Chapter 18
eighteen
. . .
Harry was on high alert from the moment he left his flat and headed down to the busy streets of Notting Hill.
It would have been easy to hole up with Nikky at home, keeping his lover all to himself for as long as possible in the hopes of shielding him from what Holberg and Albion were doing.
Ultimately, that would accomplish nothing.
The only way to truly keep Nikky safe was to fight back early and with strength.
The problem was that Harry didn’t know where to start.
Albion was threatening to buy and distribute the video—and fuck, he wished Maggie and Laura had never put the idea out into the universe or that he hadn’t given in to Nikky’s request to make it because he was horny—but Holberg was the one who had stolen it.
Both men were a danger, and since Harry only knew where one of them was, he headed back toward the Tube station with long, purposeful strides.
He hadn’t made it to the end of the street before he felt someone watching him. The sensation had the hair on the back of his neck standing up, but as much as he slowed his steps and searched the area, he couldn’t make out anyone who seemed to be focused on him with unusual intensity.
When he stopped at a streetcorner just across from the station, a quiet, confident, American voice spoke behind him with, “Walk on past the station. I’ll tell you when to turn and where to go.”
Harry whipped around despite the implied order to fake casualness, fury blazing from him. He balled his hands into fists and intended to tell the fucker off…but recognized the tall, blond man from the café.
His heart sank as too many details came together in his mind. Holberg. In the flesh. Come to dig the knife in deeper and get whatever it was he thought he could squeeze out of him.
“Why shouldn’t I call the police right here and now and have you arrested for stalking?” Harry growled, shocking a random pedestrian who stood waiting for the light with them. The woman moved on quickly when the light turned.
“Walk,” Holberg said with a smarmy grin.
“This isn’t fucking spy versus spy,” Harry snapped, even though he didn’t have much of a choice to do anything other than walk. If he wanted to get to the bottom of things and save Nikky from humiliation, he needed to keep this bastard as close as possible.
With a scowl that had people crossing from the other side of the street giving him a wide berth, Harry walked forward, Holberg falling into step next to him like they were two old friends touring one of London’s more eclectic neighborhoods.
“Let’s discuss terms,” Holberg said before Harry could formulate words vicious enough to tell the man what he thought of him.
“Let’s not,” Harry growled. “I’m not giving you anything. You’ll leave Nikky alone or I’ll bring your entire world down around you.”
Holberg laughed. “You don’t have the power to do that,” he snorted. “You don’t even have the power to stop your phone from being hacked. It was child’s play.”
Harry’s stomach twisted. Holberg was right in too many ways. It wasn’t going to stop him from doing absolutely everything he could to squash the bastard like a bug, though. Albion, too.
“I have more power than you think,” he bluffed.
Holberg sent him a sneering sideways look. “I’ll tell you what. Wire six hundred thousand dollars to my account and I’ll walk away, destroy the video, and you and Nikky will never hear from me again.”
Harry stopped. “You said five hundred thousand.”
Holberg walked two steps farther before turning back. “The price went up. You’re too slow.”
“I’m not paying you anything,” Harry insisted.
“It’s up to seven hundred thousand now.”
Harry clenched his jaw so tightly he was surprised his teeth didn’t explode.
“The video won’t get you anywhere. We’ll claim it’s AI.
We’ll kick up a fuss about deepfakes and celebrity stalking.
The press was already spanked once for hacking into celebrity phones a few years ago.
Nikky will come out of the whole thing looking like a hero, and your reputation in Hollywood will be gone. ”
Holberg shrugged. “People will believe whatever they want to believe, whether you claim it’s a fake or not.
Either way, images of Nikky Smith getting his prostate nailed by a grizzled musical hack ten years older than him will forever exist in the world.
Our Nikky is a sensitive soul. How do you think that would make him feel?
Humiliated enough to run away from his promising career for good? ”
Harry gaped. The man was evil. Anyone who would deliberately go after someone as sweet and pure, not to mention talented, as Nikky was a demon.
“Walk,” Holberg ordered again, louder, gesturing down the street. “And turn left at the next intersection.”
Harry despised the man with everything he had, but he had no choice but to do as the areshole ordered. Nikky’s career and his peace of mind depended on it.
“Why are you doing this?” He glared as they crossed the street and entered Holland Park. “What kind of fucking arsehole gets off on hurting someone as kind and artless as Nikky?”
“You underestimate the power of money,” Holberg laughed, pointing toward a shady corner of the park. “LA life is expensive. It needs supplemental income sometimes.”
Harry huffed in derision.
“You should be asking yourself why someone as na?ve as Nikky Smith bothered to get involved in the cutthroat business of Hollywood when he has about as many defenses as a newborn kitten,” Holberg went on.
Harry grimaced. He’d had the same thought himself a few times over the last week. He also knew the answer. Nikky was a dreamer, a talented dreamer, who wanted to see the best in the world but had learned the wrong set of survival skills growing up.
“He’s not as helpless as you seem to think he is,” he argued.
Holberg laughed. “Yeah, right.”
It was true, even though Nikky’s defensive strategy was more flight than fight.
But that’s what Harry was there for. That’s why the two of them fit so perfectly together, why they made a great team. They didn’t just complement each other in one way either. They made beautiful music together, in and out of the bedroom.
“I’m not letting him give in to your blackmail,” he said as they neared the corner of the park.
“People like you never give up anyhow. If you think you can milk someone like Nikky for all he’s worth, you won’t leave him alone until he’s dead.
And you’ll probably orchestrate that, too, and try to profit from it. ”
He realized how true that statement was after he’d already spoken it, and it made him feel sick.
Holberg answered with a scoffing snort. “We’ll see.”
Harry’s patience was at an end, and he was seconds away from digging in his heels and refusing to go another step when he noticed Albion sitting calmly on a bench just ahead, scanning through something on his phone.
As soon as the man spotted Harry and Holberg approaching, he lowered his phone and smirked.
“There you are,” he said, standing and meeting them as they neared the bench. “It’s about time.”
“I told you there was no rush,” Holberg said.
Harry darted a glance between the two men like they were Victorian thugs who had lured him into an alley to rob him blind and beat him into a pulp. Essentially, that was what they were doing.
“There’s always a rush,” Albion snapped, frowning at Holberg. “I want this over and done with so Nikky can get back to recording and I can get what I want from him.”
“Then you’re willing to give me what I want?” Holberg asked as he gestured for the three of them to begin a walk around the perimeter of the park.
Harry’s skin prickled. Holberg and Albion weren’t in league with each other. It was more like an uneasy truce to get a specific job done. The fact that they wedged him into the middle between the two of them as they walked was a flashing neon sign that the two didn’t like each other.
He could work with that.
“I’m willing to pay your half million for the video,” Albion said.
Holberg shook his head. “Thanks to Harry here, the price has gone up to seven hundred thousand.”
Albion glared at Harry.
“Oh, so I’m the bad guy here?” Harry scoffed, livid beyond anything he’d felt before.
“You started this,” Holberg laughed. “You’re the one who decided to record yourself fucking your little boy toy.”
Harry clenched his jaw again. There was no way he would so much as whisper that the video had been Nikky’s idea.
It didn’t matter anyhow. The only thing he cared about was stopping Holberg and Albion from destroying Nikky’s life.
“I’ve already told you that if you leak the video, we’ll say it was AI,” he said. “People love Nikky way more than either of you. We’ve got a thousand ways to manage whatever shit you throw at us, but all you’ve got is your one nasty trick.”
Holberg’s expression tightened subtly, but Albion didn’t seem to care. “You think I’m the bad guy, but I’m just trying to protect my investment,” he said. “Do you think I stand to benefit if that video gets out? With everything I’m trying to do to make Nikky an even bigger star than he is?”
Harry winced. He had a point. A shitty point, but still a point. “And you think paying this arsehole off will end your problems?”
“Yes,” Albion said with eerie confidence. “If he knows what’s good for him.”
Harry took no joy in the way Holberg nearly tripped over his own feet. Just because he now knew who the bigger enemy was didn’t mean Nikky was safer.
“For you,” Holberg said, “I’ll lower my price back down to six hundred thousand.”
Albion stopped and stared at the man with a blank expression.
Harry couldn’t tell if his look was contemptuous or calculating.
He ignored the man entirely for a moment and turned to Harry to say, “I only want Nikky to behave. Tell him to stop acting up. Tell him to record the songs I want recorded and to trust my vision for what his music career should be.”
“You want to infantilize him and turn him into something he’s not,” Harry seethed.