It all happens in a flash, but it’s also as if time stands still.

I know both of those things can’t be true at once, but right now, they are. I watch as Callahan lunges for Danny. My eyes flash in confusion, not understanding what has caused the man I’ve given my heart to lash out at the man who gave me a chance. The man who saw potential in me and believed in my ability to be a model.

I reach for Cal to pull him back, but he just throws a cell phone in my direction.

I catch it, gripping it tightly in my hands at the same moment Cal’s hands grip tightly around Danny Bruneau’s neck.

Cal squeezes until Danny’s face turns red, and Danny reaches for Cal, clawing at his hands, and that’s when time stalls out for me.

For everyone at this premiere.

Everyone in the room stops moving and looks at the two men in one another’s clutches. Danny’s eyes go wide, and Cal’s go dark—fueled with a fury I’ve never seen in him. I’ve only seen Cal in a fight once, back at the club the first night we met—and he was angry then... but this? This is personal. Deeper.

Cal is out for blood.

I look down at the phone in my hands. A video is on the screen and with trembling hands I press play. But even from the still frame, I know what I am about to watch.

What I never wanted to see.

Something so intimate, so sacred, so pure.

Me, on my knees before the man I love. Giving Cal my body as he gives his to me.

On the throne room floor, I have Cal’s hard cock in my mouth and am sucking hard and fast. I remember how our words of commitment, our I love yous were heavy in the air that day. But this footage doesn’t capture that. This video is of my bare body giving my boyfriend a blow-job.

The video keeps rolling as my head bobs up and down. Cal’s eyes are closed, his hands are in my hair as he pulls my head closer to his groin. You can hear our moans, our grunts, you can hear us as we make love.

My eyes filled with tears as I watch, my mascara running rivers down my face, and I know my cheeks are streaked in black.

I shake my head, gasping as I cover my mouth, holding the phone so tightly in my hand never wanting anyone else to get ahold of this.

No one can see this.

I’m shaking, and I fall to the ground. My eyes lift for a moment, watching Cal’s bicep pull back, and as a punch lands square across Danny’s jaw. Without restraint, Cal pushes Danny toward a wall, people move aside, shrieks and hollers fill the room.

Security rushes in, and Gretchen and Colette fall to the floor next to me, trying to understand what’s happening amidst all this chaos.

My hands hold the phone as the video plays, as I...

God, I can’t watch anymore.

Colette and Gretchen watch the video, gasping as they come to realize what I am processing.

As I come to understand what Danny has done to me.

To them.

To Cal.

And with a deep ache in my belly, I register the worst crime of all.

I understand what Danny Bruneau has done to Sawyer Bennett.

How? Why?

No.

The reality hits me, I cry out as the realization floods me, as I watch Callahan yell in Danny’s face.

“What the fuck did you do? You will pay for this, you fucking piece of shit.” Callahan’s words are loud and volatile and the press is here and they take pictures of everything, flashes surround us, a hush falls over the room.

Sawyer’s family witnesses this alongside everyone else, and I wish they could have a moment of privacy. I hate this for them.

I hate this for all of us.

This city is cruel, more calculated than I wanted to believe.

The people you trust are frauds. The people you love can be taken in a moment. And what is left?

When the dust settles? What is there?

All that we have is a moment. The here and the now.

We have to hold tight to them.

After all, they people we love most can be taken in a flash.

Nothing is sacred when people are hungry for fame; it’s like a flame that can’t be quenched.

Everything and everyone has a price tag.

I don’t want to know what Danny thought I was worth.

Danny sputters as Cal is forced away from him by security, his death grip on him had been so tight that Danny is now keeled over, gasping for breath.

Cal’s fists are clenched—his strength and honor, his integrity has been publicized.

He didn’t want to show his face... and I understand that... but his character? That can’t be locked away.

It is his essence. It is who he is at his very core and I love him more in this moment I ever dreamed possible.

Cal will fight for me.

He is fighting for me. For us.

And in this town that wants to destroy, Cal has vowed to lift me up.

I’m far from my daddy and my grandma, but Cal is here, willing to protect me.

Danny, though, he is nothing.

He begs for forgiveness. His voice is ragged and raw, desperate. His voice so very weak.

“I never meant to hurt anyone,” he sobs. I get to my feet, step toward him, needing to understand this man I so trusted. “I was blackmailed. I was forced to do this. I was only trying to pay my wife’s bills. She was dying and I needed the money. I had an opportunity that seemed too good to be true...”

His words are lost through his pleading. Security lifts him to his feet, everyone trying to get to the bottom of what’s going on.

They still haven’t seen the evidence in my hand.

They don’t understand that blackmail or not, Danny is the one behind the scandal.

I click on the phone still in my hand. In Albums, I see a cache of footage from multiple rooms at the club. Other celebrities have been filmed. My heart races as Gretchen and Colette grip my shoulders, steadying me.

We’re in this together and that gives me comfort.

I click on Photos and see so many shots of the last month—all taken at the Fuck Club.

We’re speechless, but we know what we see.

We know what Danny Bruno has done.

He brought us here, Gretchen, Collette, and me. Three women with no prior experience of this industry. He told us we were required to attend events with him, come to the Fuck Club with him. He encouraged us time and time again to join him there.

Never acting like it was a big deal when those articles came out against Colette and Gretchen. Never suggesting that this might be a bad situation for us.

Instead, he brushed off our concerns and told us it was just business. And that any press was good press.

And we were too naïve to understand.

The person who was supposed to guide us was the person leading us into the lion’s den.

He’s a monster and he needs to pay.

Cal has been pulled back by security and is dragged away from the premiere. Danny is taken too; the security guards need to understand what just went down.

And I hold the evidence that is going to put the man I trusted behind bars.