He paused and adjusted the collar of his pale yellow polo beneath his jacket. Oppressive silence filled the vehicle while he intentionally delayed, relishing in my fear. I looked at him blankly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of asking again.

“That video is interesting, you know. Female Two is off-camera the whole time. It would be a shame if people thought that voice belonged to Bailey.” Luke gave me a pitying look. “Making sex tapes with her boyfriend could really hurt her chances of landing those opportunities. Would hurt her future career prospects too.”

Panic gripped me by the throat, putting me in a chokehold. It took every ounce of strength I had to keep my voice level. “You know damn well that voice doesn’t belong to Bailey. I didn’t even know her then. And she was still dating you.”

Luke shrugged. “Good luck proving that. There’s no time stamp shown on that video. She’s with you now, and she’ll be guilty by association. And once the rumor gets out, they’ll always believe it on some level.”

Regret churned in my stomach. All this time, I’d worried about shielding her from Luke, but I was the one she needed protection from. Guilty by association because of me and my choices. About to pay the price for something I did before I even knew her. Something done to me.

“Again, what the fuck do you want? I know it isn’t cash.”

“End it.”

The words stabbed me in the gut like a rusty blade.

“What?” I should have been expecting it, but a small, desperate part of me hoped for something else. Anything else.

His blue eyes held mine, cold with malice. “Did I stutter?”

“She’ll never get back together with you.” My pulse roared in my ears. “This is about control. You don’t even love her. If you did, you wouldn’t do this.”

He waved me off. “We could play armchair psychologist all day. It doesn’t matter. Question is, are you willing to blow up her life?”

The knife in my gut twisted and tore me apart from the inside, disemboweling me all over the inside of my truck. It killed me to think of Bailey losing out on something she clearly deserved. But it devastated me to think of losing her.

Luke held her future in his hands and he knew it.

I needed the other half of the video, the part where I’d gotten mad and called Kristen by her name. If nothing else, it would exonerate Bailey. Stewart’s PI would start digging, but who knew how long it would take to find it—if he found it at all? But then what? Leak it myself to prove it wasn’t Bailey? Even if I did locate it, the solutions were all shitty.