Page 65 of Hidden Memories

He wiggles his finger in the air. “Oh yeah, Dad mentioned someone got hurt when we were in the stables this morning. He said there was a booby trap at Julia’s? I thought he was reading pirate romance or something now and getting a bit excited.”

I laugh roughly. “Not his imagination. A bag of feed was rigged to fall in Julia’s outbuilding.”

“Fuck.” He turns more serious. “How do we know it wasn’t meant for Julia?”

“Kat’s place was ransacked the day before. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”

“You think somebody is following her?”

Now that the words have been said out loud, they carry a weight they didn’t before. I need to get to the bottom of this before Owen moves in. I can’t be sleeping on Julia’s couch at that point, and Kat will never move in here.

But not because she doesn’t want me anymore. More because, last night, in that kiss, I felt it, she does.

“So that’s why you slept at Julia’s? For her?”

“And her son.” I need to keep reminding him it’s not all about theprettynew girl.

He reflects on the situation for a moment. “Does she have any ideas who it could be? Stalkers and shit like this are typically an ex.”

“Her husband is dead. No boyfriends. Just her dad who is one entitled motherfucker, and I wouldn’t put it past him, but Kat spoke to him. She’s adamant it wasn’t him whobroke into her house. I don’t think he’d physically harm her.”

I want to believe that. But I also wanted to believe Paul Castellanos wasn’t capable of ruining two lives just because he could. And look where that got me.

“Do you want GhostEye help?”

I can’t get the big guns in now. Ava, Rio, and my brother are busy, and their software is taking down huge gangs, decimating the drug trade and sex trafficking… they work on international cases, and there are far too many. It feels too big a favor to call in just yet.

“Maybe at some point.”

“We should ask Anton or Gabriel to trail her,” Rio suggests.

Anton, Ava’s best friend and bodyguard in her years of captivity, used to be a Navy SEAL and was a vigilante for years. Now that my military brother, Gabriel, is back in town, the pair seem to have taken an interest in starting some private investigation company. I’m not entirely sure what it is…

I shake my head. “It seems a bit sick to have her trailed when someone else might be trailing her.”

“Idioto. I don’t mean for them to trail her in secret. I mean Kat can hire them. They could be kind of half bodyguard, half PI. If they see anything suspicious, they can tell her.” He lifts an eyebrow. “Or you.”

He just won’t let up, will he?

But it’s not a bad idea. “I’ll ask her tonight at the cookout. Are you coming to Zo’s? Dad’s cooking tonight.”

“In that case, yes.”

“You don’t like Enzo’s cooking?”

“He’s fine. But, love her as I do, Ava haszero talent in the kitchen. And that’s saying a lot from me because I’m a meat and potatoes man.”

I laugh lightly.

I force myself to focus on the legal document in front of me. Something concrete. Something that doesn’t have Kat’s name written all over it. But the words blur together, shifting out of focus no matter how hard I try.

I blink. Shake my head. Try again.

Useless.

Because all I see is her—standing in the dim glow of Julia’s living room, her voice low, steady, undeniable.

I was never engaged to Nicholas.

---