Page 60 of Not Your Golden Boy

Holberg walked two steps farther before turning back. “The price went up. You’re too slow.”

“I’m not paying you anything,” Harry insisted.

“It’s up to seven hundred thousand now.”

Harry clenched his jaw so tightly he was surprised his teeth didn’t explode. “The video won’t get you anywhere. We’ll claim it’s AI. We’ll kick up a fuss about deepfakes and celebrity stalking. The press was already spanked once for hacking into celebrity phones a few years ago. Nikky will come out of the whole thing looking like a hero, and your reputation in Hollywood will be gone.”

Holberg shrugged. “People will believe whatever they want to believe, whether you claim it’s a fake or not. Either way, images of Nikky Smith getting his prostate nailed by a grizzled musical hack ten years older than him will forever exist in the world. Our Nikky is a sensitive soul. How do you think that would make him feel? Humiliated enough to run away from his promising career for good?”

Harry gaped. The man was evil. Anyone who would deliberately go after someone as sweet and pure, not to mention talented, as Nikky was a demon.

“Walk,” Holberg ordered again, louder, gesturing down the street. “And turn left at the next intersection.”

Harry despised the man with everything he had, but he had no choice but to do as the areshole ordered. Nikky’s career and his peace of mind depended on it.

“Why are you doing this?” He glared as they crossed the street and entered Holland Park. “What kind of fucking arsehole gets off on hurting someone as kind and artless as Nikky?”

“You underestimate the power of money,” Holberg laughed, pointing toward a shady corner of the park. “LA life is expensive. It needs supplemental income sometimes.”

Harry huffed in derision.

“You should be asking yourself why someone as naïve as Nikky Smith bothered to get involved in the cutthroat business of Hollywood when he has about as many defenses as a newborn kitten,” Holberg went on.

Harry grimaced. He’d had the same thought himself a few times over the last week. He also knew the answer. Nikky was a dreamer, a talented dreamer, who wanted to see the best in the world but had learned the wrong set of survival skills growing up.

“He’s not as helpless as you seem to think he is,” he argued.

Holberg laughed. “Yeah, right.”

It was true, even though Nikky’s defensive strategy was more flight than fight.

But that’s what Harry was there for. That’s why the two of them fit so perfectly together, why they made a great team. They didn’t just complement each other in one way either. They made beautiful music together, in and out of the bedroom.

“I’m not letting him give in to your blackmail,” he said as they neared the corner of the park. “People like you never give up anyhow. If you think you can milk someone like Nikky for all he’s worth, you won’t leave him alone until he’s dead. And you’ll probably orchestrate that, too, and try to profit from it.”

He realized how true that statement was after he’d already spoken it, and it made him feel sick.

Holberg answered with a scoffing snort. “We’ll see.”

Harry’s patience was at an end, and he was seconds away from digging in his heels and refusing to go another step when he noticed Albion sitting calmly on a bench just ahead, scanning through something on his phone. As soon as the man spotted Harry and Holberg approaching, he lowered his phone and smirked.

“There you are,” he said, standing and meeting them as they neared the bench. “It’s about time.”

“I told you there was no rush,” Holberg said.

Harry darted a glance between the two men like they were Victorian thugs who had lured him into an alley to rob him blind and beat him into a pulp. Essentially, that was what they were doing.

“There’s always a rush,” Albion snapped, frowning at Holberg. “I want this over and done with so Nikky can get back to recording and I can get what I want from him.”

“Then you’re willing to give me what I want?” Holberg asked as he gestured for the three of them to begin a walk around the perimeter of the park.

Harry’s skin prickled. Holberg and Albion weren’t in league with each other. It was more like an uneasy truce to get a specific job done. The fact that they wedged him into the middle between the two of them as they walked was a flashing neon sign that the two didn’t like each other.

He could work with that.

“I’m willing to pay your half million for the video,” Albion said.

Holberg shook his head. “Thanks to Harry here, the price has gone up to seven hundred thousand.”