Chapter 6
Chapter Six
TRISTAN
Lexi needs a lawyer? My favorite type of person—not. I can only stare, and for a second you could hear a pin drop as Evan also searches Lexi’s face.
“What’s happened?” Evan asks as he puts the pastry box on the kitchen counter.
Lexi clutches her coffee cup as if it were a life buoy. “The hackers are threatening to release my name with the video if the hotel group doesn’t pay up.”
Wowowowow. What?
“Shit.” Evan drags a hand through his sweaty hair and groans. “Bring Tristan up to speed. I’m going to shower. Gimme five.”
Lexi’s eyes meet mine, but then she looks away.
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” I say. “If you need to talk to Evan privately, I’ll make myself scarce.”
She shakes her head as a tear cruises down her cheek.
My heart squeezes. “Lexi… What can I do to help?”
“Stick around,” she says on a broken chuckle. “You might come in handy.”
“Okay. I’ll do anything, you know that, right?
” The words are out before they register in my mind, but they’re true.
At one point, Lexi was one of my best friends.
Between her and Evan and their mom, I found an unexpected haven as my own family life disintegrated.
I’d do anything for any of them. Plus, I have lawyer connections aplenty.
“Would you? Be careful what you commit to here. What if I asked you to off someone for me?”
I laugh. “You? Offing someone? Never.” Lexi wouldn’t hurt a fly, but her face is serious. “Feeling murderous much?”
At this she buries her face in her hands to cover a sob.
Oof. I made it worse. I go around the kitchen island to comfort her, but at the last second, I pull back.
The last time I saw her like this, it was my fault.
The best I can hope for is that we can be friendly for the time we’re in Evan’s house, and this isn’t the way to go about it.
“I’ll make breakfast.” I don’t touch her, and she isn’t aware that I wanted to. I move back to the other side of the counter and find two frying pans. I put strips of bacon in one, turn on the gas, and find a bowl to scramble some eggs in.
When she looks up with a sniff and wipes her face, I pause.
“So, long story short,” she says with a woebegone smile, “I got fired because of a security video at work. I walked in on someone, uh, having sex. I didn’t report it as I should have, and the hotel’s systems got hacked a few days later.
Now the hackers are using the footage to extort the celebrity who was caught on video. ”
I hitch my eyebrows. “What? A celebrity?”
“Yep. And now the hackers have figured out who I am and are using me to blackmail the hotel.”
“Son of a bitch.”
Evan comes down the stairs. The worry on his face is real, but he schools his expression before he comes to stand next to his sister. “What are the hackers asking for? Do you know?”
“A million dollars.”
My jaw drops. Jesus Christ. They’re not messing around.
“And they’ve contacted you?” Evan asks.
“I don’t know. I don’t have the guts to check my phone.”
“Where is it?” Evan asks.
“On the floor in my room.”
Evan walks away, shaking his head. Lexi sits frozen in her seat, hands clenched. I wish she didn’t feel like she needed to save face in front of me.
Evan is back in seconds and holds out her phone to her. “Unlock it.”
She does and hands it back to him. “I don’t want to look.”
“I’ll do it.” Evan perches on the barstool next to her, and we all seem to hold a communal breath.
“Email. Nothing. Messenger, nothing. WhatsApp’s all good too.
Instagram—” He breaks off, glances at Lexi who is staring at her mug as if it were a portal to another world and she couldn’t figure out how it works, then shoots me a glance with a cocked brow, then says, “Nothing in Insta either.” He carries on, going through other social media apps.
“There’s nothing dodgy here.” Evan pulls her in for a side hug. “So far so good.”
“Okay.” Her voice is small as Evan lets her go. “What do I do now? I have no clue what to do.”
“Shut down all your profiles,” I tell her. “Make it impossible for someone to reach you. This is the hotel’s problem, and they have the resources and know-how to deal with this.”
She looks up at me. “Okay. Can you do that, Ev?”
“Consider it done.”
Heavy silence hangs over the table as Evan deals with the IT, and I deal with the eggs, my mind racing. “I’ll give my dad a call about the lawyer. Someone at his firm would be able to help with this.”
“Will you?” Lexi’s sea-blue eyes flood with tears, ready to overflow.
The hope in her voice stills my heart. Here’s something I can do to take those tears away. “Sure, no problem.” I flip open the pastry box and eye the six croissants. “Bacon and egg croissant, anybody?”
Evan looks up. “Yeah, sure.”
Lexi shakes her head. “I can’t eat.”
“But you should, if only one bite.” The distress in her eyes, the strain in her posture is contagious. My shoulders are as tense as a rod.
“Thanks for the offer to call your dad,” Evan says as he puts her phone down. “Do you still think my idea is so ludicrous, Lexi?”
She meets his gaze and something passes between them—a memory of what it’s like when your world spins out of control.
I wasn’t there when that shit went down, but by the look in Evan’s eyes, he would stop the world from spinning now with his bare hands, if he could.
“Have you told Tristan about the job?” he asks.
“No,” Lexi says, a flash of fire in her eyes. “And it isn’t ludicrous anymore, only crazy. And perfect. Dammit. It’s so crazy perfect.” She looks up at me and shakes her head. “And no, I haven’t told Tristan anything. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m kind of dealing with a shitfest right now.”
Evan squeezes her hand. “Let me get my laptop, and we’ll show him.”
I watch Evan go up the stairs, my interest piqued. “Are you sure the hackers will drop the video and things will blow up?”
“All I know is that if they do drop the video, it will blow up.” Lexi bites her lip and hitches her shoulders.
“And I don’t want to be here when it does.
” She sighs, the breath seeming to come from deep within her.
“I’ve shared mine. Now you have to share yours.
Let’s see if your ‘so fucked you don’t know if you’re coming or going’ is worse than mine. ”
“Nobody can top yours, Lexi. I won’t even try.” I shoot her a smile. “I’ve only run out of time and money.”
She shifts in her seat. “Time, I get, but money? Don’t you have like thousands of followers? And a trust fund?”
Sometimes I forget that the O’Reillys know more about me than the average person who’s come into my life over the past twenty years.
“I’m not touching the trust fund,” I tell her.
Ever. “I’m doing this on my own steam. As for the thousands of followers, any money I make on social media goes to non-profits. ”
“Like what?” Her tone says it all. I’m crazy.
“Cleaning the oceans of plastic for one? Money doesn’t make me happy, Lexi.
Going for a dive and not finding a single piece of plastic while I’m at it makes me happy.
” And I’m committed now. As much as I would love to divert my social media funds to my project, I can’t leave those NGOs in the lurch.
What they are doing is more important than my TV series.
One day, everything will cross-pollinate, but my work means nothing if the oceans aren’t cleaned up.
I can feel her gaze on me as I cut open the croissants and fill them with bacon and scrambled eggs. I put one on a plate for her and push it over.
“Thanks.” Instead of taking a bite, she chews on her bottom lip.
Evan returns with his laptop and places it on the kitchen counter. “Read this and then look at this website.”
Lexi gets up and walks away, leaving her croissant untouched, shaking her head as she disappears down the hall.
“Should you—” I start. Should I? Follow her? Make sure she’s okay?
“Nope. She just needs a moment.” Evan turns the laptop in my direction.
I wipe my hands on a dishcloth and lean against the counter to read. It’s a job description. Ne’emba Private Island. Luxury resort. Diving. That gets my attention. “What’s this?”
“Lexi’s dream job. She’s been talking about working at a place like this for years, and I think she needs to get away right now.”
Damn skippy. I take the laptop and read on, not making much sense of it.
“You should check out their website.”
“Right.” I hop to the next open webpage, and my pulse skips a beat.
Of course. It’s Ne’emba Island. One island in a chain of atolls that link one of the biggest reefs off the east coast of Africa.
It’s one of the places I haven’t been to, money and distance being the biggest impediment.
I haven’t connected the dots, but these images…
they’re what dreams are made of. The resort’s website doesn’t need to do much to sell itself.
It’s picture-perfect paradise. There’s a whole section on the diving alone, and I close my eyes.
Fields of lettuce leaf corals. Bouquets of gorgonian sea fans that stretch to the light from the ocean bed.
This. This is what I live for. This is what I need to wrap up my series.
It starts off big with the ocean mammals; it needs to close small with the tiniest of sea slugs. “Why’re you showing me this?”
“It’s a managerial couple position. One person runs the hotel. The other person runs the dive center.” Evan holds my gaze. “I thought you two could kill two birds with one stone and give it a shot.”
“What? How?” I’m not getting the gist here.
“I know you’ve been putting off filming the smaller things. You focused on animals that always get sponsorships first.”