Blackmail and Other Turn Ons

Chapter 1

chapter one

WILLOW

I might look like I’m on my way to a frat party, but really, I’ll be committing murder in an hour.

Everyone else is out for tequila shots and slutty costumes tonight. Me? I’ve got a body to take care of.

But first, I have work to do.

I sit cross-legged at my tarot table, the little one in the corner of my bedroom, the velvet cloth soft beneath my palms. Incense smolders from the holder on my dresser, filling the room with sandalwood smoke that clings to my hair.

It feels a little overkill, getting dolled up as a cat and then going and being the divine messenger of fate, but hey, bills don’t pay themselves, and the cards have been screaming at me all day.

I set my phone up on its little tripod and hit record.

“Okay,” I say into the camera. “My cards have been burning in my pocket since this morning. But this isn’t a fun pull, I can already tell. Tonight’s reading is for someone out there who’s about to have their world crash down around them.”

I shuffle through the cards, and the familiar sensation rushes through me.

I feel them as they approach, like they’re living things and the rest of them are dead, irrelevant.

The cards jump from the deck one by one, sharp and eager, like they already know where this is going. I flip them one at a time.

The Lovers reversed. The Tower. The Three of Swords.

“Oh, honey,” I say as I study the cards.

My stomach sinks. “It’s worse than I thought.

Your partner isn’t just thinking about cheating.

They’re already on their knees for someone else.

I hate to even say it out loud, but you’re about to find out in the worst way possible, and it’s gonna break you wide open.

” I lean forward, looking into the camera, compassion ripping through me.

Damn, this is a rough one. “And you might want to check your bank account. I’m getting money out of this, in a negative way.

I think you’re bankrolling this affair.”

Ugh. I hate readings like these. They’re so raw, so harsh. But they don’t lie. Someone out there needs to know this.

“But don’t worry—every heartbreak is just compost for the soul. I’m getting fire after this. I’m feeling power. You’re going to rise from this stronger, bigger, and it’s going to awaken your dark feminine energy. Prepare for the new you, babe.”

I wink, slide the cards back into the deck, and stop the recording. I save it to my drafts. Readings tend to do best during the middle of the day. This one will be easy views, the disaster ones always are.

But it’s the perfect time of day to post my other kind of content.

I swipe through my drafts until I find the one I’ve been working on for days now: my obsession series on Saint Shade—the internet’s most mysterious magician, Vegas’s most guarded showman, and the bane of my fucking existence.

I’ve been trying to figure out who he really is for three months now. Half the internet has made it their mission to unmask Saint Shade. And so far? No one has figured out his real identity.

I’m half tempted to just march down to his theater on the Strip and pull that mask off mid-performance. But that might come across a little lunatic obsessive.

I hit play on the saved draft and rewatch what I’ve made.

On-screen me smirks into the camera. “So, here’s the thing: when you pull The Magician reversed three times in a row, and you’re asking who Saint Shade really is…

well. The cards don’t lie.” On camera, I shuffle through the cards, and immediately one pops out.

Two seconds later, the second card practically slaps me in the face, and then the third card falls flat on the tabletop, face up.

I spread them out dramatically, making sure they’re visible for the camera. The Fool. The Devil reversed. Death.

“Hmm, very, very interesting,” I muse as I study the cards.

I can still remember how this one took me off guard.

It was… unexpected, and oddly specific. “The Fool tells me Saint Shade has started over in his life. And in a big, big way. His past… he’s been running from it.

He hides more than smoke and mirrors during his shows. He’s hiding himself.”

I cringe at my own dramatic delivery, but damn if it isn’t perfect. The internet eats this shit up.

“The Devil reversed,” I continue on screen.

“Saint Shade had to break free. He had to reclaim his power, reclaim himself. And it was hard. Damn, it was really, really hard. He had to walk away from some really dark shit. Who knew the man hiding behind a devil’s mask had even darker stuff in the past? ”

Even now, watching this later, I still feel bad. The whole internet thirsts over this masked acrobatic magician. He’s got a body like a god, and he has no qualms putting it on display for everyone to thirst over. But that reading was heavy. The darkness of it wraps around my chest like a vice.

“And Death,” I say on camera, my voice going quieter. “Death represents not only endings, but transformation. There is something distinct about Saint Shade’s life. Before and after. Then and now. Who Saint Shade is now is not who he once was.”

Goosebumps flash over my skin on camera, and you can see every single one.

“Damn, that… that’s not what I expected,” I say on camera. It takes a moment before my eyes rise to meet it. In my head then, I was debating if I should post this or not. It felt revealing. Intimate. Like I was all but ripping his mask off on camera.

But sitting here, alone in my room, I give in to the temptation. I’ve been obsessed with this masked man who lives in the same damn city as me for months now. I post the video before I can second-guess myself.

And, because I’m an addict, I go straight to his profile.

Saint Shade: the masked acrobat-magician hybrid whose online following is seven times my own, and boy do I fucking hate that fact.

His videos are thirst-trap catnip for the internet: a slow roll of his body across silks, a deck of cards that catch fire mid-air, a coy tilt of his mask as if he’s about to reveal his face but never does.

Today’s upload: him shirtless, balancing upside down on one hand while making an entire deck of cards levitate in a perfect circle around him.

His face might be covered by that mask—the devils horns, the black halo, the Romanesque golden details, and the black gaiter that covers his nose and mouth beneath the mask—but his perfected arms, chest, abs, and that ridiculous tattoo of a four leaf clover that’s on right side of his lower abdomen, they’re all on full display.

I bite my lip. Hard. Damn. He might just be on the tiny screen in my hand, but I blush like he’s right here in my bedroom with me.

The comments are already feral:

Such a pretty set of necklaces, Saint Shade.

I volunteer as tribute.

I’m not Cinderella, but I know it fits.

I add my own:

Please, Shade? Just one little peek behind the mask? You tell me where and when. I’ll be waiting.

Almost immediately, I scroll back to an older video of his—a fire-eating stunt that had me swearing under my breath the first time I saw it. My comment sits pinned at the top:

Hot doesn’t even begin to cover it. Never been so thirsty in my life.

And just beneath it—his reply.

Maybe you should let me show you what comes after thirsty.

My cheeks flush, and something pulls tight in my lower belly.

I’ve been drooling over him in his comments for months now. And he’s been replying. To every damn comment.

I may hate that he has more followers than me, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to climb the man and ride him like a bicycle.

I watch two more of his videos. Then three. Half an hour slips by before my eyes flick up to the time. “Shit,” I curse myself as I scramble to my feet. “Horny time is over, Willow. You’ve got a man to kill.”

I step out of my bedroom and find both of my sisters in the living room.

Opal is wearing a golden dress that makes her look like a goddess.

Her blonde hair is loose around her shoulders, a floral crown perched on her head.

“You sure you don’t want to come with me?

It feels weird that you’re going out alone.

I don’t like it. And there’s free tequila shots at my party. ”

I would definitely rather be going with my baby sister, but tonight is a night for business, and I’ll do anything to keep my nighttime hobby a secret from her. “Next year. I made some promises to some other girls. There’s no getting out of what I have planned for tonight.”

Our sister Iris doesn’t even look up from her laptop at the counter.

She’s got her black-and-white outfit ironed crisp as always, dark bob falling across her cheek.

She has no Halloween plans. She never does.

That just isn’t Iris. “Both of you be careful. You know how many women get roofied on Halloween?”

“That’s why I never drink anything I didn’t pour myself,” I say as I lean in and kiss her cheek, even as she hands me a tiny vial.

“Just in case you get yourself in a sticky situation,” she says with a pointed look.

I simply grin as I slip it into my bra, the only place to hide anything in this skintight outfit. She has no idea how helpful I will find her little concoction tonight.

“You hear that, Opal?” Iris says as she looks up at our younger sister and tosses her a little vial as well. “Next time it might be more than molly.”

“Hmm, molly,” Opal says as she smiles that ethereal grin of hers. “I had some good experiences on molly. Very mind-opening.”