Chapter 9 Starling #2
“We were…friends, I guess. All through elementary school, middle school, and high school, or at least freshman year. After I started sophomore year.” Sighing, I try to decide how to say it.
“After Sebastian and the guys…well, she was more interested in them than she was with me anymore. She was firmly on Team Sebastian, so after I moved to my dad’s, she stopped calling me.
Then when I started at Kingsacre, she tried to play mean girl.
I think we maybe had two conversations. I vaguely remember her threatening me, and we haven’t spoken since.
To be honest, I’d forgotten all about her. ”
“So why would she do this? It seems a bit out of left field,” Bunny says, her brow furrowed.
“I have no idea. Sebastian?” I say, turning to look at my husband.
“I don’t have a relationship with her,” he says, but his voice is wrong, strained.
“But you fucked her, didn’t you? She was my best friend, or I thought she was. When I left, you told me you’d take her from me. You dated her. You took her to my mom’s and Harry’s wedding. That’s why she threatened me when I first came to Kingsacre. She told me not to go near you.”
“That was a long time ago,” Sebastian says.
“Wait, you had sex with Starling’s best friend?” Bunny gasps, the outrage clear in her tone.
“No. I didn’t.”
Scoffing, I roll my eyes. “I call bullshit. She was hanging all over you at the wedding.”
“I brought her to provoke you,” Sebastian says.
“When was the last time you spoke to her?”
“That day.”
“What day?” I question.
“The day of the wedding.”
“You haven’t spoken to her since the wedding, but she still tried to warn me away from you years later when I first came to Kingsacre?” I scoff derisively.
“We maintained a friendship with her until I was sure you and she were not in contact. Once I established that you weren’t, I cut her off. I invited her to the wedding in an attempt to get a reaction from you. When that didn’t work, I sent her home in a car and didn’t speak to her again.”
“What about her parents?”
Sebastian shrugs. “I don’t think I’ve ever met them.”
“So why would she just suddenly decide to create a social media profile and send me disgusting, invasive photos of us fucking?”
“I don’t know,” he says calmly.
“Is there a chance you could have gotten her pregnant or something? Is some random fucking toddler going to come out of the woodwork wearing your face?” I snap, my voice becoming more and more shrill with each word.
“I have never had sex with Courtney. If there are children, they’re not mine,” he says calmly, his gaze locked with mine, forcing me to accept his honesty.
“Then why the fuck is she doing this? How did she get into the estate? How did she get into our home?” My voice breaks, and Sebastian reaches for me, pulling me into him and wrapping his arms around me.
I let him hold me as my breath hitches and tears that I refuse to let fall burn my eyes and throat.
“I think we might need to pay Courtney a visit. She’s still living on campus,” Hunter says, coldly.
“No,” I blurt, pushing out of Sebastian’s hold. “Intimidating her and threatening her won’t help. We need to know how she did this. We need to know why she’s doing this and why now.”
“I can pull down the profile and delete the pictures from all of her devices,” Clay offers.
“No. Not yet,” I say, leaning forward. “I think I should reply and find out what she wants.”
“She wants you to engage. That’s why she sent it to you and not me,” Sebastian warns.
“That’s because she thinks I’m the weak link. I’m the outsider, the poor kid. She thinks I’m not like you,” I tell them all.
Evan scoffs, laughing lightly. “If she doesn’t realize that you’re more devious than the rest of us put together, then she’s a shitty stalker.”
“Then let’s use that to our advantage.”
“You want to let her underestimate you?” Clay asks, an impressed smirk curling the corners of his lips.
“Exactly.”
All eyes turn to Sebastian, and I hold my breath, waiting for him to speak.
Before the great Bunny escape and Evangate, I know he’d refuse to allow me to get involved.
In his mind, he’d have thought he was sheltering me, or that I wasn’t ruthless enough to handle whatever nefarious plans he made or things he did.
But things are different now…aren’t they?
This moment is a test to see if he really does recognize that I’m not a na?ve sixteen-year-old any more. A test to see if he truly accepts that I’m a product of my environment and that I’ve learned how to be a psycho because I’m surrounded by them.
My heart races as I watch him. But then I see it, the tiny hint of a smile that tips the corner of his lips. “What did you have in mind, Little Bird?”
We spend the next few hours planning what to do, starting with Clay running a full security check on the estate and all of the comings and goings over the last couple of weeks.
All of the photos and videos Courtney sent me were taken since the start of the school year, so it stands to reason that if she has managed to get access to the estate and our house, it’s only been for the last few weeks and not before.
Sebastian, Evan, Clay, Hunter, and I plan out a response to the messages, while Sammy listens, chuckling and occasionally offering an opinion, as January and Bunny sit back in what could possibly be stunned silence.
Tapping to bring my cell to life, I open the message stream with Birdsflyhigh and type out my reply.
Me: What do you want?
The reply comes almost instantaneously, like they were waiting for me to respond.
Birdsflyhigh: To see what the world thinks when they realize you’re nothing but a whore with a rock.
Me: So you plan to release photos and videos of me and my husband that were taken illegally on private property to the press?
Birdsflyhigh: Unless you can convince me not to.
Me: Maybe I’ll just go to the cops.
Birdsflyhigh: ***Laughing emoji*** People like your husband don’t call the cops.
Me: You sent these to me, not him.
Birdsflyhigh: Men like your husband would get a pat on the back if a picture of them getting a blow job was released to the media.
But you’re a nobody. Always have been, always will be.
Once these pictures hit the internet, you’ll be the nobody who only got the ring because she’s her husband’s unpaid sex slave.
I can see the headlines now. Millionaire Marriage to Penniless Fisherman’s Daughter Revealed.
Playboy’s Plaything, Kept at Home on a Leash, with a Plug in her Ass.
Swallowing thickly, I clench and unclench my fingers, fighting the urge to tell her we know who she is and where she is and that she’s picked the wrong person to mess with. Instead, I blow out a breath and start to type.
Me: What do you want?
Birdsflyhigh: You have nothing I want.
Me: You said you could be convinced not to release the photos.
Birdsflyhigh: Divorce him, and I’ll delete the pictures and videos. End your sham of a marriage and crawl back into the gutter where you belong.
“What the fuck?” Sebastian growls from his position behind me. “That crazy fucking bitch.”
“I was expecting her to ask for money, or shares, or something. Wanting you to get a divorce is fucking cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs,” Sammy says.
“She wants you,” I say, twisting around to look at Sebastian. “All of this is because she wants you.” I can’t help it, I laugh.
“Is this funny?” January asks quietly.
“No,” I say coldly. “There is nothing funny about this, at all.”
“I’ll fix this,” Sebastian says, his expression hard and cold.
“No,” I snap. “I’ll fix this. But first we need to figure out how the hell she got close enough to us to do this.”