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“Cory,” I warn. “If you have something to say, spit it out. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.”
* * *
“So,you’re the reason TJ Larson, Senator Gemma Larson’s son, has a limp.”
Evie jumps to her feet and wheels around to face me. Her face is devoid of color. “How the hell did you find that out?”
I shrug and step further into her room, brandishing a brown file. “I know that the story was supposed to be buried, but it didn’t take a lot of digging for me to find it.”
Evie’s mouth presses into a thin white line.
“Let me guess. Spoiled brat goes out for a joyride and loses control of her car? That would’ve been a much better headline.” I throw the brown file onto the table behind her and fold my arms across my chest. “What, no moral high ground?”
Evie swallows. “It wasn’t like that. I just took the car out to blow off some steam.”
I shrug. “I don’t care why you did it. The point is you did, so you don’t get to stand there and pretend like you’re better than me.”
Evie pushes her hair out of her face and frowns. “It was an accident. What you’re doing here and what you do as a member of this, whatever this is—"
“I’m not a member of anything.”
“Whatever. You can’t compare a car accident to kidnapping and holding someone captive.”
“Maybe not, but if I found this, so can Isaiah.”
Evie paled. “You wouldn’t.”
“He’s going to leak the information, Evie. You and I both know it. I don’t think people will appreciate knowing that Governor Coombes paid to have his granddaughter’s name kept out of the headlines. I didn’t even see anything about an investigation. I wonder who he bribed.”
“It wasn’t my grandfather.”
I tilt my head to the side and stare at her. “Go on.”
Evie opens and closes her mouth several times before her expression turns resolute. “It was my mother. She didn’t want any of it to blow back on my grandfather.”
I let my arms fall to my sides and exhale. “Isaiah is going to have a field day with this. Evie, you and your mother could get into a lot of trouble.”
“I didn’t know—”
“Help me,” I interrupt with a roll of my eyes. “Help me, so I can help you. We can all get out of here.”
“”You’re trying to use blackmail to force me to help you? How does that make you any better than the man you claim you didn’t help kidnap me?”
“Because I’m blackmailing you for the right reasons.”
And there will be time to make it up to her once we’re back in the real world.
I’m not above crossing a few lines to get to where I need to go so long as it’s something I can come back from.
But Evie doesn’t know that.
“You’re not as high and mighty as you think,” I tell her. “Look, as far as I can tell, the only way out of this is to convince your grandfather to give Isaiah what he wants.”
“Or what?”
I take a step closer to her, but she doesn’t flinch. She only tilts her head back to look up at me. Her dark eyes are wide and resolute as she stares at me. “There is no ‘or what’ here. Do you really want to test a man like Isaiah?”
Something in my stomach lurches at the thought of her being exposed.
