Fuck. He wasn’t wrong.
“Please,” he said softly.
“Okay,” I husked, leaning forward. “You got a message from Walker Evans tonight.”
“And you know this how?”
“I know we’re done, but I want you to know, truly, that I’m so sorry for violating your trust and––”
“No one should ever listen to another person’s messages on their phone,” he informed me, eyes wide, staring holes through me. “I don’t care if they’re married…I don’t care. That is personal and private, and how fuckin’ dare you!”
His voice was loud, and I swallowed down my heart.
“We just finally move forward and you what, go for broke?”
I shook my head.
“Say something!”
“I knew it was wrong when I did it.”
“And?” His voice cracked like a whip.
“And I would fuckin’ do it again,” I roared back at him, sick with disgust at what I’d done, for what I’d seen on the videos, and because I felt like I’d betrayed Nick just the same as everyone else. I hadn’t broken his bones, but breaking his spirit wasn’t any better.
We were both silent for long minutes.
“And now you want what?”
My eyes lifted and I met his gaze. “I want you to forgive me because I did it for the right reasons,” I replied miserably.
“Which were?”
“You know.”
His face tightened at once, and he nodded.
“I’m sorry all the way down to my bones.”
Another nod.
“Do you wanna hear about the rest?”
“Yes,” he rasped.
“After Evans got thrown out of the house in Santa Monica, he went back to his house in Calexico, and that’s where he’s been for the last few months.”
His eyes narrowed, and his head tipped like he was unsure.
“Ask me questions,” I pressed him. “Anything.”
“You—how did you know that’s where he was?”
“Because, like I said, that’s where he has a house, and my guy Owen––”
“Your guy,” he barked at me, and his tone was sharp. He was angry, but something else too, that I was too tired to parse.
My mother gasped, and I glanced at her and saw her biting her lip, but she waved her hand dismissively, so I returned my focus to Nick. “Our guy,” I corrected myself, “our tech, he checked, and that’s where Evans was, so I went there with other members of my team.”
“Oh,” he said, exhaling. “So what…what happened?”
“I got the footage of you and those guys, and of you getting hit,” I said flatly, “and the ones of the horses.”
“You got everything.”
“I did.”
“I wanted that for a long time.”
I nodded.
“Okay,” was all he said.
“Walker Evans is being charged with contributing to the endangerment of a minor, possession of child pornography, and you need to decide if you want to add extortion to that.”
His eyes searched mine.
“Your father will be charged with felony child endangerment, as he allowed you to be beaten, neglect of a dependent, and of course, with animal cruelty and whatever additional charges they add for deliberately deceiving the other breeders he did business with.”
Silence from him, and I was fairly certain he was processing everything I’d just related.
“Will everyone know what my father did to me, and why?”
“Only if you want them to,” I assured him. “There’s a gag order in place, backed up by a credible threat by my boss, who was there with me.”
“You talked to Evans yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Did you watch the sex video?”
“None of us did,” I told him, because we hadn’t. “We just grabbed the external drive, and my boss took it with him.”
“They were two guys I messed around with in high school,” Nick told me. “And they have lives and families now, and it’s not fair that just because I’m rich and famous and somebody wants to blackmail me that they have to have their lives ruined.”
Nick had paid Walker Evans for them, not himself.
“I mean, everyone who cares to know, knows I’m bi,” he told me. “It’s not a secret in any way, but for them…” He trailed off. “One of them is a high school principal, and the other is running for office.”
“You kept track of them.”
“I did. In case something happened where I couldn’t pay Evans, I wanted to be able to reach out and warn them.”
“They owe you a lot.”
He shook his head. “I’m the one at fault. I put them in a compromising position.”
“No,” I corrected him. “Evans did that when he took video of you with them. You had an assumption of privacy, and that was violated.” It didn’t escape me that now I’d violated his privacy as well.
“That’s very true.”
“Not to mention you were underage.”
“Yes.”
I took a breath. “Evans…he showed the footage to your father, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah. He wanted money in exchange for his silence, but my father told him to go fuck himself. He didn’t care who saw me screwing around.”
Something occurred to me. “In the video of you being beaten, you were already bleeding before they started whaling on you,” I managed to get out.