Page 48 of The Kat Bunglar

“Yes sir,” Laila smiled mischievously.

“But seriously, Laila, is there any reason why these girls would target you? Are they disgruntled past clients? Distant relatives? The cops are going to want to know the motivation.”

Laila shook her head while skimming briefly through the cases in her mind. “I win most of my cases, and the ones that don’t work out, the families never blame me. They know it’s a tough system.”

Gabriel walked over to her, grabbed her around the waist, and gave her a quick, hard kiss on the lips. “I really did grab the best lawyer in town, didn’t I?”

Laila felt herself dissolving into warm, liquid fizz before remembering that she needed her job and, most importantly, her salary.

“I’ll be back soon.” Feeling emboldened, she stood on her toes and gave him a peck on the lips.

He growled, “Go now or I won’t let you leave my bedroom for a week.”

Laughing, her face flushed, she left his apartment feeling giddy and the tiniest bit hopeful that the world wasn’t such a terrible place after all.

?Chapter 9

Post & Delete

July 17

Los Angeles

Kat Kar

The world had goneto shit, shit, shit, shit! Kat frantically deleted her Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok profiles. 260K followers gone. Her career—gone! Her life’s work—gone! Tears leaked from her eyes. Joseph had not only stolen her things, he had stolen her entire identity.

She banged her forehead against her palm. How could she have been so stupid? She could have created a fake identity before calling Laila. But she was so angry and scared, she hadn’t stopped to think. And she was so damn tired of being angry and scared. Life wasn’t meant to be lived on the edge of adrenaline at every moment.

Wiping away her tears, she returned to the apartment with determination. Yanking the door open, she shouted, “Christian! Christian, do you have a tracker on that asshole? I need to locate him now!”

“Calm down. He is right here. He came back.” Joseph stood beside Christian, assessing Kat through narrowed eyes.

Something primitive, molten, and hot coursed through Kat’s veins as she gave a frustrated cry and charged at Joseph, headbutting him straight in the stomach. His breath went out in a large whoosh and he grunted uncomfortably. Kat straightened up and started pounding on him with both fists. “You ruined my life. You ruined our plans. You’re the reason everything went wrong. I hate you!!!”

“Kat, what on earth?” Christian cried as she tried to pull Kat off Joseph. Joseph winced as a blow landed on his shoulder before catching both of Kat’s wrists and holding them above her head.

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