I shouldn’t have provoked Max so early. What if Christian couldn’t erase the video? What if he missed a copy? What if—
The soft notes of Christian’s personalized alert tone burst from my phone.
The one we set so I would know once the job was done.
My heart rattled harder against my ribcage. Now that the moment was here, I couldn’t untie my tongue. How much did I really trust Christian to get the job done? It would be so easy to miss a file. Nothing truly died in cyberspace. And what if Max made a physical copy?
The walls pressed in, caging me in yellowing floral wallpaper and the scent of mildew.
Can’t breathe can’t breathe cantbreathecantbreathe…
Another, more impatient burst of music sliced through the silence. Christian was probably monitoring the situation via the camera and wondering why I hadn’t made my next move yet.
I sucked in a shallow lungful of air.
I’d come this far. There was no backing out now.
“Actually,” I said. “You might want to check your phone. See if that video is still there. Things disappear in cyberspace all the time.”
Beads of sweat dotted my forehead as Max stared at me. I could practically see him piecing the puzzle together—my unannounced arrival, the way I’d stretched out our conversation, why I was suddenly so willing to talk back.
Once it clicked, he jabbed at his phone, his eyes moving back and forth over the screen with frenzied speed.
Air flowed to my lungs again when he snarled.
It was gone. From his phone, at least.
Max didn’t say a word as he pushed past me toward his laptop. Each frantic tap on the keyboard sounded like a gunshot in the silence.
I inched toward the door but kept my eye on him. His reaction would tell me everything—whether Christian had destroyed every copy, or whether he had another copy of the video stashed somewhere.
When Max finally looked up, his features contorted into a mask of rage, my knees weakened with relief.
After years of the tape hanging over my head, it was finally gone.
I was home free.
“What did you do?” he hissed.
“I took back what belonged to me. Control over my body.” A thick pressure inside me eased, so suddenly and completely I would’ve floated off the ground had I not been terrified any movement would shatter this delicate dream. The pressure had been a part of me for so long I hadn’t realized it was there until it was gone. “I also want the painting back. It doesn’t belong to you or your friends.”
Max moved so fast I didn’t get a chance to blink before his hand closed around my wrist in a crushing grip. A small cry fell out at the pain lancing up my arm.
“You fucking bitch—” He only got half his sentence out before tattooed hands yanked him off me and tossed him aside like he was nothing more than a rag doll.
Kage.
Somehow, he’d entered the room without either of us noticing.
“Hands off the lady,” Kage growled.
Max sputtered in shock as he took in the other man’s bulky, six-foot-two frame. “Who the fuck are you?”
Kage crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t answer.
“The painting, Max.” My wrist still throbbed from where he’d grabbed me, but I ignored it. “Where is it?”
His jaw flexed with anger, but he wasn’t dumb enough to test Kage’s capability for violence. “The closet,” he ground out. “In the portfolio bag.”
I glanced at Kage, who nodded. He kept an eye on Max while I retrieved the bag from the closet and unzipped it. The painting was nestled inside the black material, safe and sound and hideous as ever.
Thank God.
“This isn’t over,” Max said as I walked to the door. He’d wrestled his outward fury under control, but his eyes shone with anger and panic. I assumed his “friends” wouldn’t be too happy about him losing the painting. “You think you solved all your problems just because you got rid of the tape and took back the painting? You’re still a liar and a whore. Eventually, your boyfriend will figure it out and toss you aside the way everyone does. The way I’d planned to do before you snuck off in the middle of the night like a coward.”
I stopped in the doorway. Max was pushing every button he could find. Some of it I brushed off; others peeled the scabs off healing wounds until they bled again.
Sweat dampened my palms at the prospect of Josh finding out what happened.
“Maybe I’ll nudge the process along. Give the good doctor a heads up on who, exactly, broke into his house. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the truth.” The poison from Max’s words dripped into my veins.
Kage’s low growl rumbled through the air. He stepped toward the other man, but I held out my arm to stop him.
This wasn’t his fight.
“Actually, Max it is over.” The bag strap slipped against my palms. “You don’t have the tape. You don’t have evidence of anything that happened in Ohio. If you did, you would’ve used it already. And you can try to tell Josh, but he’s not going to believe you over me. You have nothing.”
Max paled. He curled his hands into fists, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.
Without the armor of blackmail, he looked small. Weak, like the Wizard of Oz after the curtain was pulled back.
A strange, unexpected seed of sympathy sprouted in my stomach. For all the terrible things he’d done, Max had saved me when my mom kicked me out. Granted, he’d pulled me into a life I was less than proud of, but without him, I might’ve ended up homeless.
I would still cut his balls off if I had the chance, but he was right. I did owe him. Not money or my body, but some acknowledgment of our shared history that would allow me to walk away for good with a clear conscience.
“I’m sorry you spent all those years in jail,” I said. “Seven years is a long time, and I understand why you’re angry. But you’re out now, and it’s a chance for a fresh start. Don’t get sucked into your old life any more than you already have.” I swallowed hard. “It’s easy to get caught up in old habits and hurts, but you’ll never be happy chasing things that no longer exist. It’s time to move on from the past. I did.”
I walked out, leaving Max red-faced and alone in his hotel room.
My mind tumbled with a thousand thoughts as Kage and I rode the elevator down to the lobby.
It’s time to move on from the past. I did.
Except I hadn’t, not really.
I’d planned to plant the stolen items back in Josh’s house and leave him to figure out why the burglar would do such a thing. But if I did that, my lies would always be an albatross around my neck. Even if Josh never found out what happened, I would know. Every time he kissed me, every time he smiled at me, I would know I was keeping something from him, and it would eat me, and eventually us, alive.
How could you build a relationship on a foundation of lies?
The answer: you couldn’t.
The elevator doors opened. I walked through the lobby, barely noticing the ugly orange carpet and threadbare sofas.
Moving on from the past didn’t mean burying it beneath a new foundation and hoping no one found it; it meant exposing the ugliness to the light and taking responsibility.
You couldn’t heal from something if you didn’t acknowledge it.