Page 70 of Roots of the Wicked

The television highlight stopped Jax’s incessant typing. She stared, as slack jawed as I was. I flipped through the channels, and to my horror found us on every station. They all wanted to know who Jax was, where she had come from, and how long we’d been dating.

“If her back view is that beautiful, we can’t wait to meet the rest of Chase Taylorson’s new girlfriend,” commented one of the reporters. A slew of more comments followed, scrolling across the news ticker at the bottom of the television screen in big red and white letters.

“The secretive billionaire bachelor Chase Taylorson's hot new girlfriend.”

“The sex kitten the billionaire Chase Taylorson's been hiding.”

“Billionaire, Chase Taylorson, secretly married.”

What happened to the days when reporters had standards? The highlights flashed across the screen as Blake’s grating voice pounded into my ear.

“I told you to have your fun with her and dump her, but you didn’t listen. I tried to help you and you threw my help back in my face.”

A quick swipe across the face of my phone put an end to the frustrating sound of his voice before I tossed the phone onto the coffee table.

My personal life, one I fought to keep that way, had become serious news. I had hired a few extra men to increase my security team that I was likely going to fire for failing to show up earlier today. Aside from Paul, I employed an extra driver, Ian, whose job was to scout my routes to avoid the paparazzi. He and Paul also used decoy tactics, sometimes driving two look-a-like vehicles to throw the paparazzi off my trail. There was also Marvin Lomax, my look-a-like I had started using as a decoy when necessary. Jax had no idea the measures I was taking to protect our privacy.

A few of the news outlets had enlarged Jax’s tattoo. They couldn’t legally ask the public to identify Jax but blasting her photo would lead everyone to try and figure out her identity.

When my main phone buzzed, I knew it was social media notifications about the latest breaking news of my life.

The more I flipped channels, the more questions surfaced about the sexy, or beautiful, or gorgeous woman I was dating. Thankfully, and to my surprise, they weren’t concentrating on race, and turning our relationship into an excuse to bring up a sore subject in our country.

Several news sources had posted the photo of her glancing back at the drone, but the sun had shadowed the profile of her face, and thankfully, it wasn’t clear enough for them to identify her.

“I got you, you motherfucker,” Jax muttered under her breath behind me.

I glanced in time to see her all but growling at the monitor.

“What did you get?” I inched closer, my curiosity getting the best of me.

“TK was able to get me into the network that purchased our pictures. He took it a step further and reverse tracked where the link came from. Right now, I’m making my way up their asses, about to get linked into their shit and they don’t even know it.”

“Are you saying you already have a digital footprint of where those pictures came from?”

“Yes.” Was all I could get from her as her fingers beat the letters off the keyboard.

She had my full attention. My desperate need to keep her safe had me in a tight coil that wouldn’t release. I had failed.

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