Page 55 of Saving Her Vampire

“Could be two different people,” Jax offers.

Bash holds his hand out. “Phone.”

I place it in his hand. “The messages are different. The first one on my personal number is poetic, not specific to me. The rest are personal. But all the numbers are blocked.”

“The innocent will burn,” Bash reads. “What the fuck?”

“That’s cryptic,” River says.

“Not necessarily,” Bishop says. “At the club, she was dressed innocently.”

“Fuck,” Bash says. “You didn’t think this was important to share with me?”

His voice is soft and deadly. “I’ve gotten messages because of my work before, but it’s usually on the website. I didn’t think it was serious. I thought they would stop when I didn’t respond to them,” I say weakly. “They usually stop.”

“You were wrong,” he says. His face loses all expression and becomes cold. “He followed Marie and Bishop yesterday. He knew they went to a hotel.”

“Hotel?” Kerian asks with raised eyebrows.

“We were following a lead,” Bishop says, eying Bash.

“Do you think Stephan can trace the number from her phone?” Bash asks Jax.

“He can try,” Jax says.

Bash hands the phone to Jax. He won’t meet my eyes, and that scares me. “Bishop, will you stay with Marie today? This time stay in the house,” Bash says.

“Bash?” I question. He ignores me.

“Ryker,” Bash says. “Are you coming with me?”

“Of course.” Ryker nods. He gives me a sympathetic smile and walks with Bash to the door.

I hop off the stool and hurry to the door. “Bash, please.”

“Stay here. I have to find Brandon and kill him,” he grits out.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I say. I reach for him, but he pulls away. “Don’t be an asshole,” I snap. Shit, the wrong way to handle it.

“Doesn’t matter. I know now, and I’ll take care of it.” He leaves quickly, shutting the door softly.

I stare at it in misery. I blew it. I made so much progress in gaining his trust. I made a huge mistake. Not only is he physically pulling away, but emotionally he’s shutting down.

“Hey,” Ava says. She touches my shoulder. “He’ll get over it.”

“I don’t think so,” I say sadly.

“He will. He needs some time to think about it and probably to make someone bleed.”

“I lied to him. He doesn’t like liars,” I say.

“You didn’t lie. You kept something from him, a big difference. Give him time to work through it,” she urges.

“I guess I don’t have a choice,” I say.

“Are you going to give up?” she asks.

“No,” I say, frowning.

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