Page 121 of Protector

Jarvis cut me off. “Grey, I’m tracing the IP address. Trust me, we’ll find these guys. Sullivan says she’s safe here. If that changes, we’ll move her and Dakota somewhere else.”

I glanced back toward the closed bedroom door and whispered, “You think the doctor she married had somethin’ to do with this?”

“I’ve run him through everything. Not counting his crazy ex-wife, the guy’s completely clean.”

“Bet that really chaps your ass, don’t it, Jarvis?” I clicked my tongue against my teeth.

“I’m not following.”

“Never mind. We look into the ex-wife? Maybe she had something to do with the pictures?”

The guys atInkedhad reached out after photographs of Kate popped up in their inbox. It was bad enough knowing she’d run off and married a man she barely knew but seeing full-color images of the two of them going at it in a hotel elevator was enough to send me to an early grave.

Me, and anybody else who saw them.

“Uh, the ex-wife checks out too. Well, other than the whole trying to get Kate sent to prison thing.”

I ground my teeth together. “And you can bet your ass that as soon as this is taken care of, I’ll be handlin’ that shit.”

Jarvis gnawed at the corner of his lip before admitting, “Well, uh, it’s been handled… already.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? Care to explain to me who gave the motherfuckin’ orders on that one?”

“Uh, your Ol’ Lady... sir. She called in Knight—”

I let out a low whistle. “The British Butcher? Shit, between the two of ‘em, I’d say they have it completely covered.”

Knight was a Nomad known for dismembering club enemies while they were still alive, and the only other man who seemed to get off on torture as much as I did.

He’d earned every bit of his nickname but had a soft spot when it came to Celia and would’ve done anything she asked.

“What else? Did you get a copy of her medical records? Tell me she ain’t knocked up.”

Jarvis’s jaw tightened, and I wondered if I would’ve noticed it had I not known about him and Kate.

“She’s not pregnant, but she does have pneumonia, which could’ve been caused by any number of things—none of them related to the Sons. Although, the more I think about it, the more I’m startin’ to think that Kate wasn’t their intended target.” He opened his laptop. “Take a look at these—”

“Fuck, Jarvis. You think I wanna see those again?”

“Just hear me out here. I want you to look at these images again and tell me who it looks like to you. You knew it was Kate because I traced the images back to the hotel in Vegas, but what if I hadn’t?”

I tried to ignore the fact that I was looking at my little girl and reluctantly lowered my eyes to the screen. “Yep. Still looks like Kate. Thanks for—”

He pressed a button and an image I’d never seen before filled the screen. It was grainier than the others as if it had been taken with a different camera. “This is one of the originals. I simply ran them through my software to sharpen them like the others you’ve seen, but tell me, who does this look like?”

“It looks like Kate’s mama.”

Jarvis nodded. “Exactly. I think these images were meant to make you think your Ol’ Lady was with someone else.”

The only thing that kept me sitting in my chair was the fact that my wife was with Knight.

“Why do they want her?”

He minimized the image while shaking his head. “I don’t know why, but we’re getting a lot closer to finding out who’s behind this.”

There was a loud knock at the door that had both of us reaching for our guns. I pointed toward the bedroom. “Stay with her.”

When I saw who it was, I shoved my weapon back in the holster and threw open the door. He took several steps back at the sight of me, and I stretched my fingers, aching to lay hands on him.

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