Chapter 20
THE DIRTY VIDEO COMES BACK TO HAUNT ME
Andie
The elevator doors sigh open onto Thomas’s magnificent penthouse, and I step into the hush, my shoes sinking deep into the runner, the air already thick with whatever perfume they mist through the HVAC.
It’s too early for true darkness, but the city is already a collage of neon and blue.
In the windows, Minneapolis looks like it’s been dipped in wine and wrung out to dry—streetlights leaking through a high shelf of cloud, the river all purple and bruised beneath.
The kind of night that wants to be dramatic but ends up just tired.
I step into the massive apartment and don’t bother calling his name.
For three weeks now, the ritual is always the same: I let myself in, toss my bag on the bench in the vestibule, and immediately hear his voice from somewhere deeper inside.
Usually the library. Sometimes the den, if he’s working late.
Once, he was singing—real, actual singing, off-key and under his breath, crooning an eighties song while he puttered around.
I still think about it when I can’t sleep.
Tonight, there’s nothing. No football on mute, no clink of a glass, not even the low tick of jazz from his playlist. The only sound is my own heartbeat, and the faint hum of city energy coming up through the floor.
It’s only as I round the corner into the living room that I see him.
Thomas. Standing dead center in the rug’s pattern, as if he’s been pinned there by some forensic team, arms at his sides, feet planted perfectly parallel.
He’s in jeans—dark, straight fit—and a storm-grey cashmere sweater that’s so luxurious that the rib at the collar is still sharp.
He could be a billionaire or a hitman or a statue commemorating a famous, beloved traitor.
The effect is ruined only by the phone in his right hand, held low, screen lit, thumb braced over the back.
I stop. My voice, when I try it, comes out too small. “Hey.”
He doesn’t answer. He just stares at me, jaw locked, eyes a blue so pale they could cut glass. The silence between us is so pure that I can hear the pop of electricity in the light fixtures overhead.
“Thomas?” I take another step, then freeze. I’m maybe five feet from him, but it might as well be the far side of the city. “You okay?”
He lifts the phone, as if testing its weight, then flips the screen so it faces me. The gesture is slow and almost elegant, like a magician unveiling a card. There’s no warning—no hint of what’s coming—until the first second of audio blares into the quiet.
It’s my voice. On the phone, I’m panting, voice high and almost deranged, breath hitching between words.
I hear the slap of skin, the wetness of it, the urgent, half-choked little “fuck” I never admit to using in real life.
Then, Thomas’s voice: low, feral, not at all the voice I know from waking hours.
“You’re so fucking tight, baby. Thank you for gifting me your pussy cherry. ”
On the screen, the image jerks, refocuses.
My body, lush and wild, legs open obscenely wide, Thomas’s dick sinking slowly into my tight pussy, stretching me, his hips flush against my thighs.
The angle is from the side, yet everything is revealed.
As he pulls back, the camera picks up a glistening smear of red, streaking his cock and then vanishing as he sinks deep into me again.
We both cry out, me a breathless scream of joy, him the deep groan of satisfaction.
I see my own face, twisted and lost, eyes rolled so far up with pleasure you can almost see the whites.
“Yes, claim my pussy,” the woman on the screen pants. “It’s yours.”
“You know what this means,” Thomas growls between deep thrusts. “I’m your first, baby, so your cunt’s now molded to the shape of my cock. You’ll never be satisfied with another man.”
She whines a little, arching her back, unable to reply because of the pleasure the man gives her.
I can’t look away. Not at the video, not at Thomas.
My bag slips from my shoulder, thumping softly to the carpet. I snatch at the strap by reflex, the jolt so violent it nearly snaps my wrist. My throat is sandpaper. I try to swallow, but nothing moves.
“I—” The word breaks in half. “Where did you—how did you—”
He doesn’t blink. “I was updating your laptop. You asked for help remember? This was in your cloud, Andie. It was labeled with the date of our first encounter here.”
I clutch the bag to my chest, suddenly cold all over. “I thought I deleted it,” I say, stupidly. “I deleted that months ago.”
He sets the phone down on the coffee table, screen still facing up, the video still running. The sound keeps going: my own voice, begging for more, the obscene slap of our bodies together, a whimper I don’t even recognize as me.
The penthouse is exactly as it should be—marble counters catching the last blue smears of daylight, a row of empty glasses on the bar, a bottle of whiskey on the side table, two tumblers set out, one still full and untouched.
The TV is off, the room too clean, too orderly.
Even the city lights seem to have dimmed, the world outside watching us through a lens of indifference.
I look at Thomas. I mean, really look. He isn’t just angry. He’s gone somewhere else, somewhere far away and windless, where nothing moves or matters. His hands are in fists now, the knuckles white. His shoulders are hunched, the set of his jaw tight.
I want to say something, but all I can manage is, “Thomas, I swear—”
He shakes his head, slow and final. “Why didn’t you tell me that you filmed us that first night?” His voice is flat, barely even there.
“I forgot about it. I didn’t—” The tears start without warning, brimming in my eyes, blurring the room so that all the sharp corners go soft and nothing is real except the heat in my face and the taste of salt in my mouth.
“I never even showed it to anyone. I just— I don’t know. I deleted it right after—”
His eyes flick down to the phone, then back up. He doesn’t buy it. “You made a promise,” he says, and now the cold is gone, replaced by something that burns, slow and deep. “No more secrets, Andie. We agreed on that. In the fucking diner, remember?”
I nod, even though I can’t really remember anything anymore except the feeling of my own shame.
He gestures at the phone, not even touching it. “Was this for the bet, too? Or just for your collection?”
The words hit like a slap. “No,” I say, voice shrill and cracking. “No, I swear, well yes, it was originally for the bet, but like I said, I never showed it to anyone—”
He cuts me off. “You filmed us having sex. Without asking me. And you did it the time when I thought it wasn’t just going to be another random fuck.”
He doesn’t yell. He doesn’t move. He just stands in the center of the room, perfectly still, letting the words rot in the air.
My knees are shaking now, the kind of shake that feels like it’s coming up from the floorboards. I wipe at my cheeks, and my vision is nothing but tears and the color of the rug and the glitter of city lights through glass.
“Thomas,” I say again, helpless. “I’m sorry.”
He lets out a laugh so small I almost miss it. “I bet you are.”
I want to cross the distance between us, to touch him, to say something that will erase the last five minutes. But the look on his face makes it impossible.
I stand there, in the half-light, shaking, while the video plays on the table, repeating my own humiliation back to me. The penthouse has never felt so large or so empty.
The city glitters, and I can’t tell if it’s mocking me or just bored.
I swipe at my eyes again with the back of my hand, but the tears just keep coming.
He watches me, not moving.
And the only thing in the room that makes any noise is my own voice on his cell, echoing over and over, obscene and ultimately, my downfall.
I stand there and watch my own humiliation, doubled and tripled, a funhouse mirror of my worst mistakes.
My voice keeps looping through the penthouse, echoing off every slick, expensive surface.
I want to scream, or claw at the phone until it breaks, or run back in time and strangle the girl who thought this was a good idea.
Instead, I do what I always do: I try to talk my way out of it.
“Thomas, I swear to god, I never sent it to anyone.” My hands flutter, useless, then clamp down on the strap of my purse. “I didn’t even use it for the bet, I never—”
The billionaire doesn’t move. His voice is so flat it makes the next words worse: “Didn’t use it for the bet? You filmed it. Isn’t that enough?”
I taste bile in the back of my throat. “It was stupid. It was from before I knew you, I mean, really knew you. I thought I deleted it, I swear—”
His laugh is sharp and hopeless, like the click of a broken seatbelt. “You thought you deleted it. But you didn’t because a lot of shit is automatically backed up now.”
“It’s just a fucking file, Thomas. It doesn’t mean—”
He shakes his head. “Stop.” Then, softer: “Just stop, Andie. I don’t want to hear it.”
I want to walk toward him, to touch his hand, to close the space that’s suddenly an abyss. But his eyes are so cold they might as well be made of ice. My knees go weak, so I sit—kneeling, not quite conscious of it, the coffee table biting into my thigh.
“I chose you,” I say. “After everything, I chose you over them, over the bet, over all of it. Doesn’t that count for something?”
He sets the phone on the marble with a deliberate click and crosses his arms. There’s nothing left in his face.
“There was no choosing. We made a deal that night at the diner,” he says, low and clipped.
“No more secrets, remember? No more hiding in the shadows. You told me everything at the diner. Or you said you did.”
I nod, blinking away tears. “I did, I swear, I forgot—”
He’s already shaking his head, slow, a funeral metronome.
“Don’t bullshit me, Andie. If you didn’t want me to see it, you could’ve wiped it from the cloud.
You’re not stupid. You know how these things work.
” He glances at the window, then back. “You wanted to keep it. For yourself. For later. Or maybe you were just hedging your bets.”
The accusation lands like a stone. I suck in a breath, but it sticks in my chest. “That’s not true! You know it’s not—”
He cuts me off. “I don’t know anything anymore. You were the only thing I thought was honest in this entire city.” He laughs again, but there’s no humor in it. “Fuck me for being that na?ve.”
My cheeks are wet, but I barely notice. “Please, Thomas, just listen—”
He picks up the whiskey glass from the table, but doesn’t drink. He just turns it in his hand, watching the way the city lights refract through the cut glass. “You made me into a fool,” he says, almost to himself. “You made me trust you.”
His voice never rises. It just gets quieter, the volume dialed down until I have to strain to hear it. “You should go.”
My hands shake so hard I have to grip the edge of the table to steady them. “I can’t,” I say. “Not like this. Please. Just let me explain—”
He looks at me, and the force of it pins me to the spot. “I don’t want to hear it,” he says, his eyes flat and blue and endless. “I don’t want to see you again.”
I blink, and for a second, everything goes white. “You don’t mean that,” I whisper.
He does. I see it in his face. The same face that bent down and kissed me when I was half-drunk, that whispered secrets in the dark, that looked at me like I was a miracle when he thought I couldn’t see. That face is gone now. There’s just a wall of harshness and regret and wasted time.
He sets the whiskey glass down, wipes his hands on the front of his jeans as if to rid himself of the last trace of me, and walks to the window. The city is at his back now, a thousand little lives flickering behind him, none of them mine.
“Leave now.”
I pull myself up, somehow. The room spins, but I keep going. I gather my bag, my jacket, the broken pieces of my pride. I walk to the kitchen and set my key on the cold marble, the sound of it tiny but absolute.
For a second, I think about saying goodbye. I think about turning to look at him one last time, memorizing the breadth of his shoulders and the mess of his hair and the shape of his hands in the dim light. But I don’t.
I depart without a word.
The elevator is a tomb. The ride down is slow, endless, every floor a countdown to extinction. I see my reflection in the mirror above the buttons—eyes red, mouth chewed to rawness, hair wild—and I don’t even recognize her.
When the doors open on the lobby, I walk out into the blur of night, into the wind and the noise and the anonymity of the city. I keep going until I can’t feel my feet, until the cold is the only thing that keeps me upright.
Behind me, high up in the sky, Thomas is still standing in the window, the city lights blinking around him. The video is silent now, just another dead thing in the dark. But I know it’s still there, trapped in the phone, in the cloud, in the space between us.
I keep walking, and for the first time in a long time, I don’t look back.
The night is full of neon and blue and the kind of loneliness that never really ends.
But it’s mine.
And I deserve it.
Maybe I always did.