Chapter 53
Theo
The waiting room is the color of nothing –– beige walls, beige chairs, fluorescent light that makes everyone look like they're already sick.
Cody looks at me.
I look at Cody.
The space between us is maybe four feet, and approximately everything that has happened in the last few months.
"If she dies, I will fucking kill you."
I think about Adela on that road, the blood, the way I had just kissed her earlier that day.
"I'll save you the trouble," I say. "I'll hang myself."
Neither of us looks away.
Beckett rounds the corner.
Cody's eyes move to him and then back to me.
Beckett stops in front of us. His shirt has her blood on it. He looks at both of us, then says, "I think Adela's in surgery."
We sit down.
We wait.
Two months ago, Cody
"You're going to film with Serena today," Theo says on the ice, mid-drill. He hits the back of my helmet with his glove.
I keep skating.
I've told Theo a hundred times not to bring this shit up on the ice.
He does it anyway. That's the thing about Theo — he doesn't forget rules, he decides they don't apply to him.
One day, I'm going to make him understand what it feels like to have someone ignore a boundary he's set. I'm going to enjoy that day.
"We’ll talk about this later."
"I don't want to hear any excuses about your little girlfriend at Puget Sound," he warns, keeping pace with me easily, because Theo is infuriatingly fast. "The people want you and Serena tonight."
I take off. Hard. Putting distance between us.
He has no idea what it's cost me. The double life, the lies, the way I have to separate everything into airtight boxes and make sure none of it bleeds.
Adela in one box. This is another. The money in another.
Theo has no idea because he has never been in love with anyone and doesn't understand what it does to the math of every decision you make.
The fact that people want me and Serena together makes me sick.
I do the drill and don't talk to him for the rest of practice.
That night, I'm in Theo's apartment, last bedroom on the left. The one with the city view. Serena is already there, already professional about it, the way she always is.
We film for an hour. He tells me the things they want me to do, and I glance at him sideways. I wouldn’t put it past him if he made some of this shit up to keep it spicy.
Afterward, Serena opens the laptop, pulls up the account, and starts reading through the requests. She loves this part. The attention, the comments about how sexy she is. She enjoys this shit way too much.
"They love us together, Cody." She doesn't look up from the screen. "Look at these numbers."
“Don’t romanticize it, Serena.”
I stand at the window, look at the city, and think about Adela. When I first started this gig, it was nothing more than an ego boost: the money, the women, the thrill.
I'm not sure the money is worth it anymore.
I already know it isn't.
Sex isn’t the same. There’s only one person I want to sleep with, and she’s far away.
Serena leaves, and I linger. Theo is on his phone, already running numbers, already on his next move.
"You guys made some fucking good tips tonight."
"I want eighty," I say.
He laughs. "Are you out of your mind? Serena gets forty. You get forty. I get twenty."
"That's bullshit." I look at him. "I'm out. I can't do this anymore."
He glances over his shoulder at me. "Are you getting money hungry on me?”
I shake my head. “I’m done, Theo. This was my last time.”
“You gave me your word you fucking wanted this. We built this shit together piece by piece."
"Yeah. People are allowed to change their minds."
He stands. He uses his height deliberately, crossing the room until he's close enough that the size of him is part of the conversation.
"You can't quit."
"Fuck you, Theo." I hold my ground. "I didn't sign up for this. Not the way it's become."
His jaw tightens. "You can film yourself with your girl. I'm sure the audience would love that."
Something moves through me so fast and so hot that I have to clench everything to keep it from showing.
I have filmed Adela. Not for this — never for this, never with any intention of handing it to anyone — but I've filmed her, and Theo, knowing that, Theo referencing it like a card he's already holding, tells me everything I need to know about how far he’s willing to go.
I lean in. "I'm fucking done," I say quietly. "Count me out from now on. Today was my last session."
"We'll see about that," Theo says.
I leave.
Theo
"We're making stupid fucking money," I tell Silas. "He can't quit."
Silas shrugs from the couch, not looking up. "Shit, I’ll pick up his slack. Let me do it."
"They want Cody." I shake my head. "The numbers drop when it's not him. He's the draw. The whole thing crumbles without him."
"Judge Ravenshaw," Silas mocks.
"He doesn't get to walk."
"So don't let him," Silas says simply.
Beckett laughs from across the room. "It's going to be fine. If he wants out, let him out. You don't need him."
I turn to him. "Fuck you, Beck. What do you know about business?"
"You’re fibbing. You film the most, and people love your shit. It’s more about the woman anyway." Beck pauses. “And you’re lucky he wants out and doesn’t want the entire business. He could sweep the rug from under you.”
I think about that for a second. He’s right. If he paired with Serena, they would make a shit ton of money.
Silas sits up. "Blackmail him. Simple. Get footage of his girlfriend and tell him if he quits, you start posting her."
The room is quiet for a second.
I think about what I know about Adela Kalkaska, what I've seen. The way Cody orbits her. The way she's the one variable in Cody's life that he doesn't want to lose.
I think he might be obsessed with her.
And that’s the perfect place to start.
Two weeks later, Beckett
Theo storms into the locker room— not loud, not explosive, but compressed. He finds Cody across the room and stares at him.
Cody doesn't look up.
I know better than to say anything. I wait. I've learned that with Theo, you wait, you watch, and you let the thing develop until he's ready to tell you what’s going on.
That night, I'm at Theo's place. I didn't want to be on the sex side of it — that was never where I was useful, and Theo knew that from the beginning — so I film. I get five percent of whatever the footage makes, which has been enough for me to look the other way on the parts.
Theo is standing at the window with his fist clenched when I get there.
"He didn't like the footage I got of his girlfriend," he says.
I wait.
"So he went after Nessa." He doesn't turn around. "And he fucking posted it."
The word what comes out of me before I've decided to say it.
That's the only word I have. I knew Cody was capable of petty — I've watched him operate long enough to know the full range of what he'll do when he feels cornered — but this is not petty.
This is worse than that. This is Cody looking at Theo's most important vulnerability and putting his hand directly on it.
"Don't," I say when he starts to tell me what it was. "I don't want to know what it was. Did you delete it?"
"Of course, I deleted it."
I exhale. "What's the plan?"
Theo turns from the window. "I'm taking him out. He went too far."
I nod. There's no version of this where I tell him he's wrong. "Okay," I say. "I'm in."
Theo
The video of my sister sits in my stomach like rotting food for days.
I can't eat. I can't sleep with it there. I go to practice, run drills, watch Cody skate like he didn't do what he did, and feel it sitting there, heavy and putrid. I think about all the ways I'm going to make him understand what he chose when he pointed a camera at Nessa.
This means fucking war.
Every time a request comes in with his name attached, I don't open it. When the requests for him and Nessa start flooding through, I throw up my dinner in the toilet and sit on the bathroom floor for ten minutes.
Nobody touches my sister and gets away with it.
When I talk to Nessa, she tells me they're dating. She says it like she believes it completely. It makes me fucking sick. He knew she was off-limits, and yet he went after her anyway.
For the two weeks after he tried to quit, I didn’t let him. And now this…
I follow Cody to Puget Sound. He's still with his girlfriend. The real one. The rich one.
I could end it. I could send any of the footage I have of Cody to her and watch the whole thing explode from a safe distance.
Instead, I open the folder I've been building on Adela Kalkaska.
I've watched her in pieces. Her social media first, which told me one version of her — careful, curated, the presentation of someone who is aware of being watched. Then the footage Cody doesn’t know I have.
Her bed. The tub. Her alone, unguarded, not performing for anyone, using her own fingers to pleasure herself.
Breaking up his relationship isn't enough. That's not pain. That's inconvenience. I want him to go down. I want him to lose something he can't get back and know exactly who took it from him.
The game against UCLA is the right cover. I let Jax get some good ones in because the marks on my face will be useful for what comes this weekend.
The day after the game, we're at Serena's house on Nob Hill. I put Beckett in the room with his dick out. Silas and I fuck Serena while Beckett waits for his turn. It used to be Cody, but Cody has decided he has principles now, so I need the footage, and Beckett owes me enough to say yes.
I text Cody that if he's not here in an hour, I will release everything I have on Adela Kalkaska.
And then, because I want to watch what happens, I tell him to bring her.
Cody
I stare at the threat on my phone.
It’s her birthday. I'm going to miss her birthday song, and she's never going to fully forgive me for it.
But I can't let him release whatever fucking videos he apparently has of her.
Right before I go upstairs to say goodbye to Adela, Julian catches me.
"You good?"
"Yeah," I say.
He tilts his head. "You got any more jobs?"
"No. I'm done."
"Even at five grand a week?"
"It's not worth it." I look at him. "I'll lose her."
He makes a sound that is not quite a laugh and not quite a dismissal, and then lets me go.
I go upstairs and make love to my girlfriend on her birthday. She is all that I need, and I know that now.
The whole drive to Serena's house, my hands won't stay steady on the wheel.
I know what Theo is. I've watched him up close long enough to understand the full shape of him — the hunger, the control, the way he has never once encountered a limit he respected.
I've watched him do things I told myself I wasn't responsible for because I wasn't the one doing them.
I texted Adela the address to Serena’s place. I tell her to meet the team.
As soon as I get there, they throw me in a bedroom and say, “Film.”
I do what I'm told and hold the camera at the right angles. I keep my face blank and think about Adela not knowing any of this exists. She would never look at me the same.
Serena is panting while Theo fucks her ass, and Silas shoves his dick down her throat. She’s jerking off Beckett, and I’m capturing all of it.
They come all over her stomach while she giggles.
And then I get a phone notification that Adela’s outside.
Everything in me goes cold.
I pass the phone to Theo and say, “It’s my girlfriend’s birthday. Nobody say anything fucking stupid.”
Serena meows like a cat.
I walk out into the hallway and step outside, not expecting all of her friends to be here too.
When we walk in the house, I introduce her to the guys. Theo, Beckett, and Silas are still in the bedroom. My dick is throbbing in my pants, so I pull Adela down the hall and kiss her.
“Stay at my place tonight.”
She denies me.
Beckett and Serena walk out of the room. I watch Beckett look at her, and I know exactly what that look means. I've seen that look applied to other girls, other targets. I know the way it measures.
Not her.
I get her out. I keep my voice normal and my face normal. I tell her to leave, and I watch her drive away. I stand on the street until her taillights disappear, and then I go back inside.
Beckett points upstairs.
I walk up because I don't have a choice. I open the door, and Theo's face is the last thing I see before the cloth comes down over my head and the world reduces to darkness and the sound of my own pulse.
He forced me onto a chair and tied me to it.
"What the fuck is this—"
The sting hits before I finish the sentence. I buck against the restraints, feel how well they're tied, and understand that this is no longer a cat-and-mouse game.
"That was for thinking you could just quit," Theo says. Then a fist flies to my stomach. I fold around it, the air gone, trying to find the breath that isn't there. "And this—" Another punch. "Is for thinking you run the show."
He leans in close. "You're not the king here, Cody. I am."
The uppercut snaps my head back.
I harden. The rage goes somewhere solid, and I think: remember this. Remember exactly this.
"What the fuck do you want, Theo?"
He takes his time. He lets the silence do some of the work because Theo has always understood that silence is a tool.
"I want you to know that you fucked with the wrong man," he says. "My sister is the most important person in my life, and you made her think you were in love with her. That's one problem. And then filming her—" He pauses. "That's a whole different conversation."
I anticipate a punch.
"So here's what you're going to do. You're going to choose. I take this hammer, and I solve the problem permanently. Or—" He lets it breathe. "I release everything I have of Adela Kalkaska. Every clip. And when the audience wants something from her, I will make it happen."
"No—"
Everything goes black.
Now, Theo
The waiting room.
Beige walls. Fluorescent light.
I stare at it, and I think about everything that had to happen, in sequence, for Adela to end up on that road tonight with no shoes and no phone and Nessa behind the wheel.
Every move. Every counter-move.
Every decision I made, I told myself I was making for a reason.
I stare at the floor, and I wait.
I won't hang myself today because she isn't dead yet.