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“I can’t, Diesel, I can’t tell you what he has on me, and you can’t fix this. I don’t even know if I can fix it without us pretending to be together.”
“Please just tell me, if us not being together puts you at risk, tell me and we can work together to bring him down.”
She turns and looks up at me. “You would go against your father and honestly risk everything for me?” I can see that she doesn’t believe me, and I don’t blame her, she is waiting for the other side of me to shine through. But her words about my mother are true, and no one has ever told me she would be ashamed of me.
“I already told you once I would walk away.”
“I presumed it was just a line, a way to reel me in before you spat me out when your father was done doing business with mine.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “You’re still so naive, this was never a quick deal. Your father is a man that mine wants around for the long haul and wants ties to for life.”
Her mouth falls open in shock. “He had me fooled, he was smart. He manipulated me, and his endgame was always a ring and an heir.”
I only just started to put all the pieces together. He knew damn well if he forced me that I would push back, but he has outsmarted me the entire way.
“Fine, I will tell you everything, but I won’t ever give you another chance. Life is too short to waste running away from someone all of the time. It’s exhausting.”
I nod, and we move to the lounge, she sits across from me and picks at her thumbs. “Look, for what it’s worth, I'm sorry. I was triggered when I heard you were working with my father, just like Belle…It’s in the past now, she didn’t want me enough to fight for me.” Fuck and that right there is the basis of it all, no one wanting me enough to fight for me. Isn’t that just fucking sad?
“Diesel, me not telling you wasn’t because I don’t want you, it’s part I don’t deserve it and part protecting Zeke. It’s something I should have been doing a long time ago.”
“What does Zeke have to do with my father?” I ask.
“After my mother died, I started drinking and taking drugs. Zeke was by my side trying to be supportive as he always was. The kids at school would taunt me that he would leave me, who would want to stay with a mess like me when he hasn’t experienced other girls. I had an idea that if I let him experience other girls with me that everything would work out.” She pauses, wringing her hands in her lap. “There was one girl I knew he liked. I could see it, so at a party I set up my phone to tape it for him as a memento. I was so out of it that at the time it seemed like a good idea.
“Fast forward a few months, and I was at a party. I knew he was studying with her for a test. I was drunk and jealous, so I demanded he come and get me. He didn’t want to, but he did, and that’s the night he died. I yelled at him for cheating on me, and it wasn’t until after I was committed for trying to kill myself that Alex, Zeke’s brother, brought his phone in and told me to read his texts. Every fucking message to her he would tell her he loved me and that they could only ever be friends. I wanted to die even more after that. I was numb.”
She looks over at me. “That’s where your father comes into it. He came into my room and showed me a copy of the sex tape and threatened to leak it. He requested that I go to rehab and get clean, and after, I would start here. All he asked was for me to push your buttons, and it wasn’t too long after the fights started that he asked me to pretend to like you. The problem was, I was already falling for you. But here is the kicker, I don’t deserve to be happy, and I can’t risk that tape getting out and tainting Zeke’s family after everything I have put them through.”
Fuck, this goes deeper than I thought. I get up and move to her and drop to my knees between her thighs.
“I’m so fucking sorry for everything you have had to go through. My father is a damn leech that will cling on to anything he can. I’m sorry that he involved you in this.”
“I’m not,” she says through her tears. “I never thought I would be happy again, especially when I didn’t think I deserved it. But you…you and the Alphas, minus Wilder,” she says with a laugh. “You all started chipping away at me, and I started to wonder what it would be like to be happy. It had been years since I truly just smiled and had fun. And you, every time we’re in a room together, my heart beat goes erratic, and I need to be around you in any way possible.”
I know what she means. I reach out my hand and press it against her heart, and she is right, her heart thumps wildly against my skin.
“So what you’re saying is you’re obsessed with me,” I joke, and she laughs and places her hands on my face.
“Maybe a little,” she jokes back.
An idea comes to mind that might actually work. My father is always ten steps ahead of me, but there’s a possibility that I can finally get ahead of him. I wonder if I could talk to her father, explain what my father is like and see if he is willing to double cross him, and get Cyrus out of any deals with my father. I know a guy who can squash these sex tapes before they ever see the light of day.
“What are you thinking?'' She asks me.
“Do you think your father would agree to a secret meeting with me, one he can’t even put on his books?”
She eyes me sceptically and shrugs. “He's due to visit here soon, so I can set up a brunch.”
“Perfect, could you call him now? Don’t mention the tape or anything, maybe push the how much you miss him angle. Anything really. I have to make a call to see if we can’t find this sex tape and delete it.”
“I will go and call him now,” she says. I help her to her feet, and she goes back up towards our room. I dial Marlow’s number.
“Hey, Diesel, what’s up?” He asks when he answers the call. His hatred for my father runs as deep as mine.
“I need a favour.” I run him quickly through the situation. He agrees to take a look and see if he can’t hack into my father’s private files and see what he can find. He has a daughter, and he is furious at the thought of someone one day having a sex tape of her. I hear him relaying our conversation to one of his teammates, Chester, who offers to put my father in a body bag for me.
But for me that would be the easy way out. I want him to see me come out on top. Except it was always to infiltrate his business and ruin it, but right now in this moment, I want to outsmart him when it comes to Cyrus. I want her to be mine on her own accord, not for being blackmailed and not because of a business deal between our parents. Just mine, to see where things go, even if that means I throw it all away. I had always wanted to be the most powerful Briar, but what if standing up for myself makes me more powerful than any of them. Or it could all backfire in my face, and my father will have the last laugh.
