The videos haven’t leaked yet. Just veiled rumors.
They’re scheduled to go live in a few hours, if everything goes according to plan.
When I went searching for dirt on her, I knew we’d find a mountain’s worth, but never this. It couldn’t have turned out more disgustingly perfect had I written the outcome myself.
“You’ve seen all the lies on the news,” she cries—no, sobs. A worthy, pathetic performance of self-pity and denial if I’ve ever heard one. “I think it’s Stephen, Drew.”
Exactly what I wanted her to believe. How did I affect that? A kind comment here. A soft tone there. Barely gave her anything in the last few weeks out of respect for Lexi, but in her mad desire to own me again, Kaylee took the scraps I threw her willingly.
To the point that she never handed over the fake specs—well, we know they’re fake, she still doesn’t—to Stephen. She’s been proving herself loyal to me.
And he’s caught onto it.
Last I saw, he showed up at her apartment two nights ago and an all-out fight ensued.
Lexi and I might’ve been sitting back, eating snacks, watching it together in my apartment.
Sue us.
He even went as far as to rough her up, fisting her hair, promising a brutal end if he found out she was betraying him.
The only fury I felt was the idea of him treating my Lexi like that over the years. How many times did he put his hands on her? Rape her? Hurt her?
“What do you mean you think it’s Stephen? You think this is because we’re partnering together?” Kaylee’s not the only one worthy of some kind of award. Even I can’t believe how caring I sound.
“Yes! I . . . please promise me you won’t tell him anything.”
“Kaylee, ever since we started working together again, have I given you any indication I plan on betraying you?”
“I don’t know, Drew! You’re with Lexi again and she hates me—”
“Don’t worry about her. This isn’t about her.” Hate myself for saying that. My mind aches with the wrongness of it.
“You love her though! Everyone knows that.”
“In my own way, yes.” Meaning: obsessively, all-consuming, with rational or cure.
Kaylee doesn’t need to know that, though.
“However, Kaylee, this isn’t about her. Is Stephen threatening you in any way? Do you need me to help protect you?”
There’s a hesitation on her end, then a whispered, “You would do that? You’d protect me from him?”
“Kaylee, he’s a fucking monster. I’m sure you have no idea what he did to Lexi”—fucking lies, the bitch always knew and condoned it—“but he thrives on hurting women. Of course, I wouldn’t let him do anything to you!” Forget everything I’ve done leading up to now; the sincere-sounding fervor I’m portraying will end up being the main reason I go to hell.
“I’m . . . I’m starting to understand that. Oh God, Drew, I need help.”
No faking the honest on that last part. She’s drowning, her world imploding, not an actual ally in sight.
That’s where I step in, I suppose, although, ultimately, I’m the worst enemy she’ll ever have.
The last one she’ll ever have.
“Kaylee . . . is he the one spreading the rumors about you?”
“I . . . I think so, yes! I mean, who else could it be? He instructed me to steal that information and when I refused . . . well, he managed to get his hands on it anyway.”
Translation: they partnered up to steal it, she profited off it alongside him, and now she’s paranoid he’s using their dirty little secret against her.
Told you. Couldn’t be turning out better had I fucking written it myself.
“Oh, Kaylee. How could you trust him and use those plans within your company?” Standing before the windows of my office, I stare off into the night, glittering with city lights and the mad rush of humanity below.
“I thought he was my friend, Drew,” she whines pathetically.
Thank God Lexi isn’t here. The way I’ve had to speak to this woman the last few weeks to weasel my way into her trust disgusts even me. Again, no flirtation or inappropriate comments have been exchanged—at least not on my end—but it doesn’t sit right with me, regardless.
I’ll make it up to her soon, though.
“Kaylee, we need to meet up somewhere private to further discuss this. Remember the deal I mentioned I wanted to work on? The one for the new skyscraper on the pier?”
She sniffs like a lost child on the other end. “Yes. Still can’t believe that’s yours. Stephen suspected but he was never able to get concrete information.”
And I’m risking her running to tell him now.
Hence the need for urgency. I’m thinking those videos of her extracurricular activities need to air tonight, rather than later. “Can you meet there? He doesn’t know it’s mine, so if he is watching us both, as long as he doesn’t tail you, we can—”
“Are you bringing your little Lexi along?” Ah, there goes her sweet, victim skin, shedding away in an instant of petty bitterness.
Dismissing her tone, lest I give my true intentions away, I say, “No. It’s just you and me. I told you. I want to help you. If he’s using his crimes against you, this needs to stop. Immediately.”
It’s funny how some people can become so obsessed with an outcome that no matter the signs pointing in the opposite direction, they will jump to believe what they want to believe anyway.
Men do it, too, but women are especially guilty of this.
All those years, all that distance, my betrayal when I got her kicked out of school before graduation, my self-destruction in Lexi’s name . . . and Kaylee still never let the idea of a future with me go.
Time and time again I see it happen. Men giving women all the signs of not wanting them that way, and the women holding on tight to the idea no matter what.
It isn’t just her desperate need for a friend at this moment that weakens her. It isn’t even her own cracks in her psyche, the ones that make her even more unstable than Lexi and I.
It’s that bloody idea, that future where she saw herself on my arm, as my wife, at the height of society with our names combined. It’s the tiny, microscopic, smidgen of hope.
People like her aren’t usually raised to know how to love. As honorable as her father is, we’re still an empty social class, obsessed with all the wrong things.
But I guess in her own way she has loved me all this time. What else can be behind what she says next?
“God, Drew. Thank you so much. So, so much. I wasn’t a good girlfriend to you, I know that, that’s why you did everything you did, but I promise one day I’m going to make it up to you. You’re the only thing I’ve got right now.”
Sad, pitiful little girl. I’m about to end, spring the worst deception on her she’s ever had, yet she clings to the idea of me being her savior. Of me somehow becoming hers. “Can you meet me around ten tonight?”
“I’ll be there, Drew. I promise.”
chapter 50
t he building is still in the middle of being finished, the windows installed on fifty-percent of it. The tops floors, where the office spaces will be, remain open.
Dangerous if one isn’t careful and gets too close.
Perfect for what I’m planning.
I would’ve taken this little meeting all the way up to the thirty-second floor, but with Lexi somewhere near, and her jealousy as unpredictable as mine can be, I didn’t want to risk it.
So I settled for the midway point. Fifteen stories up. Roughly one-hundred-and-fifty feet from ground level.
If all goes according to plan, the construction site on the ground below should have a new decoration soon.
I’m hoping to get her to do it herself, but I’m not above pushing the bitch if I must.
Especially after Shell’s latest report.
Kaylee might believe Stephen is her enemy, but that isn’t stopping her from trying to ingratiate herself to
him. Just a few hours ago, she met with him in public, at a restaurant downtown. Ever since Stephen began working with Barnard’s connections inside the mob, paying off the remaining debt, trying to buy himself assassins—Shell can’t confirm this yet, but I’m convinced the men responsible for the shootout were mob associates—Lexi and I have had a tail on us, on top of our own guards.
Something else Shell hasn’t confirmed, but I’m not fucking stupid. I’ve seen them following us. I’ve allowed it because Stephen’s game is becoming more and more dangerous as time passes.
So is mine. I won’t deny it.
The point is, not only did Kaylee go ahead and gave him the fake Providence specs I gave her as a show of good faith . . . when he discussed recruiting her to kidnap Lexi so he could have her again, the fucking bitch agreed.
There’s a small fold-out table I brought with me here. On it? The laptop I plan to play my surprise on. The sight of it is the only thing that calms me, the only reason I don’t finish her the moment she comes into sight.
“Drew? You’re here?” she calls from the door to the stairwell.
The wind rushes into the open floor, rustling plastic sheets covering various parts of the walls. Behind one of them, I see her outline as she moves closer, searching me out.
“Over here, Kaylee!” I call.
She runs the rest of the way and my first good look at her in over a week astounds me.
In sneakers and regular clothing, without a shred of makeup in sight, the wreck of a woman she now is can’t be hidden. Her pin-straight hair is pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, face pale, eyes red and surrounded by bags.
Daddy cut off her access to his accounts and business this morning.
Yes, she has her own accounts with money she stored over the years, but clearly she’s aware this is the beginning of the end.
“Drew, oh my God, you won’t believe what happened.” She crashes into me, hands on my chest, and it takes everything I am not to jerk back in disgust.
“What happened?” Placing my hands on her shoulders, I dig into my core for the skill needed to fake this.
Just a bit longer.
By now, the media outlets have the videos and the 10:00pm news is just starting. They won’t show the full contents, it being straight porn and all, but New Jersey society is about to receive yet another gross shock.
“Dad is on the verge of disowning me!” Tears flood from her reddened eyes. I’d like to call them crocodile tears, yet they’re very real.
The way Kaylee was raised, losing her father’s disapproval, especially while not being married, is the end of her world.
Not to forget she works for him and he held the keys to her successful future. Instead of being on track to becoming CEO, now she’ll have to work for someone else.
Beneath someone else.
“We’re going to fix the issue, Kaylee. Once and for all.” Affecting that concerned façade, I begin leading her closer to the laptop. “After tonight, everyone is going to get what they deserve.”
She begins clinging to me, sobbing in earnest, and I thank God Lexi agreed to wait on the ground floor for the end of this all. At least I hope she’s down there. If she were here to see this, she’d probably jump in to end Kaylee before my final reveal.
“I have a solution for everything, okay? Just give me a second. Wait right here.” Pushing her away gently takes some serious effort.
She stands where I leave her, big blue eyes shimmering with hope and gratitude, and had she shown an ounce of that humanity to Lexi the years she knew my girl was trapped and being abused, I’d actually feel some remorse for her.
But Lexi confessed how she overheard Kaylee and Stephen discussing the situation once.
Kaylee was very, very aware of the prisoner Stephen kept and what he was doing to her.
Choking on the injustice of it, I switch on the laptop and turn it to the news. “See, Kaylee? It’s already been set in motion. All of it. After today, there’ll no longer be any doubt.”
“Any doubt about what, Andrew?” Her eyes flicker from me to the laptop as the news anchors begin announcing a last minute, breaking news alert.
“That anyone that fucks with Lexi will never be okay again. That I’ll destroy this entire fucking world to avenge her and I won’t give a damn who goes down as I do it.”
“What—”
“Well, looks like the Whittacker family isn’t done dealing with it’s fair share of scandal. News 12 broke the news of the Whittacker-Sampson intellectual property theft scandal, and now we come to you with yet another shocking development. Apparently, videos are now being circulated to major news outlets featuring Ms. Kaylee Whittacker once again involved in salacious activity. Due to the nature of these videos, we won’t be able to air them live, but reports state that these videos feature three members—Kaylee and her two cousins, Joshua Whittacker, son of Albus Whittacker, and Morgan Whittacker, son of Timothy Whittacker— engaged in incestuous, sexual relations with each other. In all my years as a news anchor I never thought I would say these words, yet here we are. Confirmation has just arrived that the identities in the video are who we reported they are. And, apparently, there’s multiple videos not just one. This is a developing story and we’ll bring you more as our crew digs deeper.”
There’s no need to look at Kaylee to know the exact moment her world finishes crumbling around her.
The tiny, pitiful, animalistic, wounded sound that’s ripped from her chest is only the beginning.
And it’s motherfucking perfect music to my ears.
chapter 51
“o h God. Oh God. Y-you did this? Drew?”
Hiding my gloating satisfaction is difficult, but somehow I manage to don my faux-distress. “Kaylee, no!” She’s shaking hard enough to destabilize her balance and I use that to my advantage, running to catch her around the arms. “This isn’t what I had planned! I sent them proof of Stephen’s new mob ties, he must’ve—”
“H-he did this?” The question wheezes out of her, barely understandable. I’ve never seen anyone as pale as she currently is, as if her barren soul is leaving her body with each struggled breath she takes.
Tightening my hold on her, I slowly turn her towards one of the open walls, where the windows have yet to be installed. “He must’ve realized what I was planning . . . fuck! He must’ve realized I’m stepping in to protect you!”
Her nails dig into my arms, a death-grip, and she heaves in a shuddering breath—
And breaks down in my arms, her body bent at an angle with the force of her cries.
Almost as bad as Lexi the night she first saw my scars and track marks.
The thought hardens me further.
“Kaylee, wait. Hold on. Calm down. It’s just a vile rumor he’s spreading, we can fix it. We can show the world the truth.”
As expected, the strategic blow of my comment sends her hysteria spiraling. Her sobs escalate; she’s practically bent in half, my hold on her arms the only thing keep her off the floor.
And the main thing helping me lead her closer and closer to that open section of the wall.
I release one arm to rub at the middle of her back. Just need her distracted a little longer. Once we’re directly in front of the opening, I can stop this part of the charade and get my hands off her.
Upon seeing the videos with my own two eyes, there was no doubt of her identity. That it was her engaging in that sick act with two of her blood cousins at once. Her lost to the pleasure they gave her, enjoying the camera’s lens on the entire sordid display.
But if there had been any skepticism, her current hysterics are the final proof.
“Hey. Hey. Kaylee, breathe. I’m telling you. I’ll get to the bottom of this. I’ll disprove everything. It’s going to be okay.” A little closer. Just a few more steps . . .
“Drewwwwww.”
I wince at the volume of that wail, convinced Lexi can hear it from wherever she is.
Once again I find myself praying
she remained on the ground floor.
“Kaylee, listen to me. I’ll get the—”
She manages to straighten enough to face me and she looks ten years older than earlier. “There won’t be any proof, Drew!”
Thank God, we’re right where I need us to be.
I drop her like the trash she is, stepping back in my “shock”. “Kaylee . . . are you telling me it’s true? You were having sex with your cousins?” For the first time in fucking years, I let her see the full extent of my revulsion. Of the disgust I’ve felt for her, the same that grew unbearable when I learned of her complicity in Lexi’s plight.
She collapses at the sight of it, crumbling to the floor like the pathetic waste she is. She’s inches from the edge, something I suspect she knows, but she’s too far gone to care.
Exactly where I need her to be.
She just couldn’t be a semi-normal villain in this tale. No. She had to be the lowest of the low, on par with Stephen, making this oh so easy for me.
How could I not tear her down, reduce her to this base, pitiful creature at my feet?
“Are you telling me it’s true, Kaylee?” I bark, letting that abhorrence finally flow free.
“Y-you wouldn’t understand—”
“You’re fucking right I don’t! You’ve been angry about Lexi this entire time but look at you. What are you?”
“Please. Please. It was a mistake!” Her hand reaches out for my dress shoe.
I yank my foot back. “Are you fucking kidding me? They mentioned multiple tapes! You’ve been screwing around with family, Kaylee? This is going to kill your poor father.”
Another perfect blow. Her next wail nearly ruptures my eardrums, it’s so loud. “Please. Don’t let Stephen win. He’s doing this to separate us. I need your help with my father. Please.”
“You honestly think I’d want anything to do with a vile creature like you?” God, I’ve been waiting ages to say that to her. To let her hear how far my distaste of her existence goes.
“Andrew, I’m begging you—”
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