Devastated (Anger Management, #1)(69)

When Ryan saw how much the outings took out of Kylie, he decided to help. Every week for the past two months he’d taken Kylie out for lunch, asked her to meet him for coffee, and hung out with her during Hunter’s therapy sessions. Almost overnight, both men had become extremely protective of her, greeting her with fond smiles, and going out of their way to spend time with her and Kylie…

Smiled more, was more relaxed, and happier than he’d ever seen her. She still struggled with what happened, but she never talked about it. Sometimes at night, he’d wake up to find her crying in her sleep. Other times, she looked so damn lost that he’d drop everything so that he could hold her. They never talked about her family, but he knew that she still struggled with everything they’d done to her. He saw it on her face whenever she caught a glimpse of her back in the mirror, when she hesitated opening an email, and the way she flinched whenever someone knocked on the door.

Her family had made one more fucked-up attempt to come after her, but he’d taken care of it. He’d had his marketing department in London handle all those fake reviews and had Ryan do what he did best. He’d canceled his old email account and opened a new one, which he’d made sure wasn’t public knowledge. He’d sent out a memo that the next time anyone made his private email public that they’d be looking for a new job. He also assigned the job of checking his emails to one of the assistants at the corporate office in Orlando.

He was doing whatever it took to keep her safe.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about something,” Ryan said, tossing the file that he’d been looking at on the patio table.

“What’s that?” Hunter asked, shifting his attention away from the beautiful woman who’d changed his life to find Ryan watching him curiously.

“I came across an article this morning about a family in Rhode Island,” Ryan said, pausing to take a sip of his root beer since he’d stopped drinking around Kylie when he’d noticed how much the scent bothered her.

“Sounds fascinating,” Hunter drawled, as he reached over and grabbed a bottle of water out of the bucket of ice that Kylie filled for them.

“It was. It really was, but what was interesting was that this family,” he said, pausing with a thoughtful look on his face, “let’s call them Smith. Well, apparently the Smith family is in a lot of trouble right now.”

“Oh, yeah?” Hunter asked absently, as he grabbed a pen off the table and began signing the stack of contracts that Ryan had brought with him for his approval.

“It seems that it all started with an invitation to a banquet for a charity that no one had ever heard of before. It seems that everyone on the list knew the Smith family. They were either friends of the family or had problems with the family in the past. Well, one thing led to another and they all started talking. Turns out that the Smiths had caused quite a few problems for everyone over the years and had done their best to keep them apart so that they wouldn’t talk.”

“That sounds ominous,” Hunter said, signing his name as he thought about what he was going to do now that he was a free man.

A year ago, he’d been pissed to find himself stuck on house arrest, forced to stay here, and counting down the days until he could leave and pick up where he’d left off and now…

Now, he was making plans for a different future.

“That’s what I thought, especially when I read that the Smiths had been behind several divorces, false police reports, some seriously disturbing accusations, scams, threats, and fraud.”

“Sounds like they’ve been busy,” Hunter murmured absently, as he glanced over his shoulder to find Kylie placing a pitcher of lemonade on the kitchen table.

“Well, as you can imagine, not everyone took it well. The police ended up being called to protect the Smiths when most of the banquet guests showed up at their house to have a word with them. That quickly turned to arresting the Smiths for various charges and several lawsuits being filed against them. Unfortunately, the police weren’t able to get there fast enough and a friend who had apparently bought into the Smith’s bullshit over the years and even helped them, found out that they were spreading rumors about his family when they weren’t going around making accusations about his company, posting fake reviews, and even threatening to sue them.”

“Well, as you can imagine the friend didn’t take it very well when he found out that they’d been calling his wife a bitch behind her back or accusing his daughter of being a drug addict who neglected her mentally disturbed child and secretly warning everyone not to let their kids play with him. Turns out that the friend had caught wind of the rumors years ago, but believed the Smiths when they’d accused their estranged daughter of spreading those lies. When they found out that the Smiths were really behind it, he lost it, grabbed a gun, and it looks like Mr. Smith had his balls removed the hard way,” Ryan explained, sounding amused as Hunter tossed the pen on the table and pushed his chair back.

“That’s too bad for the Smiths,” Hunter murmured absently as he shifted his attention to Kylie.

“It doesn’t stop there. Seems that all the rumors that Mrs. Smith spread have bit her in the ass. She’s in a lot of trouble right now. It turns out that all those lawsuits that she liked to file, that she not only lied, but that she’d got other people to lie too, including her daughter. Looks like those cases are going back to court.”