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CHAPTER 30

Kage

Pictures told a thousand words. They also told a story when you looked closely enough. I’d been flicking through her social media accounts for far longer than I’d told myself I would. Almost all night long.

I’d left Juliette in bed. My bed. With Tank. My dog.

Staying there hadn’t been an option. Neither had sleeping. The nagging feeling remained, a churning in my mind that I couldn’t get past. There was something I was missing. There was definitely a hell of a lot I hadn’t been told.

I was also trying to wait patiently for Gray’s return call.

He’d even ignored his fucking emails.

That wasn’t like him.

My hackles continued to be raised. I’d made mental note to head into town in the next day or so and see what I could find to hook up an old-fashioned security system.

I could mark the perimeters with certain noisemakers that would allow me to hear when someone was coming.

If we were outside.

Somehow, I doubted there was a store in town carrying sophisticated equipment.

My back ached from hunching over and I sat back, pulling the bottle of beer to my lips. Now the fucker was lukewarm. That’s how long I’d been poring over the damn photos. After rubbing my eyes and blinking, my focus was drawn to the last letter Henry had drafted. A fucking sanctuary. He’d been nuts thinking I could handle it.

I pushed the beer aside. The alcohol had done little to ease the band of discomfort stretching tight across my stomach. Neither had the passion we’d shared. If anything, breaking the promise made to myself had heightened the anxiety.

Pillow talk after sex usually included learning more about each other, even if it was bogus shit. Not with Juliette. All she’d wanted to talk about was the sanctuary. What I could do with the property. How incredible saving them was for sweet animals. At this point, handling a business that included several full-time employees was the last thing on my mind.

Fuck it.

I’d already emailed the attorney asking for the name of the buyer. I wasn’t cut out for this shit. Being with Juliette was a solid reminder I was good for no one. And horses? Fuck.

I returned my attention to the screen, concentrating on Instagram.

I’d learned a good deal about her, including she had an eye for photography and capturing the moment. I could see why she had so many followers.

While most pictures were of single items, the photograph taken up close, those that included people had a different reason for intriguing me. With the laptop being older, I’d had various technical issues but had finally managed to get to a point where I had several Safari windows open, every social media account Gray had provided the address to located on the screen.

As I scrolled through, my mind drifted away, yet a photograph caught my attention. I clicked on it, studying the background. It was another rare photo of Juliette taken by someone else. This time she was obviously in New York City, the Broadway marquis a dead giveaway. That’s not what interested me.

The man in the background did. Whoever had been the photographer had zoomed in on Juliette’s face, which made a portion of the background fuzzy, but there was something about a man standing watching her that troubled me.

I could swear to God I’d seen him before.

I’d been forced to set up fake accounts on the social media platforms Gray had provided me a list of. I wouldn’t have been able to access anything otherwise. It felt like I was cheating, checking up on her, but I’d realized the more I learned about her, the easier it would become to keep her safe.

I flicked to a few more pictures on her IG account before switching to Facebook. After a full five minutes, I realized there was nothing there.

TikTok. Maybe it was a video.

Going through them was necessary, but every time she appeared in a photo or video, I hesitated. And looked.

And hungered.

I threw back the rest of the beer. Warm or not, I needed to quench the thirst in any other way than what I was thinking.

Craving.