Page 50

I thought about my hotel rooms. Getting dressed. Video calls with friends where I'd been crying or drinking or both. Every private moment, every vulnerable second.

Someone had watched it all.

"I'm going to be sick."

Code grabbed a trash can and shoved it in front of me. I breathed deep through my nose and pushed the can away. “I’m good.”

He disappeared and returned with a bottle of water. I might not have vomited, but I still drank half the bottle in one long pull.

"There's more." Code sat across from me, close enough that our knees almost touched. "The camera wasn't just pointed at you."

My head snapped up. "What?"

"Video calls. Friends visiting your hotel rooms and house. Anyone in frame." He rubbed his face with both hands. "Katherine, they have footage of other people too."

Water spilled onto my jeans as I crushed the water bottle.

"Those bastards! Who? Who did they get?"

"I'm still analyzing. But so far, I've identified two people with significant exposure." He pulled up files. "Your business manager, Chris Axelrod. Seventeen instances. Your publicist, Marissa Torres. Twenty-three instances."

"Dammit!"

"Neither had as much footage as you. They were usually just in frame during video calls or brief in-person meetings. But they're there."

I pressed my hands to my face. This wasn't just about me anymore. Chris. Marissa. Two people who'd done nothing wrong except be my friends and try to help my career.

"What about Angelica?" The question scraped out of my throat. "How many shots of Angelica?” I knew it was going to be bad.

Code's jaw tightened. He rubbed the back of his neck. That gesture I was starting to recognize meant he had to tell me something I didn't want to hear.

"There's a lot of footage of Angelica."

"I know that. Just tell me how much." I gritted out the question.

"Forty-seven instances. You two spent a lot of time together. Video calls, girls' nights in hotel rooms, that weekend in Miami." My head dropped to my chest. I tried to suck in air, but it was hard. "Katherine, breathe."

Angelica. Sweet, trusting Angelica who'd dropped everything to help me. Who'd driven me here, introduced me to her family, made me feel safe for the first time in weeks.

And I'd brought this nightmare into her life.

“Breathe, Katherine. It’s going to be okay.”

"They're going to do to her what they did to me. They're going to make videos of her saying horrible things. Destroy her career. Ruin her life."

"We don't know that. We have no idea at this point, what this asshole has planned except for what he’s done to you." His voice was calm and steady. I looked up at his face, and his eyes told me he had it all under control.

God, please say that was true.

"But he could come after Angelica," I whispered.

"Anything’s possible."

The honesty hurt worse than a lie would have.

A knock at the door made us both turn. A man stood in the doorway. Tall, lean, with dark hair and sharp eyes that assessed me in one quick glance. He wore jeans and a faded Navy t-shirt.

"You must be Kit Lord." He held out his hand. "Hart Laramie. I work here at Onyx part-time on the technical stuff."