Max
I WANTED TO rip my eyes out of my fucking head as soon as I saw Alina on the screen. Moaning. Her legs wrapped around that bastard. Logically, I knew she’d been dating him at the time, and would’ve had sex with him, but it didn’t change the rage and jealousy setting my blood ablaze. Add to it the fact he’d taped her without her knowledge, to do God knew what with the video afterward made me want to kill him, quite literally.
Jealousy had never been an issue in my life before. But since being with Alina, I swore the emotion made a daily appearance.
Then when I saw the video, I almost lost my mind, half crazy with the need to rip the guy apart, only to find out it was her ex, the one who’d physically assaulted her.
I now understood the term seeing red, because my vision was hazy at best. Adrenaline raced through me, and I thought I was going to have a goddamn heart attack.
After Alina and I left the hospital the first time, we’d stopped by the garage and picked up my car. Her father lived close to an hour’s drive outside the city, depending on traffic, and I didn’t want to be stuck in the back of a cab for that long, so I’d decided to drive. Her fascination with my Mercedes had been amusing. What I wouldn’t give to go back in time and revel in her fascination over the brand-new coupe.
Everything had changed.
I couldn’t unsee the video.
I couldn’t stop picturing her with him.
Irrationally, there was a small part of me that blamed her for the existence of the video, even though I knew she’d been destroyed by it.
We were twenty minutes into the ride back to see her father when Alina broke the suffocating silence.
“Max, I . . . I don’t. . . .” She trailed off, failing to find her words. Words that would do no good in assuaging my brimming anger. From the corner of my eye, I could see her fidgeting with the hem of her skirt, her fingers twisting the material until it looked like she was going to rip it.
Keeping my eyes straight ahead, I placed my hand on her thigh. “Listen, I know none of this is your fault. You are not to blame, but I can’t talk about it right now. I’m barely holding it together as it is, and I don’t want to say anything in the heat of the moment I’ll regret later. So I need the silence. Okay?” I gently squeezed her leg before removing my hand.
“I understand.” She turned to look out the window, sniffling every now and again. I hated she was hurting, but I needed more time to revel in my selfishness before I could be there for her.
Gathering my emotions, my steps were laden with confusion and resentment as we walked through the parking lot of the hospital. I’d stayed away from Alina’s father out of respect for her, leaving her place when I knew he’d be stopping by, even staying in the waiting room while she went into his hospital room to check on him.
But not today. I was going to be the one demanding answers about the video whether Alina liked it or not, all while trying to keep in mind the man had just had a heart attack.
I’d taken the laptop from the car before she could, extracted the flash drive and crushed it into pieces under my foot. Only then did I explain I was going to get the bottom of what was going on. She tried to plead with me to let her handle it, but when I stormed off and refused to listen to her, the only thing she could do was follow me, jogging just to catch up.
“Max, please,” she begged, grabbing my arm before I could kick open her father’s room. “Please just let me talk to him. Without you.” Alina’s eyes were red and puffy, and while the last thing I wanted to do was upset her even more than she was already, the fury running through my veins refused to allow her to take the lead. She was mine, and I needed to protect her, even if that meant ignoring her request to go into the room without me.
“It’s not going to happen.” I shoved open the door to room five twenty-two and stepped inside, Alina close on my heels.
“What are you doing here?” her father asked, trying to sit up in bed and looking pained with every effort. “Alina? What’s going on?” She stepped around me and rushed to the side of the bed.
“Why do you have it?” she gritted, fisting her hands at her sides.
“What are you talking about?” He managed to prop himself up that time. “Why are you so upset?” He reached for her hand, but she backed away, bumping into me in the process.
“Where did you get the video from?” I asked, knowing damn well it had to have come from Geoffrey, but what I didn’t know was why?
Her father’s eyes widened, and he swallowed nervously. “What video?”
“The video of me and Geoffrey,” Alina interrupted, a sob tearing free from her lips. “Oh God, Dad, why do you have it? Did he send it to you? What does he want?” Barely able to hold it together, Alina reached back and grasped onto my arm to hold herself steady, all while watching her father.
“I tried to shield you from ever seeing it.” He took a breath, his eyes bouncing between Alina and me. “I want to talk privately with my daughter,” he demanded. Even bedridden he was trying to assert his dominance.
“No. I’m staying whether you like it or not.” I tossed his laptop on the foot of his bed and crossed my arms, my expression hard.
He knew he wasn’t going to win, so he leaned back and closed his eyes. “I received the video a few days ago. It was waiting for me in my mailbox. I had no idea what it was when I pushed Play.” He ran his hands over his face, finally opening his eyes to look at his daughter. “I deduced it was Geoffrey who sent it, of course, but I still didn’t know why, and certainly why after all this time. But I had my answer when he called later that evening demanding two hundred thousand dollars or he’d leak it to the press.”
I knew if the video ever got out, Alina’s good name and that of her father would be tainted by the scandal, never mind her reputation would be ruined.
“So where does he want to meet you?” I asked, pacing in order to collect my wayward thoughts. “Did he give you a time and place yet?”
“I’m supposed to meet him tomorrow, but I don’t see how that’s going to happen.”
“Does he know you’re in here?” I stopped pacing long enough to ask my question.
“No.”
“Then I’ll meet him with the money. I’m assuming he’s going to hand over the original in exchange?”
“He said as soon as he has the money, he’ll tell me where he put the original. He won’t have it on him.”
“What’s to stop him from coming back for more? I’m sure he can make as many copies of the video as he wants,” Alina chimed in, her worried expression tearing at the shreds of my protectiveness.
“I don’t have any assurances except the one he gave me. That he’d keep it private if I paid him.”
“Dad, you know you can’t trust him,” Alina cried, collapsing into the nearest chair and resting her head in her hands. “Especially if he’s still all messed up.”
“Which is why I had someone look into him.”
“Is it the same someone you had look into me?” I couldn’t help myself. He didn’t answer, though, instead focusing on his daughter.
“Turns out he owes Lenny Brischoff a lot of money.”
“Who’s that?” Alina asked, still sitting restlessly near the bed.
“He’s a ruthless loan shark. Rumor has it he only gives you one time to pay up, and if you don’t, then you’re never heard from again. And it looks like Paulson has been dodging him from what I hear.”
My mind raced, bouncing from giving the guy what he wanted to calling the police and reporting him, to beating the shit out of him.
Everything was happening so fast.
“So then here’s what we do,” I instructed. “You tell him you’re going to meet him tomorrow with the money. Then somehow you get in touch with this Lenny character and give him the details of the meet.” Alina stared at me like I’d lost my mind. “What’s the problem?”
“I-I . . . ,” she stuttered. “I don’t want anyone killed.”
“We’re not going to kill anyone. We’re simply going to give Brischoff some information. What he chooses to do with it is on him.”
“I don’t like it,” she blurted, closing her mouth when she saw how close I was to losing it.
“But you’d like the video leaked onto the Internet? Because you know that’s what he’ll eventually do anyway. Your father can’t keep paying him, and you said so yourself, what’s to stop him from coming back for more?”
“Why doesn’t everyone just calm down?” her father interjected. “Alina. Look at me.” She slowly turned to face him. “Although I don’t like it either, we don’t have a choice.” She shook her head. “I’m only trying to protect you.”
“We have to do it,” I added. “Geoffrey’s the one who got into bed with Brischoff. And now he’s got to deal with it. Besides, do you honestly think he’s going to all of a sudden take the money from your father, give it to the loan shark and turn his life around? From the little I know about this guy, I can wager a year’s salary he’ll come back for more money. Guaranteed.”
Silence swirled through the air while I waited to see what our next move would be, and it came in the form of a nod from Alina.