Chapter 37 #2
I back up, not liking how close he is to me and really disliking his choice to do this in public.
There’s still no one within eavesdropping range, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a cameraphone on us.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask, needing him to get to the point.
“You’re not asking for a favor, are you? ”
When he takes a deep breath, I can practically see him bracing himself. I’d put money on him wanting to be here even less than I do. “I have information,” he says. “Which, if it were to come out, could ruin your political career.”
Silas.
No, please. God, please…
I try to stay casual, just a business meeting. “So—it’s bankruptcy and ruin?”
Gibson remains silent.
Finally, I ask, “What kind of information?”
“A video taken by a private investigator from across the street of your other apartment.”
I’m going to be sick. Again. My gag reflex flutters in my throat. I refuse to believe this. My mind won’t let it be true. “Bullshit,” I whisper.
Gibson’s expression is grim and serious. “This isn’t a bluff, Graham. If you want to see it, I’ll show it to you, but I’m not the only one who has access to it. I can protect the access. However, it’s going to require you to do some things that may be outside your comfort zone.”
My hand shoots out. “Let me see it.”
Gibson’s look of defeat is not the reaction I was hoping for. Because it doesn’t look like he’s lost. It looks like he’s being forced to swing an axe at my neck.
“It could be a fake,” I say, like I’m trying to reassure him, too.
“It’s not fake,” he says. “And I doubt you want anyone questioning Silas about it either.”
Jesus fucking Christ. He knows his name. Which means Avery knows. Which means this is real, and I’m screwed. “Show me the fucking video,” I say through a clenched jaw.
Gibson shoves his phone across the table at me, the video paused on the screen. I recognize the color of my building’s brick. The cathedral windows. As I press play on the soundless recording, I throw up in my mouth.
I remember as I watch. The video is from last Friday night.
I was fresh out of Penn Station, still in my suit.
Silas was shirtless and had already gotten started on the tequila flight he’d laid out for us to enjoy in celebration of my return from Washington after two weeks.
He’d leaned across the island under the guide of grabbing me a shot but had pulled his pants down to expose his ass.
“Oops,” he’d said. I’d been hard since I walked in the building.
In no time, I had his pants off, his legs spread and was fucking him like I owned him.
Even watching this—with my blackmailer staring at me unforgivingly—I feel a throb in my cock.
My face is clearly visible. Recognizable.
So is Silas’s. The footage is time stamped.
I feel like I’m being buried alive.
I shut the screen off and slide the phone back to him, my hand shaking. “I’ve loved him for two years.” As if he cares. As if that could stop this train from hitting me. As if love matters to anyone when money is involved.
Gibson’s words are clinical, clipped as he ignores the phone. “My wife is a political creature. Liberal, as I’m sure you know. You represent a lot of things that get under her skin.”
My head is so filled with white noise, I can barely hear myself.
I speak like I’m on autopilot—excusing myself and my reasons for existing the way I do.
I think I once said something similar to Silas, and maybe that’s why the words don’t feel so foreign.
“My entire existence has been inside conservative politics. When I ran for office, I ran on a more moderate platform—I never could have won New York’s senate seat otherwise.
But the climate’s changed. What used to fly doesn’t anymore—we fall in line, or we’re voted out. ”
“Change affiliations, then,” Gibson says, impatient.
“It’s not that simple,” I snap, meeting his threatening glare with my own.
He goes on as if upending my life has no effect on him whatsoever. “I have some candidates I’d like you to endorse in as much as you’re able this fall for local office. I’ll also need you to change your public stance on sex work. Non-negotiable.”
I balk at that, and he pauses to let it sink in.
My mind resists the demand with all its might. It’s the one thing I can’t do—not if the margins aren’t in our favor after the election, and certainly not now in the run up to midterms.
Gibson must have a soft bone somewhere in that imposing body of his because he’s a smidge gentler when he says, “For now, no one’s forcing you out of the closet, but in light of the divorce, no one’s forcing you to stay in it either.”
I stare at him in complete disbelief. Does he know who my family is?
“At any rate,” he adds, “Your support of New York’s LGBTQ community needs to be front and center, which is only right, considering.”
Impossible. This is all impossible. “Or you’ll leak the video. That’s what you’re saying?”
“Like I said—I’m not the only one with the video.” His voice is cold, eyes shadowed.
“Your wife is behind this?” I ask, taking a stab at making some kind of connection with him. Two men with vindictive wives forcing us to do things we don’t want to do—surely we can work something out.
But that hope dies when he says, “My wife and I are on the same page, Senator. You reek of hypocrisy. You betrayed your wife. And what are you doing to this guy?” he gestures at his phone on the table. “Stringing him along, I’m guessing.”
Fuck this. Fuck him.
“Are you deaf? I just told you I love him.”
“Then you must really hate yourself,” he says with a finality that feels like a punch to the face.
I flush like he actually struck me. Tears burn behind my eyes, and I blink them back, refusing to cry in front of this cold-hearted bastard.
One renegade tear escapes, and I swipe at it, furious with him—with myself. “You have no idea,” I say. Hating myself is a habit. He’s right. I am a hypocrite. A liar. A pathetic excuse for a man.
It’s a small mercy, maybe a miracle, that I don’t burst into tears in the middle of a restaurant now filling with people.
“Just get through the divorce first,” Gibson says, like he can mitigate the damage he’s done. “Consider what’s most important to you. What you aren’t willing to lose. You have options. They might not all seem like good ones, but they’re available to you.”
“Like what?” I hiss. “Changing my name and leaving the state? Never speaking to my family again? Losing—” my throat closes, my eyes returning to his phone. I run a hand through my hair, take a breath, and turn to stand.
Gibson’s hand locks around my wrist over Silas’s bracelet. “Graham,” he says, almost sympathetically. “It isn’t wrong to love him.”
I stare at the place where he’s touching me. “Tell my father that. My brothers. My fucking priest.”
“I’m telling you because you’re the one who needs to hear it.”
“Let go of me,” I say, low and menacing.
He does immediately. I rise, snapping my jacket around my shoulders and reorienting myself with the exit. “If I do all these things—is that the end of it?”
He hesitates a moment too long for my liking, but then says, “Yes.” It sounds like a promise that only a man like Gibson could make.
“I can’t do it all overnight,” I say. “But tell your wife she wins. And tell Avery she can go fuck herself for letting that snake into her life.”