by Megyn Ward
“Sure… why not?” I mutter back with a gruff laugh, digging the heel of my palm into my eye socket in an effort to grind away some of the fatigue that’s settling into my bones. I haven’t slept in a few days and it’s beginning to wear on me.
“You still here because of Delilah and the way you feel about her or are you here because of what happened to Camilla?”
I stop digging and drop my hand, heart suddenly pinballing inside my chest so hard and fast it feels like bullet ricocheting around my ribcage. “Excuse me?”
“Because if this is about Delilah, I get it because like I said before—I’d spill oceans of blood for Henley and drown myself in them if that’s what it took to keep her safe—but if you’re sticking around is some misguided attempt to rewrite the past, you can just see yourself out because Went and I can handle it from here.” He looks up at me, his gaze cool and passive—and a complete and total lie. There’s nothing cool or passive about this guy. “Come on—I’m not just Logan’s friend. I was his computer science prof at MIT. I can pretty much promise you that 99.9% of the scary shit he can do with a computer, he learned from me, so quit with the how, who and why and just answer the question—is this about Delilah or is this about Camilla?”
“I don’t know…” I still feel like I’m sucking wind. Still feel like I’m falling and every branch I hit is snapping underneath me on the way down. “Maybe both.”
“Then you need to tell her the truth about who you are.” When I open my mouth, he shakes his head. “The whole story—not just who you are now, but who you were.” He clicks the cursor to freeze the frame before turning the laptop in my direction. “This guy look familiar?”
“Uhhh…” My head is spinning but I force myself to focus. Pull out of the nosedive Conner Gilroy just sent me into and study the photo in front of me. It’s a screen grab from the security footage a few minutes after the exchange. A different camera angle—this one of Delilah. She’s surrounded by fans. People with their cell phones out, begging for selfies. She’s accommodating them as best she can. Playing the role—smiling and letting people touch her but there’s something in her posture that tells me she’s not okay with it. Something behind her eyes that says she’s not completely comfortable with what’s happening. I’ve seen that look on her face a lot over the past six years—I just never recognized it for what it really was until now.
Anxiety.
In the swarm of people there’s a man in a dark-colored hoodie looming behind her. Hood up, his face turned away from the camera.
“Yeah.” I nod my head, jaw clenched, the dull, thud of my heart in my chest so heavy I can feel the blood it’s pumping pushing against my eardrum because it doesn’t matter if I can see his face or not. “I recognize him. That’s him. That’s the guy who tried to take her.” But as much as I want to say that the guy caught on screen is Vanderhoff, I can’t. “Jase has someone on the ground in New York, looking for Mike to confirm that he sold Ketamine to Vanderhoff that night.”
“That’ll help because working off this security footage is less than ideal.” Conner swivels the laptop back in his direction. “I’m running a search program using specific social media tags to find pictures that were posted online from Level… once I have them compiled, I can use facial recognition software to find specific pictures of her… from there we can start building a timeline.”
“She wasn’t there that long. She showed up at around midnight.” I lean back in my seat and fold my arms over my chest. “Jase ran a diagnostic report on the club’s fire suppression system. It says it was activated at 1:13AM, so you can narrow your search to fit into a ninety-minute window.” I don’t mention the fact that approximately thirty of those ninety minutes were spent alone in the VIP stairwell with me.
“Whoever this guy is, I’d bet money he’s been orbiting her for a while now.” Conner closes his laptop and swipes a hand over his face. “He’ll show up somewhere. “I sent a portion of the skin scrapings I found under her nails to an independent lab for testing.” He gives me a look that tells me I can not mention it all I want—he’s still well aware of what happened between Delilah and me that night. “It might be a good idea if you gave me a DNA sample so we can rule out—”
The door to Delilah’s bedroom opens and her brother finally makes an appearance after carrying her in there over an hour ago. When she freaked out, I tried calming her down on my own but then he was just there, pulling me away from her and in my face, asking me what the fuck I was doing to his sister. If Conner hadn’t been here to break it up, one of us would’ve ended up dead.
“She says it started with the flowers.” He gives the table and the vase full of rose on top of it a stiff head jerk. “According to her, they’ve been coming for about six months now. Gift boxes started about a month ago.”
Conner frowns at the box sitting in the middle of the table. “She told Hen they’re from her ex—some fucker named—”
“Nik.” It comes out weird. Rough and garbled like animal trying to learn how to talk. “His name is Niklaus Vanderhoff.”
“The Dutch Count?” Conner frowns. “He’s like fifth in line for the throne.”
Went laughs despite the complete lack of humor in this situation. “Why am I not surprised that you actually know that?”
“Because I know everything,” Conner says without taking his eyes off the box. “You failed to mention the guy who bought off your bartender the night she was grabbed was her ex or that he’s been stalking her.”
Yeah—I did.
I failed to mention that I’ve suspected Vanderhoff of being the one who tried to snatch Delilah but to be fair, I’ve failed to mention a lot of things.
“I don’t like the guy,” I state plainly while trying to ignore the way her brother is staring me down like he’s seconds away from trying to tackle me out of my chair. “I’ve never liked the guy—I guess I didn’t want my feelings about him to color your perception about what’s happening and his possible involvement—but I didn’t know about the flowers or the gifts. I didn’t know he was stalking her.” We all stare at the box like we’re waiting for it to grow legs and run across the table. “She say what’s in it?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.
“Yeah…” Went nods his head. “I don’t think either one of us what’s to be the one to look. She also says she remembered something from yesterday—not what happened at the club but earlier, after she left your brother’s office. She said she found pictures on her bed of herself from earlier that morning and that they were covered in…” He frowns. Stumbles a bit over what he’s trying say. “that whoever left them there had—”
“Masturbated on them?”
We both look at Conner when he says it and he shrugs. “It’s normal behavior for a situation like this.”
“There’s nothing normal about this shit,” Went growls at him. “Anyway—yeah.” His head bobs a few times. “I guess he jerked off and then wrote some creepy message on her bathroom mirror.”
“Okay—that’s good.” Encouraged, Conner divides a grim smile between the two of us. “We can get someone to get into her room in New York and collect evidence. I can take a semen sample to the lab and at least confirm that—”
“She got rid of it.” Went sighs and swipes a hand over his face. “Stripped the bed. Burned the pictures. She was—”
“Ashamed. Scared. Probably feels like this shit is her fault.” Conner sighs. “Unfortunately, that’s normal behavior for a situation like this too.” After a moments’ deliberation, he reaches for the box.
Tugging the ribbon loose, he sets it aside before lifting the top off the box. Reaching in carefully, he pulls out a flash drive. After a few seconds of deliberation, he plugs it into his computer.
Seconds later, whatever is on the flash drive begins to play.
It sounds like porn.
It sounds like Delilah.
I’m standing before I can even recognize that I’m on feet and moving t
oward him. Conner lifts a hand and his eyes from the screen. “You don’t want to do that, man.” He shakes his head at me, his dark green gaze as detached and clinical as his tone. Dropping his gaze back to the screen he watches it for a few more seconds before he closes the laptop and pulls the flash drive from its port. Reaching back into the box he pulls out a stack of photographs.
Laying them out on the table in front of him like Tarot cards, Conner gives a low whistle. Leaning forward, Went takes a closer look before jerking back in obvious disgust. Conner is right. I don’t want to see. I don’t want to look.
But I do because I have to.
They’re pornographic pictures of Delilah in various sexual positions, each more explicit and degrading than the last. On the back of each photograph is written a single word.
Soon
“Do you know what a deep fake is?”
I look up to see Conner watching me closely.
I nod my head. “Yeah—cutting edge CGI layered with real video footage and manipulated to create visual images that are nearly indiscernible from the real thing.” Conner raises an eyebrow at my answer. “Terrorist organizations use them to create propaganda videos.” He keeps staring. “I was a Marine for eight years—we saw a lot of them.”
Finally he nods his head. “I’ll have to pull it apart to be 100% sure but I can already tell you that what’s on this flash drive is a deep fake and these—” He gathers the photographs into a pile and dumps them back into the box. “are stills taken from it.”
“What does that mean?” I look at Went standing a few feet away. He looks about as sick to his stomach as I feel.
“It means whoever this guy is, he’s either really, really smart or really, really rich—worst case scenario, he’s both because this shit isn’t easy to do and it isn’t cheap either.” Conner stacks the box on top of his laptop and stands. “It also means we need to find this guy and do it quick because he’s escalating. He tried to take her last night and he failed—that won’t sit well or long with him so it’s only a matter of time before he tries again and next time, we might not be able to stop him.”
THIRTY-TWO
Delilah
AS SOON AS WENT LEAVES, I STRIP OFF MY JEANS
and T-shirt and take another shower. Scrub myself from head to toe with about a gallon of bodywash and scalding hot water. When I’m finished I do it again. I scrub and scrape for what feels like hours. Until the water runs cold and it’s either get out of the shower or risk hypothermia.
Because I remember.
He was in my suite in New York.
He touched my things.
Did things to them.
Deciding to have everything in my New York suite professionally cleaned and donated, I finally flip off the water and grab a towel. Giving myself a quick rub down, I wrap my hair up and get dressed for bed, snagging my favorite T-shirt and a pair of clean underwear from my dresser. I barely get them on before I hear someone knock on my bedroom door.
Frowning slightly, I make my way to it but don’t open it. “I’m okay, Went,” I say through the closed door. “I’m done freaking out for the day. I’m just going to go back to bed and try to—”
“It’s not Went.”
It’s Gray. I pull the towel off my head and my hand flies to the knob to open it but gets stuck there, holding it without giving it a turn. When I don’t open the door right away, he sighs.
“I brought you something to eat,” he says, his rough, growly voice smoothed out like a crumpled piece of paper. Like he’s trying to be nice because I’m too delicate and fragile to take the real him right now. “You haven’t eaten since that Poptart at the hospital and those things are not nutritionally—”
“If I open this door, I don’t want to talk about anything that’s happened or been said in the last 36-hours.” I’ve built myself a pillow fort and I intend to stay inside it until someone drags me from it, kicking and screaming.
“Okay.”
It might be my imagination, but he sounds relieved. Like he’s as ready to leave reality behind as I am.
Tightening my hand around the knob, I give it a turn, pulling the door between us open. He’s holding a room service tray. “I found it in the kitchen,” he tells me, gaze aimed at the tray between us, loaded with what looks like breakfast. “It’s not great. My culinary skills consist of scrambled eggs and steak.”
“I like both of those things,” I tell him, moving out of the way so he can pass through the door. “We can eat over here.” I slip past him to lead him over to the sitting area next to the window. Clicking on the floor lamp next to the couch, I turn around, expecting to find him off loading his tray onto the coffee table. He isn’t. He’s just standing there, staring at me.
“Is that my shirt?”
“Uhhh…” I look down at what I’m wearing because it is his shirt. The shirt I demanded he give me that night six years ago when I lost my own clothes at Level. “Yes.” I instantly feel blood rush to my face, setting it on fire because despite the fact that the shirt reaches past my knees and is a nun’s habit compared to most of the things I wear in public, I feel completely naked. “I must’ve left it here—last month when I was here for Silver’s baby shower.” Great—now I just admitted that I carry his T-shirt with me, from place to place, like a security blanket. “I mean—”
“It’s okay,” he tells me in that same smoothed over voice that tells me he’s still trying to be nice. “I like that you kept it.” He looks right at me when he says it, his dark gaze pinned to mine for a few seconds before he finally looks away. Setting the tray down, he shoots me a quick, sheepish grin that sets off a flurry of butterflies in my belly. “Be right back.” He turns away from me then turns back. “Sit down and start eating before it gets cold—don’t wait for me.” The grin on his face flashes bright for a second, nearly blinding me before he’s gone again.
Because I don’t know what else to do, I do what Gray says. Sitting down, I lift the cover off one of the plates. Steak and eggs. Toast and what look like cottage fries. Another covered dish proves to be fruit and cheese. For some reason, looking at the tray and everything on it tightens my chest. Makes it hard to breathe.
“I don’t know shit about wine pairing but I figured at six hundred bucks a bottle it better go with anything I damn well want to—”
I look up from the coffee table to find Gray standing over me, the Chateau d’ Yquem I picked out at the store in one hand, and a pair of my grandma’s wine glasses in the other. When he sees my face, the smile on his vanishes. “What’s wrong?” He looks down at the bottle in his hand and frowns. Suddenly looks more like the Gray I know. The Gray who knows me—who I really am. “This was…” He nods like his mind is made up and he sets the bottle and glasses down with a quiet click. “I should probably go. Your brother’s here—he can take care of you. He can—”
“No.” I’m out of my seat and lunging at him like a lunatic before I can stop myself. “No, I—” I wrap a hand around his wrist, my fingers not even long enough to circle half of it and dig my feet into the floor like I’m preparing myself to get dragged to the door. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” That’s a lie. I know what’s wrong with me and it’s a lot. There’s a lot wrong with me. Too much to even try to unpack right now. “I’m not—” Shaking my head, I look away but I don’t let go. I can’t let go. “It’s been a long time since someone’s tried to take care of me unless it was their literal job and I don’t know… how.” I look up at him and give him a shrug even though my shoulders feel broken. Like someone’s caved my chest in with a wrecking ball. “I don’t know how. I don’t know what I’m doing but I know—I know I’m going to mess this up because that’s what I do. I fuck shit up, Gray—you know I do. It’s the only thing I’m good at but I don’t want to mess this up. I don’t even know what this is but I know it’s more than I’ve ever had and I—”
He pulls his wrist from my grip and I’m sure he’s going to walk away. Just walk out the d
oor, step on the elevator and let it carry him to the lobby so he can get the hell away from me and my messy, poor little rich girl bullshit… but then he’s standing over me and his huge, rough hands are on my face, warm palms pressed against my cheeks. Thumbs skimming over their bones, brushing away tears I didn’t even know were there until I feel the saltwater sting of them being swept away. “Listen up because I’m only going to say this once—you’re a pain in the ass. More specifically—you’re a pain in my ass. You’re spoiled and entitled and I’ve never met someone in such desperate need of a spanking in my entire fucking life—but you haven’t managed to drive me away yet so I guess that means I’m here for it. I’m here for you—as long as you want me to be. I’m here.”
Forever.
I want you here forever.
“Okay.” I nod my head and sigh, feeling grateful and sort of pathetic about it because he’s going to stay. Gray’s seen every ugly part of me that there is and he’s still here. I don’t know why and to be perfectly honest, I don’t care. I’m just glad that he is. “But we cannot drink that wine with scrambled eggs—my grandma would absolutely roll over in her grave.”
Instead of rolling his eyes at me and calling me a spoiled brat, Gray just laughs. “Yes, ma’am,” he says on the tail end of a chuckle. “How about you eat while I shower and then we can go to bed and take the wine with us—how does that sound?”
“Perfect.” It’s true. Despite everything that’s going on, right now, in this room, everything is perfect because Gray is here and he’s smiling at me and somehow, I haven’t managed to make him leave yet. “It sounds perfect.”
THIRTY-THREE
Grayson
I’M IN LOVE WITH HER.
Holy shit—I’m in love with her.
Looking at her, standing there in the muted, amber glow of the floor lamp, wearing nothing by my old T-shirt and what I’m sure are a pair of panties that cost more than my entire wardrobe, it hit me like a runaway truck. Just smacked right into me and kept going, the realization there and gone, from one breath to the next.
