Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
WE’RE GETTING WHIPLASH, TOO, MY DARLING LITTLE GOSSIP WHORES. WILL THEY? WON’T THEY? ARE THEY?DID THEY? IS HE? WILL HE? WHOEVER IS BEHIND THIS PUSH, I LOVE YOU AND I HATE YOU.
TRIPP
Iwatched as Greer rode away with Hank to go hang out with Maddie at Easton’s house.
Or their house since the two lived together.
“Mads already placed a delivery order for cheese and tequila,” Easton said, clapping my shoulder. “She’ll keep her away from her phone. And Hank will be there in case.”
After Greer’s last dive into the comment section, I doubted she would go near it again, but it was better safe than sorry.
Especially since the latest round of bullshit was even bullshittier than the last.
While Easton was getting Josh out of his building, Maddie had called to give him a heads-up that the latest round of shit had hit the fan online. She’d wanted to come to her friend, but Atlas texted while they were on the phone. Staying in was smarter.
I was used to the ruthlessness. The lack of privacy. The invasive toxicity that came along with being a celebrity.
But even I was shocked by how hard they were coming at me. Every blind item seemed to be about me. Old pictures with women at parties were being blasted like they’d just occurred. Even the fake Kaya messages were making the rounds.
I had no clue who I’d pissed off or what I’d done, but it must’ve been bad.
I paced the lobby. “Did Atlas say how long he’d be?”
“No. Just that he was heading over.”
“Did he say what’s up?”
“It’s Atlas. He asked if I knew where you were since you weren’t answering your phone, and then said he was coming over. And he did it in far fewer words.”
Easton wasn’t exactly chatty, either, so that said something.
I kept walking in silence for a few beats. “You think you could get me out of my movie contract?”
“Probably. I’m a damn good lawyer. You think you want out?”
“I think I want Greer happy and safe, and I don’t know that she can be either with cameras up my ass.”
“Colonoscopy aside, you’d walk away from acting?”
We would have to downsize from the house that was just starting to feel like home, but that probably wasn’t a bad idea. My sloppy security had really come back to bite me in the ass. With what money I had invested and saved, though, we could still live a good life.
“If I have her? Without a second’s hesitation.”
“Think it over. Talk it over. But it’s doable.”
Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait much longer before Atlas walked into the building.
“What’s—” I started.
He shook his head before looking at Easton. “Maddie in your office?” At the way Easton instantly stiffened, Atlas added, “Just making sure it’s available.”
“She’s at home.”
“Let’s talk there.”
Once we were closed inside, I asked, “What’s going on? Is it Simone again?”
My old stalker seemed to have moved on, but before the court case, her obsession had reached freaky levels.
“She was the first person I checked out, but her socials all revolve around Chase Majors now.”
Good.
They deserve each other.
“Give me your phone,” Atlas said. When I unlocked it and passed it over, he moved to sit in one of the chairs near the glass coffee table. He set my phone down before unlocking his own to show a list of what looked like instructions.
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
“Checking for the malware that’s cloning your phone.”
“What?”
He ignored me as he continued tapping the screen. “And there it is.”
“Can it be disabled?”
“Not yet. Even once it is, I suggest getting a new phone and using a different account.”
“What were they accessing?”
“Everything. Texts, pictures, emails. Call records. Browsing history. Every keystroke was recorded.”
It made me happy that I’d never been stupid enough to take a dick pic, but even happier that I’d never asked Greer to send me a nude picture. Knowing someone had read our messages pissed me off enough.
“Who?” I asked.
“No clue.”
“How did you know it was happening?”
“After reading through the nasty-ass Kaya messages that someone owes me hazard pay for, a few things set off alarm bells.” Atlas glared at me. “I would’ve had something sooner, but deactivating the account made it tough.”
It made it easier for Greer, though, and that mattered more.
Atlas dropped the ineffective glower. “I finally got it reactivated earlier to see you were in Las Vegas.”
I glanced down at my feet that were firmly planted not in Vegas.
“Exactly. But according to the metadata on the recent messages, your phone is there.”
I used to have a long list of vices—I was down to just the one with pretty hazel eyes—but even in my wildest party nights, I’d hated Vegas. It was all the fakeness of LA ramped up to a hundred and lined in neon and feathers.
“Know anyone there?” Easton asked.
I shook my head.
“Lucky for you, I do,” Atlas said. “He’s helped me catch a few skips.”
“Another bounty hunter?”
“Security for a resort owner.”
“A hotel employee is going to help you find out who is tracking me?”
He looked up from his phone. “Ash isn’t a regular employee, and his boss isn’t a regular resort owner. His tech guy is who sent the info on how to find the malware. Now that we’ve confirmed it’s there, we wait for them to track him.”
“And if they don’t?”
“They will.”
Easton’s phone buzzed, and my focus shot to him. “Mads says Greer is there, and they’re going to make Hank watch Old Flame.”
The knot that started between my shoulders and continued forward to cause an ache in the center of my chest loosened a fraction. “Good.”
I wasn’t sure how long we would be waiting, but at least she would be taken care of. I knew firsthand how good Maddie was at that.
It turned out, we didn’t have to wait all night like I expected.
It was less than two hours later when Atlas’s phone buzzed with a notification indicating an incoming FaceTime call. He didn’t answer right away as he looked at Easton. “You need to leave the room.”
“I’m fine,” he shot back. When Atlas arched a brow and still didn’t answer the call, my attorney stood with a scowl. “I’ll go feed the guppies.”
Once it was just the two of us, he connected the video.
A bearded man with a buzzed head filled the small screen. He was a big guy, but his friendly smile wasn’t exactly menacing.
Shit, he’s calling to say they’ve got nothing.
“Hey, Atlas,” he greeted before his eyes moved to the other side of his own screen, likely to look at me. “Hey, man, big fan. Pretty sure I have a friend of yours here.”
The view blurred as the phone was moved. I expected to see someone in a security office or hotel room.
Instead, it was a dingy concrete room that looked like a basement.
Or a jail cell.
I was closer with the last one since the guest of honor was restrained to a metal chair.
Fucking Alex.
Like a bad case of crabs, he keeps coming back.
After the break-in at my place, Atlas had tried to determine if Alex was behind it. He hadn’t been able to because he couldn’t locate my former assistant. His mail was piling up, and no one in his apartment building had seen him.
Now we knew why. He was partying it up in Vegas.
“Tripp, thank God,” Alex said, leaning forward toward the screen so I could see his swollen eye that was sure to be black and blue before long. “Tell them this is a misunderstanding. That you know me. They beat me, man. I’ve never been hit before!”
That was a surprise. Alex had a lot of punchable qualities.
The view flipped to the bearded man—Ash. “We didn’t beat him. He was on the Strip, and when we tried to chat, he ran. We stopped him.”
“With a fist,” Atlas surmised.
“To the face, correct.” The camera moved again, and that time Ash crouched so he and Alex were in the frame at the same time. “What do you want us to do with him?”
All three sets of eyes landed on me, waiting for my answer.
“Did he have his phone on him?” I asked.
Another giant pissed-off looking man stepped into view and held out a phone that was already in a plastic bag. “Cole said it’s the same one linked with yours.”
Atlas wasn’t kidding that they’re not regular employees, and that sure as shit isn’t a regular resort.
Not unless it’s dungeon themed.
“There’s probably enough to press some kind of charges,” I said.
Atlas gestured around. “And your lawyer will have fun finding every tiny way he broke his contract and NDA.”
“Not as much fun as I was hoping to have,” Ash said, “but I get it. We’ll hand him over to a detective we know.”
“Wait, whoa, hold on,” Alex rushed out. “What if I could offer you info?”
“On what singer is doing which residency?” I asked, lost on what he had that I would care about.
“No. I wasn’t doing this for shits and giggles.”
“Then why?”
“I was being paid.”
“There you are! God, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all day.”
I walked into the office followed by Easton for legal support and Atlas…
Because he wanted to offer scary motherfucker support, I guessed.
I watched as the man’s steps faltered for a second when he realized I wasn’t alone. But he was quick to recover.
Smooth.
Tony had always been smooth.
He sat behind his oversized desk and gestured to his phone. “Everyone and their mother has been calling about you. I’ve got five offers in hand, no read needed. Starring roles, Tripp. Big-budget, leading-man roles. The buzz is hot, but you, my favorite client, are hotter.”
“And all it took was my trust. My privacy. And nearly my relationship.”
Tony blinked, playing stupid. “I didn’t realize you were dating anyone.”
“Yeah, you did. And you knew those quiet nights in were already taking me off the front page of the gossip sites. If I settled down, there’d be no more parties. No more nights out. No more drunken antics for them to report. The only bad press is no press, right?”
“Look, I have no clue what you’re talking about.” Tony’s gaze darted behind me. “I don’t know who is trying to turn you against me, but they’re lying. They’re out for something.”
“So you didn’t pay Alex to fill my house with dating app conversations so Greer would end things?”
“No—”
“And when that didn’t work, you didn’t leak the videos and photos from the Hullywod party to scare her off?”
“Like I said, I didn’t even know you two—”
“Bullshit,” Atlas grumbled. “Anyone with a fraction of sight and two working brain cells could see they were together.”
“Not to mention,” I said, “the angle of the video didn’t come from the press. It was from the side. Where you were.”
“There was a whole crowd around me.”
“But only one person knew which bathroom I went into. You’re the one who showed it to me.”
I hadn’t put it together until Alex happily blabbed to save his ass, but there was no one else in that hallway.
As soon as I realized that, I called Greer to confirm.
Tony had been the one to tell her where to find me.
“You thought those women and the blow would tempt me, and that Greer would catch me with my pants down and cause a big scene.” I shook my head, feeling like a damn fool that I’d missed so many signs. “The parties, the clubs, the paparazzi. You set me up.”
“How would I do any of that? How would I know any of that?” It was Tony’s turn to shake his head with fake concern. “I’m worried—”
“You hacked my phone.”
“Now you sound paranoid.”
“Cut the shit. Alex told us everything.”
Tony tossed his cell to rattle on the desk. “Check it. There’s nothing on there.”
“Of course not. You let Alex keep it all on his phone so if it was ever traced, it was his ass on the line.”
“But he had a hell of a lot of evidence,” Easton chimed in. “Texts asking for information, schedules, and pictures. Money transfers right after he delivered.”
“None of that sounds traceable.”
“I don’t know,” Atlas said. “There’s a guy in Vegas who is pretty damn good at running complex IT for a multi-resort company looking into it.”
“Or you let me out of my contract now, and we part ways.”
For the first time all conversation, Tony’s smooth mask cracked. “No. Fuck no. If you try to break the contract, I’ll drag your ass to court.”
“Great,” Easton said, flashing a shark’s smile. “We’ll see you there.”
Tony’s frantic eyes moved back to me. “You can’t prove I was tied to any of this.”
“Maybe not. But I learned from you. No one cares if something is true or not. Perception is all that matters. One notes app post from me about this, and they’ll grab the torches and pitchforks to find you guilty in the court of public opinion.”
He slumped back and dragged his palm down his face. “Fuck.”
When that didn’t achieve the desired effect, he grabbed a stapler from his desk and chucked it across the room to shatter a framed award.
He looked at me with the same weariness I used to feel about the corrosive town. “Anything I did.” He held up a finger at Easton. “And I’m not saying I did. But if so, it was for you. For us. Think of the money we can make.”
“I already make good money, Tony. And you take a big enough cut from me alone that I know you do, too.
“But now you can have your pick of any movie. Any genre. Any location. You know how much you love acting. It’s literally in your blood. And these new offers are unreal. You’ll be set.”
“And I’d be fucking miserable if it were up to you.
I’m not working with you.” I issued a threat for the second time that day.
That might not seem like much, but as someone who only issued them in movies, it was odd it’d happened twice.
“If you call off your media dogs, your blind item connections, and any other shit you’ve been manipulating behind the scenes, I’ll keep my mouth shut about the rest of it. ”
“Plus, let him out of the contract,” Easton interjected as he pulled the papers from his case.
“Yeah, and that.”
Tony gestured to Easton. “Hand it over.” Unlike Josh, he read each line carefully, cursing to himself as he did. “Air-fucking-tight.” He snatched a pen from his desk but paused with it in his hand to look at me. “You sure this is what you want?”
I lifted my chin.
“And you don’t tell anyone about what you incorrectly suspect?” He scanned the three of us. “Any of you?”
“Already included our names in that contract,” Easton pointed out. “Along with the acknowledgment that if you badmouth Tripp, that part is null, and all of this is fair game.”
Tony scrawled his name and initials in the appropriate spot before turning in his chair to grab his own paper from the filing cabinet. He handed it to me, and I passed it to Easton.
Once he confirmed it was good, I signed it.
Ending my working relationship with Tony and Hullywod.
I left the office without a doubt in my mind that I’d made the right decision.
But I was still disappointed that a man I considered a friend was just like everyone else.
That he’d stabbed me in the back for a fraction of what I had.