I told them the rest.

“There was no one before Kiss. I’d never let anyone close.” I gave Cruz a half smile. “I took your advice and told her everything.”

“No need to tell me how she took it,” he said with a smirk. “We fucking heard you…all fucking night.”

Heat crawled up my chest, the good kind of heat, a good fucking feeling.

Just bringing up her name shifted the tone of our conversation. She was mistaken when she thought her presence cast a shadow on me or the MC. She was my fucking sunshine.

Rogue tossed back another shot. “She looked happy until she saw us,” he said to Bullet.

“Can she handle this, Blue?” Bullet asked. “Knowing what we’re going to do to that piece of shit? You just got her back. I don’t want to see her running back to the street.”

“You don’t have to worry about Kiss,” I said. “She won’t run.”

Bullet nodded. “No one will ever look for Douglas out at my property. We take him to the barn, castrate him with a dull knife, and help him die a slow, agonizing death.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want him dead.”

“Blue,” Bullet argued. “Nothing we do can make up for what he did to you, but we can make him suffer.”

Rogue put out his hand, stopping Bullet. “You tell us what you need.”

“Death is too easy.” I tipped the shot glass to my lips, swallowed, and relished the burn all the way to my gut. “I want him to live in fucking fear. I want him to know that I’m lurking around every dark corner readyto burn his life to the ground.” I released a breath. “But he still has power over me. He has photos.” I lowered my voice. “Photos of me doing shit to him. I want them destroyed. If I’m going to be a memory for him, I’m going to be his nightmare. I want to keep him from ever having a peaceful night’s sleep until the day he dies.”

For the next hour, I told them everything I remembered about Carl Douglas. Where he worked. Where he lived. The lake house. His wife. My former best friend. My family. I told them shit I hadn’t thought to tell Kiss because it didn’t seem important.

Bullet and Rogue were thorough. They asked questions. Some things I knew. When was the last time I’d seen him? His description. His businesses. But other information, like the make and model of the car he drove, I didn’t have a fucking clue. Too many years had gone by.

“I’ll find out.” I’d take Kiss on a night ride, drive through my old neighborhood and grab some license plate numbers.

Cruz spun his empty shot glass on the table. “I doubt he’d have anything on the cloud. Too much risk. Six years is a long time for computer hardware and software.”

“I know he still has them,” I said. He wouldn’t have given up his leverage over me.

“Then he would have backed up onto an external, probably somewhere he could access it without fear of getting caught.”

Cruz started talking computer lingo I had no clue about.

“We’ll want to check his system for a VPN. If he’s into teens, he’s only going to get that content on the dark web.” When he glanced at me, something dark andsoulful crossed his face. “We need to check his log files and make sure he hasn’t distributed content. But I doubt we’ll find your photos. It’s been too long, and he’s never been caught, so you know he’s good at what he does.”

“There are probably other victims,” Bullet said.

Blood flowed like ice through my veins. I hadn’t considered the possibility. Bile burned in my throat. That he’d let other sick fucks get off on my fear sent a hot sear of rage through me. But that there could be other victims… I was going to throw up.

I pushed my chair back, stumbled, and tried to grab the table and missed. “I can’t fucking do this anymore.”

The room spun, and the alcohol in my gut soured.

“Blue.” Rogue rose to his feet and grabbed me. “Look at me.”

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