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I roll my eyes. “I want to see if we can identify those girls. The chances are, they can lead us to our mystery blackmailer. At the very least, we should be able to find a link between them and Sarah.”
Morgan’s eyes widen. “That’s smart.”
“Why do you sound so surprised?”
“Yeah, Morgan, don’t be shocked.” It’s my turn to do a double take, until my brother adds, “Marius tends to have one good idea per year or so.”
He’s such a dick.
* * *
I don’t start working on the videos right away. Morgan sends them to Markus as soon as we hang up, and he forwarded me the link, but I have to finish some schoolwork, and something tells me I need to brace myself for what I see.
I’m right to leave it until I’m prepared. It’s bad.
I notice our blackmailer has a pattern. First, the videos are obviously taken without the subject knowing it, likely from spy cams such as the ones on Sarah’s clothes and in her room. They’re taking a shower, touching themselves, fucking someone in their room—intimate, compromising scenes people don’t want to get out. And each video ends with a threat.
Next, they become purposeful. They’re touching themselves for the camera. The blackmailer turns them into camgirls, getting them to up the game all the time. First, it’s their fingers, then sex toys, and finally, they fuck someone—or several someones—on camera, like bona fide porn stars.
Watching that pornfest should make me hard, but instead, it’s sickening. Those girls clearly hate what they’re doing.
Forcing myself to remain focused when all I want to do is shut the computer off and grab a strong drink, I analyze the partners, hoping to find a common subject, but the guys and girls on the video with the victims change every time.
As Morgan said, the girls are all on the young side, and they don’t appear to have anything else in common. So far, I’ve only scanned a couple dozen videos, but there’s a tiny Asian thing, a tall, skinny black one, and a curvy girl with a pixie cut.
Maybe that’s the point? I click on one video in each folder and bring them up. One redhead, a blonde, a brunette…but she has blue eyes.
That’s it. We’re dealing with a collector: they purposely go for one girl with a specific look then move on to the next target. Sarah’s their brunette with brown eyes. There’s no other I can spot anywhere.
I sigh, taking one screenshot of each of those girls—the most modest I can—to forward to my PI. If we find them, we can ask what they know about their blackmailers. And even if they know nothing, we can likely find out something by unearthing what they could have in common with Sarah.
43
SARAH
The week drags. I attend my classes, I go to work, and I do my level best to avoid Marius Goltz. Somehow, I succeed. I can’t deal with him after what happened in the bathroom. I wanted him. I wanted everything he dished out and a hell of a lot more. What the hell is wrong with me? I know what kind of man he is. I won’t allow myself to be used like a disposable tissue again. And I can’t trust myself around him, so staying far away seems to be the best option.
Teaching Beaufort on Wednesday and earlier today are the only change to my routine. He honestly didn’t need a tutor; reading the material would have been enough to get him up to speed.
“So, you’re in your junior year, right?” I check. “Why are you taking math so late?”
“Because it’s boring as fuck,” he tells me. “I avoided it as long as I could. But it’s required to study for an MBA post grad.”
I wrinkle my nose. “You want an MBA?”
I don’t know him well, but from what I’ve seen so far, it doesn’t seem like him. Beaufort isn’t fond of structure. I can’t imagine him working behind a desk at some point.
He grimaces. “My father wants me to have an MBA,” he counters. “And what Mael Beaufort wants, he usually gets.”
“Did you tell him you don’t want to study business?”
He laughs like he’s never heard a better joke. “Have you met Mael?” Before I can answer, he says, "I guess not. I could talk until my throat is hoarse. He only hears what he wants.”
“Maybe he wants you to learn to work, in case all your privileges are taken away. Someone could make a bad investment, you’d lose everything, and then what will you have?”
“Darling,” he says, leaning back on the library chair. “I’m one of the heirs to the Carmichael fortune fromma maman’sside.” His accent switches to French as he mentions his mother. I don’t even think he realizes he does it. “And from papa’s side? I get two vineyards, seven castles, a trust fund so large I can buy a small country,and—although he likes to remind me he could disown me—a share in one of the biggest fashion empires of the moment.”
He could have made it sound like he was bragging, but he’s just stating facts. If anything, he sounds tired of it.
