Cruel Riches: A Dark Captive Romance (Cruel Kingdom Book 1)

by Stella Hart

  With that, he shoved his cock into her ass. The camera angle shifted again, showing the girl whimpering and moaning as the man plowed her from behind.

  A sudden coldness hit at my core as I stared at the girl’s face.

  It was me.

  9

  Alexis

  Blind panic was beginning to overwhelm me, making my chest heave.

  All around me, I could hear muttered snippets of conversation from fellow students.

  “What a fucking slut.”

  “That’s her, right? Near the back?”

  “She’s getting expelled for sure.”

  “I wish my girlfriend would let me do her in the ass like that.”

  “This reflects so badly on Blackthorne. What’s everyone going to think of us now?”

  My vision swam as hot tears pricked at my eyes. I put my phone away and gathered up the rest of my things. “It’s not me,” I whispered. “It’s not me.”

  My throat burned as my breaths came faster and faster. Suddenly I was pushing my way past legs and bags on the floor, my feet seeming to move of their own accord. I had to escape. Had to hide.

  “Alexis!” Laurel’s frantic voice followed me, along with Ruby’s. They were squeezing themselves past other students in our row of seats as well.

  I made it to the door before them.

  “Wait! Alexis!” Ruby called out as I dashed outside.

  I stopped for a few seconds and turned around, lungs burning. “Please…” I choked out. “I need to be alone right now.”

  I couldn’t face them. Couldn’t face anyone.

  The girls didn’t try to follow me after that. I wasn’t offended in the slightest. After all, I told them to leave me alone, and if I were them, I wouldn’t want to be seen with me anyway.

  I ran blindly across the massive quad, my mind whirling as I tried to figure out where to go. I wanted to head back to my dorm and curl up under the blankets in bed, but that was out of the question. It would only be a matter of time before the Dean or one of his lackeys showed up at my door to inform me that my career as a Blackthorne student was over.

  There was no way a prestigious university like this would allow a sex scandal. It wouldn’t even matter if I told them that it wasn’t really me in the video. They would never believe me, because it looked exactly like me.

  Even the girl’s body was right. Her breasts looked just like my own, down to the exact shape, size, and nipple color. She had the same prominent dip below her hips and above her thighs, too, and between her legs, her left labia poked out a tiny bit more than the right one, just like my own. It was like looking in a mirror.

  Choking back tears, I dashed into the library and headed for the top floor, silently praying that no one else was in the secret spot Laurel showed me during my first week on campus.

  It was empty.

  Thank god. I put my bag down and sat at the table, placing one hand at the base of my throat as I forced myself to suck down deep breaths.

  When I’d managed to calm myself a bit, I turned my phone on to see how the situation was playing out. As I expected, someone had already uploaded the short video to a Blackthorne Community page on Facebook. They’d also posted a link to the full twenty-minute version of the video, which had apparently been at the bottom of the email along with several stills showing the girl’s face and body.

  I reported the videos and photos for violating community guidelines, but I knew it wouldn’t matter in the end. As soon as Facebook deleted it, a copy would pop up in its place. Then another, and another, until they were fucking everywhere.

  It was like one of those mythological Hydras. Cut off one head, and two more would grow back in its place. But this wasn’t an ancient myth. It was actually happening to me right now.

  My stomach lurched as I scanned the comments on the main Facebook post. I knew I shouldn’t read them, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. It was like watching a trainwreck.

  What a filthy fucking slut. This is exactly why I don’t want to have daughters in the future.

  I know this girl. She lives directly above me in Redstone Hall. I’ve heard weird noises coming from there during the night before, but I had no idea she was shooting pornos hahaha.

  She’s in my journalism class lol. I always thought she looked like a ho. Big dick-sucking lips.

  Ew. She really thinks she did something with this, but it’s just pathetic. Get some self-respect, bitch!

  Hey, look, a woman doing what she’s actually good for. The rest of you dumb Blackthorne whores need to stop pretending you actually care about education and go back to doing the only shit you’re good at. Fucking, cooking, and cleaning. #MGTOW

  Can’t wait until she’s expelled. This video makes us all look bad. I wonder if we can sue her for damages of some kind???

  That was just a small sample of the crap on there. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I clicked out of the page and started thinking about my next move.

  I couldn’t call Sascha, my mother, or my stepfather to ask for help. It was too humiliating to let my family members see ‘me’ getting fucked on camera, even though it wasn’t actually me, and they knew nothing about technology anyway. They wouldn’t have any idea how to get the original video taken down.

  An idea suddenly struck me. I went to my messages and speedily typed out a new one to send to Harry.

  Hey, I know you’ve probably seen that video by now. It’s not me, I swear. You’re into tech stuff, so you must know a lot about the internet, right? Or maybe one of your engineering friends does? I need help getting the video taken down if possible. Please.

  The read receipt displayed two ticks a few seconds later, so I knew he’d seen my message. Some dots appeared after that, showing that he was typing something. I breathed a sigh of relief. He was actually willing to speak to me.

  But then the dots disappeared, and a response never came.

  He didn’t believe me.

  A few minutes later, an email from the Dean of Students turned up on my phone, requesting a meeting with me. I knew exactly what that was about, but I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. Not right now.

  Tears welled up in my eyes all over again. I got up and went over to one of the bookshelves, sank down in front of it, and cried with my head in my hands.

  I had never experienced such horrendous humiliation, degradation, and shame before. It was so bad that it made the gazebo incident from two weeks ago look like a walk in the park. Both incidents had something in common, though—they were caused by Nate Lockwood. I knew this video was his doing, even though I had no way to prove it.

  It didn’t matter anyway. I couldn’t report him to the Dean in a plea to keep my enrolment intact. If he found out, he’d reveal my secret to everyone, and I couldn’t let that happen. Despite the scalding, stinging humiliation, I’d rather be the unwilling campus pornstar than the Blackthorne Butcher’s daughter, because at least the former ‘title’ would allow me to remain on Avalon Island and continue my secret investigation.

  The latter wouldn’t. I’d be hounded and chased back to the mainland like I was Frankenstein’s monster if everyone here found out my true identity.

  Then again, part of my investigation was ruined now anyway. Even if I was allowed to stay on at Blackthorne after a scandal of this magnitude, there was no way I’d be able to forge any kind of friendly relationship with my father’s old colleagues in the English and Journalism Department. They’d never be able to take me seriously, and they’d probably also be concerned about being seen with me in case it tainted their reputation.

  I would be a pariah on this campus forever.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I muttered to myself, balling my hands into fists. It was so unfair. So deeply unjust.

  I took another deep breath and brought up the video on my phone again. Surely there was some way I could prove this girl wasn’t me. A mole or birthmark that I didn’t have on my own body, perhaps, or an unfamiliar scar.

  But there was nothing.
The girl was identical to me.

  Confusion and bewilderment roiled in my guts as a terrible notion flashed in my mind. What if it really was me? What if I was losing my mind and simply forgot that I filmed a past sexual encounter?

  No way. I pushed the thought away as quickly as it occurred to me. This was exactly what Nate wanted—to strip me of my dignity, bully me off the campus, and make me feel like I was going crazy.

  It simply couldn’t be me in the video. I was no virgin, but I’d never had any desire to make a sex tape. I’d never done anal before, either. I’d considered it in the past, in that curious kind of way that most people thought about sexual things they’d never tried before, but that was it.

  The guy in the video wasn’t anyone I’d ever hooked up with, either. He looked a bit like Nate, but that was the only thing about him that seemed familiar.

  As the confusion and emotional turmoil twisted my stomach into knots, my core started to pulse with a telltale heat. Despite all my tears, shame, and embarrassment about the horrible video, I was getting turned on by the sight of it.

  I was sick.

  A total deviant.

  Who the hell would actually feel aroused in a situation like this?

  You, a tiny voice in the back of my mind told me. You’ve always been fucked up.

  I pressed ‘play’ on the video again as heat flooded my cheeks. Perhaps if I watched it again and reminded myself of how utterly humiliating it was to be seen in this state by everyone, the treacherous throbbing in my core would fade into oblivion.

  It didn’t work.

  The girl was such a carbon copy of me that it was getting harder and harder by the second to separate her from myself in my mind. Every time I looked at her, I saw myself sucking that man’s cock. I saw myself taking him from behind, and I saw myself moaning and crying out for more.

  It got worse, too. Instead of seeing the man as a stranger, I started to picture him in my head as Nate. He looked similar enough, with that dark hair cut short on the sides, and the two-day stubble on his jaw.

  Soon the video had blurred with my imagination and memories so much that I could no longer separate fact from fiction at all. It felt like the whole sex tape had actually happened to me, and part of me could even ‘remember’ what it felt like to feel Nate’s cock stretching me out; that sweet agony of letting my worst enemy degrade me in the most humiliating way possible.

  With a shaky sigh, I tossed my phone down and put my head back in my hands. After a few minutes of that, I felt too weak to sit up any longer, so I lay on the carpet under the big wooden table and curled up in a ball.

  I wallowed there in my shame and misery for hours, wishing I could just evaporate into thin air. I knew I couldn’t hide in this little room forever, but at the same time, I couldn’t bring myself to leave. As soon as I stepped out of the library, I’d return to the real world with all the people staring and whispering behind their hands. Slut. Whore. Bitch.

  “I thought we might find you here.”

  I sniffed and looked up to see Laurel and Ruby standing at the narrow entrance to the octagonal room.

  “Come on. It’s okay,” Ruby said softly, kneeling beside the table. She reached an arm out to grab my left shoulder, and Laurel followed suit with the right one.

  “That’s it,” Laurel murmured, pulling me to my feet. “You’re okay. It’s all going to be okay.”

  Tears sprang to my eyes again. “No, it’s not. I’m fucked.”

  “You aren’t.”

  I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand and sat down. “You really don’t need to do this,” I muttered.

  “Do what?” Ruby’s forehead wrinkled.

  “Hang out with me.” I sniffed again, trying to stem the tears. “Someone will see you eventually, and trust me, you don’t want everyone to know you as the campus pornstar’s friends. They’ll just paint you with the same brush they’ve used for me.”

  “So? You seriously think we’d ditch you right now?” Laurel asked.

  “I’m just saying, I won’t blame you at all if you don’t want to hang out with me anymore,” I said softly. “You’ve only known me for three weeks, so if you want to cut and run, I understand completely. No hard feelings.”

  Laurel scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. She leaned closer. “Do you remember what Ruby said this morning, about me hating everyone?””

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, I know she was kidding, but it’s basically true. I do hate most people, because so many of them suck so fucking much. I usually feel pretty alone because of that, but ever since I met you two,” she said, pointing to Ruby and me in turn. “I don’t feel alone at all. You guys have been nothing but good to me, even though I was a total bitch to both of you when we first met.”

  “Yeah, you definitely weren’t the friendliest chick,” Ruby said with a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. She reached over and playfully pinched Laurel’s arm as she spoke.

  Laurel flashed her a self-deprecating smile before turning back to me. “My point is, I’m not ditching you just because some fucking asshole decided to mess with you and post a fake sex tape.”

  My eyes widened. “So you believe me?” I said. “You know it’s not me?”

  She snorted. “Of course I believe you! I knew it wasn’t you from the start. You’d never let someone film you with your hair looking that scruffy.”

  I almost cracked a smile at her joke.

  She went on. “Seriously, though, we know it’s fake, and we can prove it.”

  “What?” I sat up straighter, brows shooting up.

  “It’s fake, and we can prove it,” she repeated.

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” Ruby chimed in. “Where do you think we’ve been for the last five hours?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I figured you probably didn’t want to be seen with me.”

  “Girl, get some self-esteem,” she said, rolling her eyes. “The only reason we didn’t chase after you earlier was because we knew you’d probably need some time to process this shit, and we also wanted to help. We figured the best way to do that was to prove that the video is total bullshit.”

  I nodded slowly as tears sprang to my eyes again. This time, they were happy tears. For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt accepted and loved by people outside of my family. “What did you find?” I asked.

  Laurel put her iPad down in front of me and brought up the video. “Ever heard of a deepfake?”

  I nodded. “I think so.”

  “To make one, you show a computer a whole bunch of photos of a person, and it generates a face based on that to lay over the original face in the video. The voice can be changed, too, to sound exactly like the person you’re trying to frame.” She tilted her head to one side. “You probably remember seeing the Obama one a few years ago. It looks and sounds exactly like him, but it’s not.”

  “Yeah, I remember that.”

  “If you’re good with the tech—or know someone else who is—you can make it look and sound like someone has said and done anything you want, even if they never did. People use it to make fake celebrity sex tapes all the time.”

  “That’s what happened to you. Someone took a real porno and put your face over the original girl’s face. They made the moans sound a lot like your voice, too,” Ruby added. “We knew that as soon as we saw it. We just needed to find a way to prove it.”

  Laurel nodded. “As good as the tech is, it’s not perfect. There’s usually a few signs somewhere. You just have to look really hard.”

  “We went to my dorm and watched this video over and over, frame by frame, until we spotted stuff,” Ruby said.

  I winced. “Sorry. I can’t imagine how weird that must’ve felt.”

  She smiled. “It was kinda strange, but we were mostly focused on the job.”

  Laurel clicked on her tablet screen so that the video skipped forward to 5:27. “Watch this very carefully,” she said before pressing play for
a few seconds.

  My brows knitted. “I don’t get it.”

  “Let me slow it down so it plays frame by frame,” she said, clicking a few more buttons. “You know how the girl in the video is wearing diamond stud earrings?”

  “Honestly, I didn’t notice until you pointed it out.”

  “Well, watch now,” she said, pointing to a spot on the screen. “There. See it?”

  I leaned forward. “Her right earring disappeared.”

  Ruby nodded triumphantly. “Yup. There are five frames in there where the earring vanishes. It’s clearly someone else’s ear in those shots.”

  “There’s more,” Laurel added, skipping forward to the ten-minute mark. “In this part, the camera focuses on the girl from the front again, and she’s leaning on her forearms. For a second, when it zooms in to capture her moaning, you can see her left wrist when she tilts it slightly to one side to keep her balance.”

  I squinted. “Is that a tattoo?”

  “Yes. Just a little one, but still, it’s totally visible in those few frames. You don’t have a tattoo there, do you?”

  “No.”

  “This is proof that someone manufactured this video to target you,” Ruby said, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Once we go to the Dean and explain everything, this whole thing will be over. The administration will be forced to send out an explanation for the email, and everyone will know it was just a fake video.”

  Relief cascaded through me, and I slumped back in the chair, letting my tight muscles relax for the first time in hours.

  “Do you know who might’ve done it?” Laurel asked, eyes anxiously wide.

  I swallowed hard. Of course I knew who made the deepfake tape. I couldn’t admit it, though.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I have no idea.”

  “It’s probably just some random asshole who’s seen you around Blackthorne before,” Ruby said. “He probably hates women and wants to hurt them, and you were just the first on the list of people he’s decided to target.”

  Laurel nodded. “Yeah. He could’ve taken photos of you from your Instagram or Facebook to use for the face, and if there’s any bikini shots of you up there, he could’ve used those to find a pornstar with a very similar body.”