Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 128380 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128380 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
AJ shrank back, his shoulders rising to his ears. “Get away with what? What are you talking about?”
“The game’s up, AJ,” said Tate, sidling up to Deke. “We know.”
“Know what?” AJ practically whined, a quake in his voice.
“Maisy paid me a visit,” Deke told him.
The male’s brow furrowed. “Who the hell is Maisy?”
Deke narrowed his eyes. The guy looked genuinely confused. “You don’t recognize the name? You should. You’ve been in an online relationship with her for the past three months.”
AJ gaped. “I haven’t talked to any women online.”
“That’s not what the evidence would suggest.”
“Evidence?”
“Everything points to you setting up the fake profile.”
AJ spluttered. “What profile?”
Deke moved his face closer to AJ’s, who jerkily flinched. “The one that’s almost a direct copy of mine on NetherVille. You pretended to be me. You picked up a human female—”
“Whoa, whoa, that’s bullshit, man!” the other male cried, his eyes popping open even wider. “No way would I do that!”
“Bailey hacked into the account. All your details were there.”
Blanching, AJ vigorously shook his head. “I swear to Christ, I never set up any social media profiles in anyone’s name but mine.”
Deke exchanged a look with his Alpha. Unless AJ had developed acting skills all of a sudden, he was speaking the truth.
Tate pinned his gaze on AJ. “What’s your email address and phone number?”
Stuttering, the other male rattled both off. Neither matched the email address and phone number that were used when creating the social media profile.
Tate looked at Deke. “I’m going to call the other number. Let’s see if someone answers.” He punched in the number and then put his cell to his ear. No sounds of a phone ringing came from anywhere in the apartment, though he supposed that the cell could be on silent mode.
Deke squinted at AJ. “If you’re telling the truth, it would seem that someone is using you as their scapegoat.”
AJ swallowed. “I’m not lying, I swear.”
Tate sighed when no one answered the phone. He swiped his thumb across the screen and then pocketed it. “For now, we’ll say we believe you. But we’ll be looking deeper into this. If we find out you lied to us here today, what follows will be a far worse punishment than you can imagine. So if you have anything to confess, now is the time to do it.”
“I didn’t create the profile,” AJ swore, his hands trembling, beads of sweat dotting his forehead.
Deke released the guy’s tee and stepped back. “You’d better not be bullshitting us, AJ. I beat your ass once. I’ll happily do it again.” He and Tate exchanged another look and then left, shutting the door behind them.
Striding down the hallway, Deke rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think it was him.”
“Neither do I,” said Tate. “His shock and confusion were real. Hopefully Bailey finds something to help point us in the direction of who did do it.”
The two males left the complex and returned to the Alpha pair’s house. The moment they entered the living room, Havana looked up from her seat on the sofa and asked, “What did he say?”
“He point-blank denied it,” replied Tate. “I don’t believe he was lying.” He sat beside her and rested his hand on her thigh. “His reactions were genuine.”
Deke crossed to Bailey, ignoring how his gut clenched at the sight of her; ignoring how his cat tensed at the close proximity. “Did you find anything?”
“Not really,” the mamba replied, her gaze on the laptop screen. “He messaged other women on NetherVille, but the conversations never went past light flirting and they stopped a couple of weeks after he and Maisy got cozy. As for his email account … the personal info used to create it was the same used to create the fake profile. I went through his emails. Nothing there but spam and social media notifications.”
“Shit,” Deke muttered.
Bailey met his gaze. “The messages he sent to Maisy contained a lot of info about you. He talked about your family and your childhood with so much emotion it’s honestly like he slipped into your skin. It’s no wonder he fooled the human. I’ll be genuinely shocked if this isn’t a member of the pride, because I don’t see how else they can so accurately pose as you.”
“The question of why he did it remains unanswered,” said Aspen, sitting in the armchair with one leg crossed over the other. “It’s possible that—as Tate earlier pointed out—it could be someone who simply wanted to pose as another guy to score women online.”
“They’re no innocent, though,” Bailey piped up. “If we’re right and AJ’s innocent in this, someone set him up to take the fall. That was a step they didn’t need to take.”
Tate inclined his head. “They could have just made up a name instead.” He turned to Deke. “Let’s assume for a second that this person did it to strike out at you. Who would do that?”