Chapter 6 #3
What the fuck, is this psycho flirting with me now??
Velvet Villainess
Were you in my room?
The Ghost Prince
I made you something.
Velvet Villainess
Answer the question.
Just then, I get a notification that I’ve been tagged in a video of his.
Velvet Villainess
What is this?
The Ghost Prince
It’s for you. Like I said, I made you something.
I shiver as I quickly press my phone screen to my chest, my pulse jolting. My friends are still talking shit about Wren’s ex when I glance at the phone again, then put it down, then glance at it yet again.
I didn’t imagine it. The Ghost Prince has a new video up, and I’m tagged in it.
I mumble to my friends that I need to pee and then scurry to the guest bathroom down the hall from the common room. Once inside, I quickly tap on the video, making sure my volume is down way low.
What the fuck.
His video is basically a mirror of the one I just posted.
He’s shirtless on screen, his ridiculously built body highlighted with stark, dramatic shadows.
He nods his chin at the camera and then reaches down, his wrist curling and twisting as if suggesting that he’s wrapping something around it.
Then he guides that fist toward his crotch as he starts to pump his hips.
The words ”When I put you on your knees use that pretty mouth like a good girl” appear at the top of the video.
Holy shit.
It really is a direct response to my video from not even half an hour ago.
He’s calling me out, and my notifications explode when I’m tagged in comment after comment on this new video as his fans realize it too.
Heat ripples through my core as I watch him mime…well, fucking my mouth, I suppose. I know it should feel degrading or gross, especially coming from someone who’s already blackmailed me into giving him a lap dance.
But it doesn't. I don’t feel degraded.
I just feel warm.
Everywhere.
My eyes drag over his chiseled abs, and I gasp when I see the monstrous bulge in his pants.
That's gotta be padded.
I lean back against the bathroom door and play the video again.
And again.
And then about ten times more.
But then, something new catches my attention other than his sinful body and tented pants.
The Ghost Prince is doing his thing in front of what’s obviously a photography backdrop, like most content creators use. I have one, too. I hide it in my closet and can pull it out and set it up in under a minute if I’m shooting in my room.
But this time, the backdrop behind The Ghost Prince is slipping.
The top right corner looks like it’s peeled away from the tape or whatever was holding it up. I spread my pinched fingers across the screen to zoom in.
What the fuck.
There’s a window behind his backdrop—an old, dusty, iron-framed factory window. But it’s not the window itself that has my jaw dropping.
It’s the fact that through it, I can see a row of brick buildings, including one with a little sign over the door that says “The Seven Bells.”
My pulse skips.
The Seven Bells is a watering hole in downtown Hawthorne Hollow which claims to be the oldest bar in the country.
The Ghost Prince just slipped up.
Badly.
Because the man who has a video of me that could blow up my life just accidentally gave away his filming location.
Maybe it’s his apartment, maybe it’s just his content studio. Either way, I know where he is. Which means I might know where that video is.
This little fucking game of his ends tonight.
Forty-five minutes later, I’m standing outside The Seven Bells. Across the street are the piers that jut out into the harbor where local fishermen dock for the night before grabbing a few drinks at the bar behind me.
Next to the docks is a handful of low, brick industrial buildings, including an old warehouse that the town uses as an indoor/outdoor events space and for a farmers' market in the fall.
Past that, near the end of the longest pier, is the old harbormaster’s office—a narrow, three-story brick building with a small lighthouse tower on top of it. Google says it used to act as the check-in point for boats docking in town, but it’s been empty for the last few decades.
What Google doesn’t know is that I’m pretty sure it’s where The Ghost Prince films his content, considering the view through the window where his backdrop slipped in his last video.
Fifteen minutes ago, when I was still sitting in my car parked in the side street next to the bar, I watched a dark figure slip out of that old harbormaster’s office, slink through the shadows to a Land Rover with plates I couldn’t see, and drive away.
Now’s my chance.
Logically, you might assume The Ghost Prince would keep his phone—and the video he took of me—on his person. But I got a look at the phone he had in his hand back in the library. It had one of those special wide-lens attachments on it, as well as a stabilizing handle grip.
I’ve used phone accessories like those, and they’re great for filming, but they do turn your phone into a dedicated content-filming device, since both attachments are pretty bulky and tough to get back off again.
So, if this is where he typically films his content, it’s also probably where he keeps his filming equipment.
…Like the phone with a certain very incriminating video of me on it.
Time to delete that shit.
I keep to the shadows as I make my way down the dark pier until I get to the rusty side door to the old harbormaster’s office. A grin spreads over my face when I try the knob and find it unlocked.
Aside from the Jane Doe sitting in the morgue, Hawthorne Harbor is a very safe town with basically zero crime. I hear it’s honestly not even that uncommon for people to leave their doors unlocked.
Sorry, Ghost Prince, that’s going to cost you your leverage tonight.
I slip into a room that’s completely dark but for the sliver of moonlight coming through the same partially exposed window I saw in his video.
It's just enough light to show me the brick walls, bed to one side, little kitchen area, desk with a few shelves of books, and tripod sitting in the center of the space, facing the backdrop.
A tripod fitted with a wireless microphone receiver, a ring light…and a phone clipped into the base of it.
My lips curl wickedly.
Checkmate, motherfucker.
I’m still grinning, halfway across the room, when the door closes behind me with a heavy click as it locks.
My whole body stills as an icy sensation drags down my spine, even before I hear the modulated voice.
“Well, well, well. I was wondering when you’d finally get here, little villain.”