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She gapes at me.
“Everyone you know rushes to assure the world I was elsewhere—at a party, at practice, on the fucking moon.” I shrug. “Witnesses will come forward. Meanwhile, my father’s PA will dredge up everything there is to know about you and drag you through the mud, making you out to be a greedy, lying whore desperate for attention."
I don’t actually like the hurt I see in her eyes, but she has to understand there’s no happy ending for her, where she ends up getting what she wants and I end up punished. Not in this world.
“I don’t want to do that to you. All I want is to protect my friends. Friends you threatened. You’re not an innocent victim.”
“For the last time, I didn’t!”
“Then who could have?”
Those eyes. Those secrets she hides in their depths.
I will unravel them all.
15
SARAH
Marius Goltz is the worst kind of monster. The kind that hurts people for no other reason than the fact that they like it. I see it in his eyes, no matter what his mouth spouts out. And he wouldn’t have thosetoysif he wasn’t, anyway.
It says a lot about me that despite being afraid of so many things, so many people, I never actually thought to fear Marius Goltz.
I saw him as a rich pretty boy with a quick smile. Sure, it never reaches his icy eyes, but I figured he was harmless. In Violet’s large circle of acquaintances I occasionally frequent, he’s one of those I can breathe easily around.
I completely missed the fact that he’s a predator.
Of course, they tend to be good at hiding, men like him. The last predator who had me in his claws was the golden boy of Lone Pine. Captain of the football team, ex-boy scout, churchgoer.
I force all thoughts of my past out of my mind, focusing my attention on my current predicament.
There isn’t much I can tell him to convince him I didn’t do what he thinks I did; I already offered my phone and he concluded that I must have a second one. What a joke; the guy clearly hasn’t seen my bank balance.
“While you’re wasting your time with me, the person who wants you to send that money’s likely preparing to post the next video,” I say, hoping to make him go hunt for another bone.
“Tell me who it is and I’ll move on.”
Oh, for Christ’s sake!
Marius lifts his crop up again, and my insides clamp in apprehension.
The first and second impacts were warnings. He was only giving me a glimpse of what he’d do if he doesn’t get his way. He’s going to hit me. In his mind, I’m a villain, a liar, a would-be thief, and it justifies his attack. He’s going to hurt me, and he’s going to like it.
“I don’t fucking know.”
“Say I believe you,” he says, his tone making it abundantly clear he doesn’t. “Whoever did this made you look guilty. Who hates you enough to do that?”
He visibly doesn’t give much stock to this theory, but I am glad he’s at least attempting to think logically.
“And why would I risk sending those threats after making myself lookthatguilty?” I reason, willing him to agree.“I’m not dumb, Marius.”
I’d like to think if I committed a crime, I’d be smarter about it.
“You have a hundred thousand reasons to try,” he contends. “Six figures would change the life of someone like you, right?”
His voice is sugary sweet. I trust it as much as I’d trust a starving wolf.
“Let’s play this out differently. You give me everything right now—the video, any third parties, if there are some—and I’m handing you that hundred grand in cash. No questions asked. We can put all that behind us.”
