Page 64 of Bones

“Yeah, I finally pulled my head out of my ass.”

“Good to hear. She’s a good girl, and her father was a hell of a man. I owe him a lot.”

“I’ll do right by her, Prez. You’ve got my word on that.”

“I have no doubt that you will, son.” Concern marked his face as he asked, “You handling this thing with her?”

“I’m doing the best I can. It’s tough keeping stuff from her, but I know it’s for her own good.”

“It is tough, and it only gets tougher. But, in the end, you’ll be saving her a whole lotta heartache. Trust me on that.”

“Understood.”

Before either of us could say anything more, Big rushed into the room and announced, “I got it.”

“She suspect anything?”

“Nah,” Big tossed me the phone. “I took Lacy’s too, so she didn’t think anything of it.”

“Good deal.”

I opened her phone, and a tinge of guilt prickled over me as I started looking through her contacts. I hated invading her privacy, especially after the conversation we’d just had, but I didn’t have a choice. I started with the basic alphabetical search but didn’t find any contact information under the name Ben. When I started searching for Bruton, I noticed that she had created nicknames for each of her contacts.

They ranged from Papa Bear and Twinkle Toes to Boss Man and Fashionista. Some were easy to pick up on like Cotton was listed as Prez and Lacy was Queen B, but others, like Lil’ Grumps and Tater Tot, weren’t so easy. For those, I had no choice but to look through her messages and try to decipher who they came from. I started with the first message,Stud Muffin, and was pleased to see it was from me.

I might’ve even smiled at the fact.

Noting the change in my demeanor, Big cleared his throat and asked, “Something we need to see over there?”

“Nope.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Now, pipe down,” I fussed. “I’m trying to work over here.”

“Um-hmm.”

Knowing I didn’t have time to mess around, I turned my focus back to the messages and skipped down to the next name I didn’t recognize. It took me a few lines to figure out thatLil Grumpswas actually Makayla, andTator Totwas a girl from one of her classes. I continued down the stream of messages, but none seemed to be from Ben. I was beginning to think that they’d never actually texted until I scrolled down to the nameDonnie Dipshit.

I’d never heard her speak of anyone named Donnie, so I was a bit intrigued as I opened his message. It didn’t take long to realize that Donnie the Dipshit was actually our boy, Ben. I felt a sense of unease as I continued down the thread and saw that it wasn’t just a couple of messages. They’d spoken often.

Even though they dropped off after their last day, I felt a tug of jealousy when I saw the various flirty exchanges. I hated the idea of her even looking at another guy, much less flirting with him, and I hated it even more that the asshole had used her to make a move against the club. It was something he would soon regret.

“I got it.”

Big stepped over to his laptop and ordered, “Give me the number.”

I called it out to him, and within minutes, he turned to Cotton and said, “We got him.”

“Where the hell is he?”

“Just over two hours from here,” Big answered. “At an apartment in Tacoma.”

“Damn.” Cotton whipped out his phone as he ordered, “Send me the exact location.”

As soon as Big gave him the address, Cotton forwarded it to Stitch and Wrath. Ben might’ve been farther away than we’d hoped, but it was only a matter of time before his nightmares became his reality in Stitch’s playroom. As soon as he was certain Stitch had received the message, he stuck his phone back in his pocket as he said, “We’ll need to keep an eye on his location and make sure it doesn’t change.”

“Won’t be a problem.” Big turned to me as he asked, “Have you checked out Bruton’s financials?”

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