Btw, if you call the cops or I get hurt in a mysterious animal attack, this beautiful video and several more of you being the bitch you’ve always been will be posted online for everyone to see.
Love, Daddy.
Now, I was having that panic attack.
CHAPTER 35
BELLE
“Maybe we should call the cops,” Alec suggested hunkered next to me under the willow tree.
“And tell them what exactly?” Kayden stood, blocking the sun, his hands on his hips. “The fucker is blackmailing Belle, and oh look, we’re a bunch of shifters and vamps?”
“Do you have anything better?”
“We’ll give the phone to someone else to crack it.”
“The phone is a high burner. The tech guy I knew is one of the best, and he couldn’t get anything out of it,” Joshua said.
The three yammered futile solutions that would never solve anything before they started cursing and kicking stuff.
“I’ll go meet him,” I mumbled, my head bent over my knees.
“What did you just say?” Alec scoffed.
“You heard me.” I lifted my head and glanced at the three of them. “I can’t have him hurt anyone else because of me. It’s the only way to get him off your backs.”
“You will do no such thing. I’d rather get exposed,” Kayden said assertively.
“Me too,” Joshua agreed, and Alec followed.
“Do you have any idea what you’re saying?” I sighed, exhausted. “If anyone knows about what you are, it will turn into a witch hunt. Thousands of painful experiments. Life in a cage. Getting used for doing horrible things. And who knows, maybe they will invent a way to end your lives.”
“You know that from your porn books, too?” Kayden joked.
His humor at this moment was too much to conceive. I saw the woman who cut my hair lose her hand and her whole future right before me. I watched a fucking video that would ruin the lives of the men I loved forever. And he was making a fucking joke? I just rose and stomped away.
“Belle, where the hell are you going?” His shout trailed behind me.
“I need a moment alone. Don’t follow me.”
Footsteps did anyway. I twisted, and it was Joshua at my back. “I said don’t follow me.”
“Fine. Just tell me where you’re going.”
“Not meeting Declan if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I know. I still have the burner that has the number you have to call if you are.”
“Then, if you don’t mind, and it’s not too much trouble, can I, for fuck’s sake, have a moment to myself?” I snapped and spun away, not waiting for a response.
“Jeez, someone needs the big D.”
“I heard that, Alec!” I shouted as I passed by the grizzly guards.
“I’ll get it ready for you just in case, sweetheart. Don’t take too long.”
I swore under my breath as I stalked into the woods. How could they not understand how much danger they and the entire pack were in?
