Chapter 43 #2
Julian nodded, but unexpectedly asked an unrelated question. “Remember, you sent me a selfie? After our date?” Julian used air quotes, and my stomach twisted.
“I do.”
“That’s what created the cyberattack a few months ago, wasn’t it?” Oh, Julian. Not so naive, after all. “You used me.”
My face blazed, but I knew there was only one way forward. “What?” I feigned ignorance. Deny, deny, deny.
Suddenly, Julian stood from his chair and strolled over to his office door, slowly closing it. It was strange and uncomfortable, but I wasn’t scared. Whatever Julian was planning to do to me wouldn’t have been worse than Xavier.
He walked over to his desk and leaned on it, trapping me in front of him. “You and Martinov were together. Weren’t you?”
Loud static buzzed in my head from the mention of his last name. “W-what are you talking about?” I whispered, feeling lightheaded from the conversation.
Julian smiled and tilted his head, as if he knew something I didn’t. “Don’t pretend, Jade. The video of you two on Pornhub? It has millions of views now.”
Nothing could have prepared me for Julian’s words. I stared up at him, my whole body rigid and my mind refusing to understand.
“No one knows who you guys are unless they know exactly who you are. It’s dirty as fuck, and to be honest, I didn’t think you were that kind of girl, just by looking at y—”
“W-what video?”
Tears poured down my cheeks. Uncontrollable, salty, hot, giant tears as I tried to understand the meaning of anything.
It was a few seconds before Julian realized, his smile slowly dissipating. “You don’t know? That it’s…online?”
“N-no! S-show me,” I sobbed, jumping up from my chair. “Show me the video!” Julian drew back, bewildered. “Give me your phone, show me right now!”
He paused, staring at my shaking hands, in as much disbelief as me. Finally, he reached inside his pocket and withdrew his phone, unlocking it. He clicked an app and typed something, his fingers moving so slowly! One click, two, three. He typed something again—
Do it harder, Daddy.
My voice filled up Julian’s office, and my mind short-circuited. What…the fuck…was this?
I ripped the phone out of Julian’s hand and stared at the images moving on the screen. The video was grainy and the lighting was horrible, and it was taken from a strange angle, but most importantly…
There was Alex.
My love. My whole world.
Disoriented, I hungrily took in the sight of Alex spanking me. Do it like you mean it.
Alex smacked my ass cheek. Still alive, still healthy. Still mine.
Again. Do it again. A slap and then—
Start counting.
His voice.
I shot my gaze to a red-faced Julian, my whole soul in turmoil. This changed everything and at the same time nothing at all.
Because it was too late.
The video was titled Stepsister broken and dominated by older bro (LEAKED) and had thirty-seven million views.
“I-I’m sorry, I had no idea you didn’t know, I thought you uploaded it—”
“How could I get a copy of this?” I paused the video and looked up at a flustered Julian. There had to be a way to get my hands on this.
The dirty motel clearly earned money in other ways—leaking sex tapes of unsuspecting visitors.
“Um, maybe get in touch w-with Pornhub?” Julian suggested, his discomfort ballooning with every passing second. “And tell them it’s been uploaded without your knowledge, I don't know.”
Julian shook his head and pocketed his phone, unaware of the storm inside me. Unaware of what he just revealed. This wasn’t just a porn video. This wasn’t just dirty entertainment. It was a plan—one meant to destroy and also liberate.
And it was too late. So very much way too late.
Julian rounded his desk and scribbled something on a Post-it note, oblivious to my catatonic state. He passed me the sticky paper, adding his last words, “Let’s never talk about this again, and…here’s how to get in to see Pavlov.”
“Jade! Holy shit!” the man exclaimed, such relief flooding his weathered face. “Why’d it take you so fucking long to come see me? Oh my God! I’m happy to see you, though.” He shook his finger at me and sat down behind the little plexiglass.
It took me almost a minute to recognize him. Who. Was. That? This man was pale and emaciated, with deep, dark circles under his eyes. Murder screamed in his gaze, and his hair…it was all gray.
“A-Andrei?” I asked, not believing my own eyes and reality. “W-what happened to you? Why do you look like this?”
"Stress, Jade! What do you think?” He spoke with energy as usual.
“I’ve been here three fucking months! Your father’s been laying it on hard—you know.
” He waved a hand at me. “My wife’s all alone at home with three kids, and one’s a newborn!
Who I haven’t seen at all!” He paused to breathe.
"My bank accounts have been frozen, and you haven’t shown up!
This isn’t a private villa in Santorini! ”
Strangely composed, Andrei finished his little monologue and waited for me to say something—to explain why I didn’t come sooner.
To explain how I was going to help him.
To explain…what happened.
Dread washed over me like a tidal wave. He had no idea. He was in the dark, having no clue that his best friend was dead…and didn’t even have a grave.
I swallowed hard, gearing up for the inevitable. “You…you don’t know?”
Andrei blinked at me, his face translucent.
“Know what?” He chuckled, even in these abysmal circumstances, but the look on my face translated it all.
“What?” he whispered, immediately figuring out that something…
something happened. We stared at each other while I picked the right words. “What, Jade? Tell me.”
“Alex is…Alex is dead.”
There was no reaction. Andrei sat there, looking through the plexiglass, calm and collected, until he quickly shook his head and furrowed his eyebrows.
"No, no, no,” he chuckled again, full of disbelief. “There must be some mistake. Olya talked to him. On the phone. You were there too? She told me she talked to him when she came to visit—right after they arrested me.”
He was holding on to a tiny shred of hope, knowing that he was wrong.
“That was the night before he...it happened. Xavier killed him.” I gulped, holding back my tears. “They found us and Xavier k-killed him and took me and today…today was the first day he let me out of the house and back to work. So I came as soon as I c-could,” I stuttered through the explanation.
There was nothing else we could say to each other after that. Andrei’s eyes were empty; he simply sat there like a shell of a human being, unable to talk. I tried to ask questions—about his arrest and details of what he’d been told, but he couldn’t answer. Couldn’t say yes or no.
I stood from the chair and said my goodbye, promising I’d help, but he knew that was a lie. How could I help? What could I truly do? How could I escape the clutches of my prisoner?
Because my prisoner held me in his clutches in a death grip.
“Dinner starts at eight. Wear the dress on your bed. Try not to be late.” Xavier peeked into my room for a minute, a day after my visit with Andrei. A day after I found out about the leaked video of Alex and me.
I pulled on the dress and the heels, taking my time straightening my hair and applying dark makeup, hoping for a funeral look instead of the forced celebration.
It was our engagement party, and Xavier had invited all his friends, ignoring the fact that I, too, at some point had friends and a life. He wanted to show me off. Show off that I came back to him—that he won.
I stood in front of the mirror, refusing to let the tears fall again. This dress was almost the same as the one I wore when I met Alex—a little shimmery number with a plunging open back, accentuating my curves. Well. Accentuating what used to be curves.
I looked hot, devastated, and ready to die. I twirled around and noticed something on my skin. Hives. Red blotches decorated my entire back and neck, but I paid them no attention. This dress, like everything my body touched which belonged to Xavier, was giving me an allergic reaction.
Just to spite him, I arrived at the restaurant a whole hour late.
A Greek song played over the speakers as I walked to my seat, wishing to be six feet underground.
But the song was beautiful. It was slow, the man’s voice was full of lament, and my heart clenched at the knowledge that men wrote songs about love.
That there were happy couples out there, in this very restaurant, sitting with the loves of their lives.
“Mon ange! Tu es arrivée!” Xavier exclaimed, his new eyepatch not dampening his thirst for life.
His eyelid needed surgery and stitches, and everything was still swollen, but he powered on, like a rodent infestation, impossible to kill and exterminate.
Regrettably, even though his eye needed time to heal, he’d still be able to see out of it.
I sat down and stared straight ahead, ignoring all his friends and their wives and girlfriends, all of them here to witness the circus. So Xavier leaned in, clutching my wrist. “Sit nicely and smile. Don’t embarrass me in front of my friends.”
As ordered, I faked a smile, and he seemed satisfied.
The evening dragged on, life bursting all around me, but I had only one thing on my mind.
Just this one last night. I could get through this. Just this one. Last. Night.
"Can I get you a drink, Miss?" the impossibly tall server spoke somewhere beside me, and for some reason, that deep voice sent a twinge of pain through me. I didn’t want a drink; I wanted to die, so I ignored him, just like everything else around me.
But he leaned down toward me, and then…well, then it was impossible to mistake that scent. Cigarettes, woodsy cologne, and darkness.
“What are you drinking tonight, Preziosa?”