“Look.”
I held out the photographs. In black and white, grainy and dark but still visible, was the two of us kissing on the roof of the banquet hall.
“What else?” he asked, suddenly all business.
I showed him the rest. It was a series of us kissing each other, stopping only when we were interrupted by Madison the assistant.
Cole’s face slowly darkened. I got to the last photograph and noticed something written on the back.
“It says, ‘Five thousand dollars, five p.m., five days.’ That’s it.”
“Blackmail,” Cole grunted, standing up.
He was furious.
“Who would do this?” I asked him.
“Come on,” he said, looking at me. “We both know who this is.”
I shook my head. “Really, I don’t.”
“That paparazzi piece of shit that I knocked out. He must have snapped these without even realizing what they were.”
I nodded slowly. “And now he’s blackmailing you.”
“Explains why he didn’t press charges.”
I shook my head in total shock. I looked through the pictures again as Cole paced the room, fury rolling off him in waves. It was palpable, his anger, and it scared me.
“He knows what these pictures would do,” I said. “They would ruin our parents.”
“I know that.”
“And, Cole, our marriage. If he digs . . .”
“I know that, too.”
I stared at him, terrified.
“What are we going to do?”
He stopped pacing and looked at me. I’d never seen someone so serious in my entire life.
“I’ll take care of this.”
“Cole—”
But he had already turned and stormed out of my room. I got up and followed him out into the hall and down the steps.
“Cole, wait,” I said.
He ignored me, throwing the front door open. He went out into the street and climbed onto his bike.
He gave me one last look as he kicked the motorcycle to life and sped out into traffic.
I watched him disappear.
Something had almost happened between the two of us. Somehow, something had almost changed because of what had gone down in the dressing room. I’d felt myself almost cross a line.
But the pictures had pulled us back. Things had shifted, ever so slightly, but I knew it was true.
How could I have been so stupid?
I shook my head, afraid, as I went back inside.
I was afraid for my parents and afraid of what Cole made me feel. But I was also afraid for him and what he was going to do.
I dialed his number but got his voice mail.
Chapter 10
Cole
It was surprisingly easy to find him.
Since his name was on the police report, and I was directly involved with the incident, all I had to do was make one phone call to a bored desk sergeant and I knew what his name was.
Sergey Svitko lived alone in L.A. and published mainly fluff fiction for women’s magazines and other periodicals. He also sold images and other things like that. Basically, he was a paparazzi for hire with aspirations to be a real journalist, but the guy was clearly too much of a sleazeball to get his shit together.
Or at least that was my guess. From what Google told me, Sergey had never held any other jobs or even had very many friends. He lived and breathed the celebrity circle, sometimes dabbling with startup assholes.
Which was probably what he was doing in San Francisco the night I clocked him.
It took me five hours on my bike to get to L.A. I wound my way through the California foothills, the smell of the ocean never too far away. I wove in and out of traffic, dodging the occasional speed trap, and basically kept my nose pointed directly at Sergey the Fucked Asshole.
I should have probably been a little nervous about how easy it was to find out all his information. Frankly, it was insane that I could Google the guy’s name and figure out his home address and plenty more besides, but that was the world we lived in. Even fighters had to have a social media presence anymore. It wasn’t enough to be a tough motherfucker; you had to be likeable, too, for some fucking reason.
I checked into a seedy motel for the day and crashed. The place was probably full of hookers and their clients, but it didn’t matter to me. I didn’t plan on staying very long.
My phone kept ringing all night and all morning. It was Alexa, trying to stop me from finding the Sergey fucker. I couldn’t talk to her, not yet, not until I had found the guy and killed him. Or at least beat him to a quivering pulp.
So I turned off my phone and went to sleep, pulling the heavy curtains shut. I was bone-tired from riding all night, and I’d need a little rest to be sharp the next day.
Hours passed. When I finally woke up, the sun had already set. I rolled out of bed, took a quick shower, and then got dressed. I headed out into the cool L.A. night and hit the streets.