by Chloe Cox
That was sort of a paltry silver lining, though.
Especially because—and this was the worst part—it was dawning on Simone that she couldn’t possibly be the only person to have ever gotten a text like this from Alan Crennel. She might be a high-value target because of her family, but if he’d cloned her phone, he’d obviously been planning ahead. He was practiced at this. He was, at least, a serial blackmailer. And probably far, far worse.
And she’d made Holt promise not to pressure witnesses. Knowing she herself could be a witness. Knowing she could stop this monster any time she wanted—she just had to tell the truth.
Which meant facing the truth. Which mean facing Holt, after he’d seen her like that. Which meant more than she could handle.
Maybe things would have gone differently if Holt hadn’t slid open the door to the library at just that moment, but he did. Simone looked up to find his eyes boring into her as he closed the door behind him. As he stood there, looking like a rougher, sexier James Bond in a damn tux. As he crossed the room until he stood over her while she hid her phone in her lap.
As he saw right through her, as much as a man could.
“You gonna tell me what’s wrong?” he said eventually.
Simone laughed joylessly. It was like the man was psychic, but with the worst timing possible.
“Simone,” he said, and he knelt down in front of her, holding her with those gentle gray eyes.
It was the worst.
It was the worst because he’d looked at her like that before, when he hadn’t known what the right thing to do was, when he’d let himself need her. And all she could hear was what she’d said to him: you always do the right thing, even if it’s not the easy thing.
And because of this man in front of her, Simone Delavigne knew she had to do the right thing, even if it wasn’t the easy thing.
“You know I love you, sweetheart,” Holt said, his gray eyes still searching hers. “And you know I take my responsibilities seriously. And that includes my responsibility to you. If this is gonna work—and it’s going to work—you have to be able to tell your Dom about what’s scaring the ever-loving tar out of you. Maybe not now—”
“You’re right,” she said, immediately, cutting him off before she lost the courage.
And to his credit, he didn’t go all Dom on her. He waited.
Do the right thing, even if it’s not the easy thing.
The answer to her dilemma was suddenly so obvious. Simone just wished she were strong enough to do the right thing and face Crennel without doing…what she had to do next.
“What are you talking about?” Holt finally said.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and she tore her eyes away, stood up, and turned around. She couldn’t face him if he saw that video, and she couldn’t face him now. She might be a coward, but at least she would be a coward who took down a monster. “This was a mistake. Us. We’re too different, Holt. You’re right that I should be able to tell you, but I can’t. I just can’t.”
His voice, when he spoke, was hard.
“Spell it out for me, sweetheart.”
“We can’t be together,” Simone said. “I’m ending it. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t wait for him to see her cry. She gathered her clutch, her phone, and the last scrap of her dignity before she left him there in the library, alone, and walked straight out of the club, all the way to her car.
At least she had a plan to take Crennel down. And it had better work, because it had just cost her the love of her life.
24
When Holt had broken up with Simone, over a year ago, he’d dealt with the fallout in one way. He’d thrown himself into work. Putting bad guys in jail was something he understood. He’d gone hard on helping the world the way he knew how, even if hadn’t been able to help Simone. Not the way she needed.
But things had changed since then.
Everything had changed.
Holt stayed in the library after Simone ended their relationship just long enough to give her space. He wouldn’t chase after her when she was like this, locked in flight or fight, fixated on him as the thing she needed to flee. That would just push her farther away. He knew that now.
But that didn’t mean he was giving up on her.
He would never, ever give up on her.
As he left the club, his mind cleared, settled, and focused. It was familiar, but different. Usually he had two different mindsets for work and for topping a sub. For hunting bad guys, and for domination.
This was both.
As he drove back to the office, his headlights catching the first hesitant drops of rain that portended a storm, the pieces of his plan began to fall into place. He had only a few loose ends to tie up.
And then he could go after Crennel.
Just thinking the man’s name made the bile rise in his throat. Ticked on that primal part of his brain, the one that told him to go hunt the predator. He squeezed the steering wheel and took a deep breath before getting out of his car.
He knew, whatever was wrong with Simone, it had to do with Crennel. He’d waited for her to tell him. He’d gone easy. And it hadn’t done any good. It was time to pull the trigger.
Rich Carlinson was in his office, working late, where Holt knew he would be. The older man’s idea of relaxation was reading law journals, compiling data. He lived and breathed the job.
Just like Holt.
Or like Holt did.
“Rich,” Holt said, and placed the Greenfield file on his boss’s desk. “I need a word.”
The old man looked up from his reading glasses, his bushy eyebrows doing the talking for him.
“Well, looks like you’re going to take it,” Rich said. “But I should say, you’re a mite overdressed.”
Holt looked down at the tux he was wearing. He had a change of clothes in the office. It didn’t change anything. The plan was still on.
“My recommendation on the Greenfield case,” Holt said, pointing at the file. “I’ll save you some time. You’ll cause more damage to that community if you put Mrs. Greenfield in prison, and you’ll probably kill her. So don’t. And don’t try her grandson as an adult, either. He was fifteen when he started, and he did it because his grandmother was sick. He’s still got a chance to be a good man, but you know what will happen if we send him up.”
Rich Carlinson leaned back in his chair. He didn’t look particularly surprised.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“This is my resignation,” Holt said, putting the clean, crisp, newly printed piece of paper on top of the Greenfield file. “Effective Monday. Because my last job is tonight, and it’s undercover.”
Rich nodded.
“You’re going undercover at Alan Crennel’s club?” he said.
“Yes. I’ll be the eyewitness you need.”
“And you think that will permanently damage your ability to do your job?” the old man went on.
Holt nodded. Of course it would. With such a personal stake in this case, any halfway competent defense attorney would go after Holt on the stand. The case would stand on its own merits if they got enough evidence, but Holt’s reputation—and credibility as a witness for future cases—would be destroyed.
“And I accept that,” he said.
“I will remind you, Mr. Manning,” Rich said, now smiling slightly, “that I am the judge of that.”
Holt didn’t move. The longer this dragged on, the longer it would take to get Crennel.
“Noted,” he said.
“You know you’ve changed in the past year,” Carlinson said.
“Yes,” Holt agreed. “But it’s irrelevant.”
“Cut the crap, son,” Carlinson said, and leaned forward suddenly, his long bony finger jabbing at the desk. “Whatever changed you—whoever changed you, and we both know who I’m talking about—she did you a favor. She made you a better man. Life is too easy when you see things in black and white, because then you never have to make tough decisions. Y
ou always know the right answer when you can look at a rulebook, never have to use your own damn judgment. But God didn’t put us on this earth to blindly follow rules. He gave us free will so we could use it, and decide what kind of men we want to be. And I, for one, am glad to see that Miss Delavigne helped you figure that one out.”
Holt was almost never surprised.
He was surprised now.
The older man’s eyes stared up at him like two fiery sapphires, daring Holt to deny it. But he couldn’t. Hearing it out loud like that it was obvious. Losing Simone had made him grow. Both times. This time he could feel the way he used to limit himself so he wouldn’t have to feel complicated things, or face things that he didn’t know how to fix. It disgusted him now. He’d been weak, pretending to be strong.
But Simone had cracked him open. Simone had made him a better man. And he hadn’t put that together before this moment.
“Yes,” Holt said finally. “Simone did me a favor.”
“Well, have you thanked her for it?” Carlinson demanded.
Holt cursed under his breath.
He hadn’t.
He hadn’t bloody thanked her, and he hadn’t told her. And he hadn’t realized that he screwed up the first time because he wasn’t ready to be the kind of man she needed. Simone herself had helped him grow into the kind of man who deserved her, and he’d never told her. So she still thought she needed to hide things from him.
“Not yet,” Holt growled.
“I would get on that, if I were you,” Carlinson said, leaning back in his beaten leather chair. “You can never go wrong with flowers. Trust a man who’s worked through dinner and forgotten to call at least once a week for the last thirty years.”
“I’m not the flowers type,” Holt said, moving toward the door.
“No, you aren’t, are you?”
“But I’ll get her something. You can believe that.”
He would get her Alan Crennel’s head on a plate.
Holt looked down at his boss one last time.
“Is that all?” he said. “Because I have a club to infiltrate.”
“No, that’s not all,” Carlinson said, and he reached across the desk to take up Holt’s resignation. Then he tore it in two. “I don’t accept this. Now go get your man. We’ll deal with the fallout as it comes.”
Holt nodded.
He didn’t know how he was going to get her back yet. He didn’t know how he was going to help her. But he damn well knew he was going to get her a thank-you present.
Alan Crennel, in prison.
25
Simone took a deep breath and forced herself to tear her gaze away from the image of Crennel’s club darkening her rearview mirror. She was parked down the street, and her plan was in place. If you could call it a plan. Really, she didn’t have a whole lot of experience with planning in the whole espionage-blackmail-getting-the-bad-guys area, so she was sort of making it up as she went along.
She was also stalling.
“Ok,” she said. “Ok, ok, ok. You can do this, lady.”
She took one more deep breath, and then checked the little microphone she’d bought for recording interviews after the whole Cave disaster—lesson learned there—and that she’d then hidden in one of her stepmother’s brooches. She’d had to go home from Club Volare—from Holt, who she refused to think about at this moment—to change in order to hide the microphone, and the brooch was the best she could come up with. And of course, there was only one suit (Chanel) that went with that brooch so that it didn’t look completely out of place. Which meant she was going to walk into a sketchy sex club dressed like she was about to address the Daughters of the American Revolution over high tea at someone’s garden party, but whatever.
The important thing was that the mic worked.
Because she was going to get Alan Crennel on tape trying to blackmail her, and then she was going straight to the US Attorney. And then she would, if they let her, personally throw that piece of crap in jail.
They almost certainly wouldn’t let her, but a girl had to dream. And Holt would certainly find out about the tape, but at least he wouldn’t have to see it. And she wouldn’t have to see him after he’d seen it.
She checked herself in the rearview mirror one more time, and it helped. She looked and felt credible in this outfit, like someone who should be taken seriously. Like she could take herself seriously. That was important. She had one shot at this.
Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she opened the door and stepped out into the night.
The walk felt like it took forever, and then, very quickly, like it had taken no time at all. She stood in front of Alan Crennel’s front door in a pool of light and willed herself to press the doorbell.
She had almost worked up the courage when the door buzzed and the electronic lock clicked open. Simone started, then quickly tried to collect herself. She shouldn’t have been surprised—of course Alan Crennel would have a video feed of his front door.
He’d seen her the whole time.
It was both gross and infuriating. The man obviously had some kind of kink for spying on people and then blackmailing them with whatever he’d seen; he’d done it to too many people so far for it to be just a useful tactic. He clearly enjoyed it.
And that was when Simone crossed over from being afraid to being really, really angry.
She pushed open the door and stepped inside. The place was dark, with the usual low, warm sconces and black couches of a makeshift dungeon. She wished she didn’t remember the basic layout, but she did. It made navigating to the stairs, which would lead to the second floor and Crennel’s office, that much easier, because she didn’t have to look around.
She didn’t have to risk seeing another girl like that girl she’d seen the first time she’d come back here. She didn’t know if she could stop herself from intervening if she did.
Simone had thought about that a lot. She’d thought about why it bothered her so much. The truth was that she had chosen to come to Crennel’s that night, over a year ago, because she’d wanted to be humiliated and degraded. It was a choice she made, and she’d done it sober. Simone owned that violation, and she wasn’t going to give that power to anyone else, least of all Alan Crennel. She didn’t expect anyone else to understand that, which was part of why she hadn’t told anyone, but it was important for her to have it straight in her own mind. She owned that night, and everything that came after it. It was a part of her.
But that girl? What about her? What about anyone else who came here and got wasted on something?
Crennel couldn’t have known Simone’s state of mind. Crennel thought she was wasted. Crennel thought it was something else.
And Simone doubted she was his first.
Or his last.
Unless Simone stopped him.
She climbed the stairs, her eyes on the door at the end of the hall, where an eerie blue light seeped out and stained everything it touched.
Do the right thing, even if it’s not the easy thing. The hardest part was over. The hardest part had been letting go of Holt so she could do this at all. After that, what could Crennel possibly do?
She knocked on the devil’s door.
“Come in, Simone,” came the oily voice through the closed door. She could hear him smiling. “It’s not locked.”
Simone rolled her eyes, put her hand on the knob, and put her game face on.
“Alan,” she said as she opened the door.
Crennel’s office was exactly like she expected it to be: every available surface was covered in computer monitors. There was a big, wide desk, behind which Crennel sat and stared at her with an unnerving intensity. The desk itself was littered with computer parts, bits of wire, little electronic looking things that she assumed were going into, or had come out of, the half-built computer tower on one end of the desk.
The whole thing looked like a nest. A rat’s nest. And now that she saw it, she couldn’t unsee it. Crennel himself was a weird
mix of high tech and low tech, moneyed and feral. The way he obsessively collected and exploited video made her think of a predatory pack rat, if a predatory packrat got off on that kind of thing.
He even moved like a rat, with tiny muscles in his face twitching as he looked her up and down with red-rimmed eyes and a joyless smile.
“Cutting it close, aren’t we?” he said, suddenly, his voice too loud. Then he giggled. “You only have a few more hours before your big debut. Or is it your second debut? Were you actually a debutante? I fucking bet you were.”
He giggled again.
He was talking awfully fast.
Without having to look very hard, Simone spied the little pile of what looked like cocaine on the desk, by his hand.
Well, now some things made sense, in a twisted kind of way. But Simone still had to play the part. She still had to get him talking, and she had to get him to admit to everything, on tape.
She looked him in his red-rimmed eyes and said, “I think you’re bluffing.”
Crennel threw his head back and laughed.
“You’re not here because you think I’m bluffing, Simone,” he said. “You must have figured out I cloned your phone. I have all your contacts, I’ve read all your messages. I could send that video to everyone from an untraceable number with a single keystroke. It would be so easy.”
Simone swallowed, and ignored the furious beating of her panicked heart. He could do that. She couldn’t stop him. But she could stop him from hurting anyone else.
Play the part.
“If you sent that video to everyone in my address book, all it would take is one word from me to get this club shut down for good,” she said.
Crennel laughed again. “Oh, no, Simone,” he said. “That’s not how the world works at all. Let me show you.”
With a few lightning keystrokes, the visual on the biggest monitor changed. The view of the Sinsations main playroom flickered away, and what replaced it was…
