Lucky Cat.
Fucking hell. It'd all been in capital letters on the bullet, so I'd thought my stalker meant Steele was lucky to be alive... but he didn't. He was reminding Steele that he'd been lurking in the shadows much, much longer than we were fully appreciating.
I couldn't believe we'd really thought we'd beaten him in Scott's death.
With every delivery, every message, my stalker was proving his point. He was smarter than us. Far too smart to be caught so easily.
But sooner or later, he'd slip up. We just needed to push him a bit harder.
11
Steele and I stopped by a fancy baby store on our way to the hospital, and I let him choose a gift for Bree's baby. She would be twelve weeks in just one more day, so I was taking a gamble that it was all going to work out okay.
When we got to her room—a private one with a gorgeous view over the park below—Dallas was just leaving.
"Hey Katie," he greeted me with a tired smile. "You're looking good, girl." He wrapped me in one of his signature bear hugs, lifting my feet off the ground. Thankfully, he set me back down again before Steele threatened to shoot him, but damn, Steele was probably close.
"Steele." Dallas nodded to my... Fuck. My boyfriend? That seemed weird, even inside my own head. Maybe I needed to edit that to one of my boyfriends. Like that made it any less strange.
"Moore," Steele replied, oblivious to my train of thought as he looped a possessive arm around my waist. "How's business?"
Dallas quirked an amused grin. "Same old. You?"
Steele just glared. Talk about awkward.
"Well, if we're done with the dick-measuring competition," I muttered, sliding out of Steele's grip, "I'm going to go see Bree." He let me go, but the way his eyes followed me said he wanted to yank me back under his arm. Not that I blamed him when just two days ago someone had very nearly killed us in a car bomb. It’d made us all a bit paranoid while out in public.
I left the two of them in the corridor and slipped into Bree's room with the baby gift under my arm. Once the door was firmly closed behind me, I grinned at my bestie.
"Hey girl," I said, holding up the enormous plush rabbit with a satin ribbon around its neck. "Brought you a friend to watch trash TV with."
Bree raised one brow at me. "Excuse me? It is not trash. But the bunny is gorgeous. Gimme." She held her hand out for it, so I delivered it into her grip. "Oh my gosh," she groaned, then hugged the stupid thing and rubbed her face against its fur. "It's so soft. Thanks, MK."
I shrugged, and took a seat in the guest chair beside her bed. "Steele chose it, actually."
She gave me a sly grin. "Oh yeah? Max Steele escorted you today, hmm? And how is your little reverse harem going? Tell me everything; leave out nothing. Have you had a four-way yet? Oh man, you'd totally be walking funny after that, right?"
I groaned and covered my face with my hands as a rush of embarrassment flooded my cheeks. Why was everyone so interested in four-ways today?
"Remind me why I'm friends with you again?" I asked, scowling at her playfully.
She just beamed, petting the rabbit. "'Cause I'm awesome and you love me," she replied without even hesitating a second. "But also, spill. Tell me all the juicy details because lord knows it's going to be a long-ass time before I get any D in my V. You know how often the nurses just pop in here? Too often, babe. Too damn often."
I snickered a laugh, picturing her and Dallas trying to get frisky while her arm and leg were still in casts and she was confined to her hospital bed. "You just need to get creative, girl. I have faith in you. Maybe Dallas can help you wash your hair or something." I jerked my head to the private bathroom attached to her room.
Her brows rose, and she gave a considering nod. "I hadn't thought of that. Good work, you sex-positive queen. Now, back to this gang bang of yours."
"Bree!" I shrieked, knowing full fucking well Steele could walk into the room at any minute—if he couldn't already hear us through the paper-thin door. Fucking hell. "Can we change the subject? Please? Tell me more about how you're on team Logan. He just shits all over Dean, right?"
She shot me a look that clearly said I was insane to ever think otherwise. "Or we can discuss Mrs. Jones forever."
I blinked at her in confusion. "Come again?"
Bree rolled her eyes. "Of course, you have no idea what I'm even talking about. Here." She pulled out her phone and scrolled until she found what she wanted, then handed it to me.
It was an Instagram profile with the username MrsJones4eva and a photo reel full of pictures of Kody. Most seemed to come from his own profile, some were reposts from companies he'd modeled for, and some were just objects or locations that the profile owner associated with him.
"Um, Kody has a stalker?" I asked, grinning. But as amusing as it was, my stomach churned with fear for him. We badly didn't need another stalker in our lives.
Bree shrugged one shoulder. "Nah, she doesn't seem like a stalker so much as just a really big fan. Superfan. Anyway, she is not a fan of you." She reached for her phone, then brought up a browser page. She typed in a web address, then handed it back to me. "Case in point."
My eyes widened as I scrolled through the blog, skimming over all the nasty things this girl was saying about me. None of it came anywhere remotely close to the threats my stalker delivered on the regular, but... this was different. This was straight up mean-girl behavior.
"What the hell?" I muttered, clicking into a link that took me to an open forum where MrsJones4eva was encouraging random internet trolls to tear me down in every way imaginable. From my pink hair—totally trashy, okay? To my boobs—which were so clearly implants. They attacked the way I dressed, the classes I took, the shops I visited. There were even photocopies of my report cards from high school. If something about me could be insulted in some way, it'd been done.
"When's the last time you even checked your socials, girl?" Bree asked me with a wrinkled nose. "I knew you'd ghosted them a bit, so I hadn't checked in forever. But this chick tags you all the time and is never nice."
I shook my head. "Not for months. Why would I need to borrow internet drama when I have enough in my real life?"
"Good point. Anyway, I don't think this is something to actually worry about. Not like... well, you know." She gestured to the fact that she was in hospital, and I rubbed at the headache building behind my eyes.
"Yeah. Not like how people are trying to kill me and everyone around me. Still, it's probably something I need to get the guys to look into. My stalker seems to have a bit of a protective thing going on, remember?" I ruffled my fingers through my hair, then cringed as I remembered some of the bitchy comments about my choice of hair color. Women could be so cruel.
Bree nodded. "Right, but Drew was trying to have you date-raped. That sort of deserved something. Maybe not, you know, what happened. But still, fuck that bitch. Who even thinks of something like that?"
"Messed up people, girl. Anyway, thanks for showing me this. I'm sure Kody will have something to say about it." I heaved a sigh, slumping back in the chair and tossing Bree's phone onto the bed. "Girl, I'm so fucking tired. Seeing a whole we-hate-Madison-Kate forum barely even scratched the surface there."