Page 92 of Stuck with my Brother's Firefighter Besties

By the time I got back to my place, Jaxon and Colt were in full meltdown mode.

Jaxon was pacing the living room like a caged lion, fists clenching and unclenching. Every muscle in his body looked ready to snap.

“This is bullshit!” he growled. “Sick freak taking pictures of her like that, sending her threats. They want to mess with her? Let them try me next. I’ll…”

“Calm down,” I said sharply, cutting him off.

He spun on me, his blue eyes blazing. “Don’t tell me to calm down, Ryan. Someone’s threatening her. Someone’s messing with her.How the hell am I supposed to calm down?”

Colt, who was usually the joker of the group, wasn’t cracking any jokes now.

He was sitting on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees, his gray eyes dark and stormy. He kept running his hand through his hair, tugging at it like it might somehow pull an answer out of thin air.

“She shouldn’t even be dealing with this crap,” Colt muttered. “We should’ve seen this coming. We should’ve noticed that we were being followed.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said, setting the envelope on the counter.

Colt looked up at me, his expression torn. “How can you say that? Look at this mess. She’s terrified, Ryan. And you’re just standing there like it’s another day at the office.”

“I’m standing here because someone has to,” I shot back. “You losing your head isn’t going to help her. Neither is Colt blaming himself. She needs us to keep it together.”

“She needs us to protect her,” Jaxon snarled.

“And we will,” I said, my voice steady and cold. “But we do it smart. Not hot-headed. Not impulsive.”

Jaxon stared at me, his chest heaving, but he didn’t say anything else.

“Look,” I said, softer now, “Davis and Hall are on it. They’re checking the footage around her dad’s place, seeing if Rick is in town, tracking any leads. We don’t know for sure who’s behind this yet.”

“But if it is him…” Colt said quietly, his voice laced with an edge that surprised even me.

“If it is him, we’ll handle it,” I said.

Colt nodded, but the tension in his body didn’t ease.

“Where’s Lila?” I asked.

“In the guest room,” Jaxon said. “She’s trying to rest, but…” He shrugged, his expression softening for a moment. “She’s still a mess.”

I nodded and glanced toward the hallway. I wanted to check on her, but first, there was something else we needed to address.

“Do we need to bring Nate into this?”

CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE

Lila

I stood in the hallway,my heart thudding in my chest as I listened to their voices in the living room.

I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop—okay, maybe I had—but hearing Ryan mention my brother stopped me in my tracks.

“Do we need to bring Nate into this?” Ryan’s voice was calm, steady, but the weight of his words hit me like a punch to the gut.

My breath hitched. They couldn’t seriously be thinking about telling Nate, could they?

The thought of it made my stomach churn. Nate wasn’t exactly known for handling things with finesse, especially when it came to me. And if he found out about the pictures, the blackmail… andthem?

I shuddered. It wouldn’t just be a mess—it’d be a disaster.

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