Page 42 of XOXO, Little Butterfly (The Storyteller’s Bodyguard #2)

Birdie

“We need to leave immediately.” I drop my half-unpacked suitcase on the bed and almost rip the zipper off.

Tristan closes the door to my hotel room. “It’s been taken care of. Brandon arranged for everything. We’re going to another hotel as soon as you’re done packing.”

“No. We need to leave the city. And can I please get my phone back?”

He starts getting my clothes out of the wardrobe. “We can’t leave the city yet. What about your husbands, ex and soon to be?”

“You have Shane’s tablet clone, and I told you I could stall Blake until you found a way to disable his goddamn app. All I need is my fucking phone.”

“You’re not calling him.”

“Then you do it,” I throw my things inside my suitcase, “like you said you would.”

“Fine. I’ll call him and set a meeting tomorrow. What’s the farthest place in town from that MC?”

“Not in Jacksonville, Tristan, because we’re not staying here a second longer.” My face twists with all the pain this city has caused me and continues to cause me. “I should never have come back here. What the hell was I thinking, going for a ride on the most conspicuous bike?”

“Hey, don’t blame yourself for trying to be happy for once.”

“Happy?” A mocking laugh chokes and dies on my lips. “Happy feels like stealing, like taking something that was never meant for hands like mine, calloused from holding onto people who take and cut and ruin.

“Happiness is a borrowed dress, always belonging to someone else. My parents taught me that joy was selfish, a luxury I hadn’t earned through enough suffering.

So when it comes—that fleeting, golden thing—I hold it like a soap bubble, knowing that even my breath might be too rough, too desperate, too much.

Happiness for me is like trying to hold water in cupped hands while walking across broken glass.

Every step forward costs me something, and by the time I reach safe ground, my palms are empty, stained only with the memory of what might have but never has been. ”

“Birdie, I’m so sorry. I thought I was doing something nice. I didn’t know it’d ruin everything.”

“You were trying, just like I was. Maybe trying is what happiness is. Maybe the moments when we forget to brace for impact, when we let our guard down just enough to feel the sun on our faces without fear, those seconds of forgetting we’re not supposed to have this, are the only brand we’re allowed. ”

“No.” He shakes his hand sharply. “We deserve more than that. You deserve more than that.”

Do I? I walk to the bathroom to get the rest of my stuff. Tristan is right about one thing, though. I shouldn’t blame myself for trying to be happy for once. I should blame myself for believing I didn’t deserve to try every single day.

When I return to the room, Tristan is holding my phone. “Where should I tell Blake to meet?”

A deep breath fills my chest. “Home.”

His head shoots up. “You’re not setting foot in your house until I capture the stalker, and Abel isn’t stupid.

He’s got ties to the police and must know by now he’s the prime suspect in your assistant’s murder.

He will never return to the island willingly.

He’ll see this is a trap, which will escalate the situation, not defuse it. ”

“Then you choose. It’s a five-hour drive from here to Miami. Any town in between will suffice.”

“Miami?!”

I busy myself with finishing packing. I’m not ready to have the same argument again.

Tristan grabs my wrist away from the suitcase and slams it shut. “You’re sure as hell not offering yourself as bait. We’re not going to Miami.”

“Get your hands off—”

“No.” His grip tightens, not painful but unyielding.

“You want to run straight into the arms of the psychopath that stars in your wet dreams? The piece of shit who has been pretending to be a good cop to get close to you, to get you to trust and fall for him so when you find out the truth you’ll be too far gone to be saved?

” His face is inches from mine now, eyes blazing. “Not happening.”

“Jacob is not Butterfly Man, Tristan. You’re blinded by jealousy and it’s going to cost me everything.

” I yank my hand out of his. “And for the record, who I decide to trust or fall for or FUCK is none of your business. You don’t get to make that choice for me or any other choices. You can’t stop me from going to Miami.”

He steps forward, backing me against the bathroom door until I’m trapped between his body and the wood.

His hands brace against the wall on either side of me.

His chest rises and falls heavily, so close I can feel the heat radiating from him.

The air between us crackles when his eyes burn into mine and he growls, “Watch me.”

When his voice drops into that low, dangerous grumble, when his gaze pins me like he’s staking a claim he hasn’t earned yet, my breath stutters. My chest brushes his with every sharp I inhale. “You want to control me, Tristan? You want to tell me where I can go, who I can see, who I can fuck?”

His jaw ticks. His breath scorches my cheek.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Locking me down, never letting anyone else so much as breathe my name.”

He smirks. “Nice try, but your mind games won’t work today, Birdie. No amount of guilt, shame, doubt or uncharacteristic weakness will make me cave. I’m not jeopardizing your safety, no matter what you say.”

Damn.

His eyes dip to my mouth, and for a second, I swear he’ll kiss me. My pulse slams in my ears. My hands curl into fists at my sides—not to shove him away, but to stop myself from pulling him closer. Tristan Morra is the only man who can make my fury feel indistinguishable from desire.

Instead, he says, “Why didn’t you tell me about your beef with the MC before?”

“I thought it was inferred. I told you about Shane, about us leaving. You heard he was shunned. I mean, you ride a bike, you read my books. I thought you knew how it was in motorcycle clubs. Their code, their rules.”

“Who’s Mason?”

My heart lurches, tripping over itself. I school my features into confusion, tilting my head as if I’ve never heard the name in my life. “Mason?” I echo, soft, feigned bewilderment.

With unnerving precision, he studies me, peeling back my skin to find the lie underneath. “The biker woman, she said she was sorry to hear about what happened. She mentioned your mother, Shane and Mason.”

“I don’t know any Masons. Maybe he’s a guy in their club, and something bad happened to him, too. It’s a one-percenter MC. A lot of bad things happen in those.”

He grunts. “And the woman?”

“She’s an old lady. I don’t remember whose exactly, maybe the road captain or the VP.”

“What did you mouth to her at the end?” he presses, “what did you say to make her back off?”

A shaky laugh escapes me. “You’re imagining things. I didn’t mouth anything. I was begging her to leave me alone, that’s all.”

His stare sharpens. He doesn’t believe me. I know it. I haven’t had enough time to weave the perfect story that kills his suspicions. Have I lost his trust? Have I ruined everything with my lies?

My phone vibrates in his hand. The sound jolts through my chest like a gunshot. “Is it Blake?”

Tristan glances at the screen, and venom twists his face. “Worse.”

“Who?”

He flashes the phone in my face. His lip curls like the words taste rotten. “Your stalker.”

Jacob.

I reach for the phone, but Tristan jerks his hand out of reach before my fingers even graze the screen.

“Give it to me,” I snap.

“No.”

“I have to take that call. What if it’s about Gia’s case? What if he has something we need to know?”

He doesn’t hand it over. Instead, with a muttered curse, he thumbs the call open, puts it on speaker and holds the phone between us. Then he tilts his chin at me, challenging me.

“Birdie?” Jacob’s voice spills into the room.

“H-hey,” I answer, my glare on Tristan.

“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for days? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yes, I’m okay.”

“Thank God. I was worried sick.”

Rolling his eyes, Tristan exhales another curse.

“How are you holding up?” Jacob asks, not in his detective tone. It’s warm and caring. How could he be the same man violating me in my sleep, the one caught on camera in a hoodie and a mask trying to break into my decoy safehouse?

“I’ve been better,” I say.

There’s a pause. “Birdie, listen. I came across something.”

“About Gia’s murder?” I ask warily.

“About Blake Abel, your husband.”

My eyes widen at Tristan. His expression sharpens. He prompts me to keep the conversation going. I clear my throat. “What about Blake?”

“It’s hard to explain on the phone. I need to see you in person. I tried your new location and your house, but you weren’t at either. Where are you?”

Tristan’s head jerks up, eyes narrowing. He mouths it across the charged space between us, “Don’t you dare.”

Is this call another ploy to pinpoint my location? Jacob once called me at the weirdest time of the day and asked me where I was. I’ve suspected him then, and now, I feel exactly the same way I’ve felt. The weight of my secrets and trust issues presses down on me all at once.

Back then, my doubts about Jacob cleared up. Am I mistaken to suspect him now? Have I been mistaken to clear him then?

“Birdie, this is very important,” Jacob emphasizes. “You need to see this for yourself. I shouldn’t even be doing this, but I must show you the evidence. Just tell me where you are, and I’ll come to you.”

The cadence of his words crawls under my skin. It’s too smooth. Too polished. A net cast, waiting for me to swim willingly into its center. Still, if Jacob is genuine, if this is about Blake, I can’t afford not to know.

Tristan’s face is a hard no. He is watching me like a hawk, his body coiled and ready to snatch the phone away if needed, ‘I told you so’ written across his expression.

I can’t stop thinking what if Jacob isn’t who he claims to be, no matter how much I want to believe he’s not Butterfly Man. “Wait, did you say you stopped by the retreat and my house?”

“Yes,” he answers, and I gesture for Tristan to contact Marcus to confirm.

Tristan pulls out his phone and walks toward the chair he’s left his laptop on. I follow him and ask Jacob, “When?”

If Jacob’s story checks out, that means he’s not my stalker, and I can trust him.

“Yesterday, and then I tried your house again today because that cabin didn’t have anyone in it.”

Tristan, reluctantly, shows me Marcus’s text in response. Affirmative. He showed up at the cabin before the breach, and then at the house. I told him she wasn’t in. Same thing today.

“Before the breach?” I mouth to Tristan. That doesn’t make any sense. Why would Jacob go there and then, later on the same day, put on his stalker getup, go back to the cabin, where he must have seen the security system, and let himself get caught on camera?

I shake my head, angry but relieved. Jacob can’t be Butterfly Man. Period.

“Uh, what does that have to do with anything?” Jacob asks.

“Birdie, are you listening to me? This is no longer about the investigation of your assistant’s and rival’s murders.

I have evidence that could change everything you know about your husband.

I’m seriously worried about you and your safety.

You could be in real danger. Please let me know where you are. ”

Tristan warns me with his glare. His fingers are working fast on his keyboard.

No. I’m done listening to the doubts he’s sowing in my head. Jacob has done nothing but help protect me. He can’t be my stalker. He’s warning me about Blake. He must have something concrete to make him call me with this urgency. I need to listen to him. I must see that evidence myself.

“Jacob, I’m not in—”

Tristan’s phone chimes with an alert. He bolts, eyes wide, and then he blinks at me three times, shoving his phone in my face.

“—Martha’s Vineyard.”

“Okay. Where are you?” Jacob insists. “I can still come over wherever you are. Just tell me.”

On Tristan’s phone there’s an image. A photo of a police academy graduate. It’s Jacob’s, a younger version of him, but the name under it is different. Reid Ashford.

Then I read the last line under his name, and my hand flies to my mouth. Florida Law Enforcement Academy, Miami Dade College.

“Birdie, you still here?” Jacob—Reid—asks, and I’m going to be sick.

Detective Torrance is a liar. He lied about his name. He graduated from Miami Dade. He must have worked in Miami PD, too.

This can’t be a coincidence. Tristan has been right to suspect the detective. All evidence is pointing at Detective Reid Ashford.

He is Butterfly Man.

“Birdie?” he repeats.

My eyes squeeze shut. I think you know exactly where to find me.