Blackmailed by Her Bully

She reached out, taking the deeds. Her hands shook. “I can’t.” She closed the paperwork and left it, her hands folding. “He knows where I live and has threatened my kids. I couldn’t stand for anything to happen to them.”

“Luke has?”

She didn’t say a word.

“Julie, you know who you’re dealing with. I will tell you anything you say to me will be in confidence. I will have men put at your door with the guarantee they’ll protect you.”

Julie started to cry, and he didn’t like tears.

He waited. Glancing down at his watch, he was so close to leaving and being done with her.

“He said you don’t have a clue. That you’re blind and you’re not really a bad guy. You’ve got a weakness.”

“Luke did?”

“He said a long time ago, he had a nice tight pussy. One so tight and dry, it was a struggle to fuck, but when he did, she was the sweetest victory because he had something you’d never had.”

He listened as Julie told him in graphic detail what happened to her. Even as she begged him to stop, Luke kept on hurting her, forcing her, even though it went against the rules.

Afterward, Logan left her some money in the hope of helping compensate and climbed back into the car.

Grabbing his cell phone, he dialed Louisa.

“Do you have any footage from the night Luke hurt Julie?”

“No. He knows about the tapes, Logan. He had them turned off, and you’d given instruction your friends could have what they wanted.”

“Okay.” He hung up his cell phone and felt sick to his stomach.

Luke could be messing with him. What if it was someone else though?

Scrolling through his contacts, he found Luke’s number.

Pressing dial, he waited.

It went straight to voice mail.

He dialed again.

“Dude, seriously, can’t you take the hint? I’ve got something going on here, and I don’t need you to be calling me up every few minutes.”

“Why did you hurt one of my girls?”

“Did that fucking slut lie about me?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Louisa called me. She said you’d hurt one of the girls.” Logan knew he should have talked to Luke face to face.

“I see what is going on here. Ava’s got inside your head, hasn’t she?”

“No.”

“Please. Ten minutes alone with her and you want to act like her fucking superhero. I didn’t hurt anyone. I’m sick and tired of these bitches lying about me. They don’t have a fucking clue. Honestly, they want to be fucked nice and hard, and when you give them what they want, they scream rape. Don’t you find it a little boring?”

Logan knew he was lying. “I’ve got to go.”

“Dude, we’re good, right?”

“Of course.” He hung up his cell phone, turning over the ignition and driving out of the parking lot.

He arrived at his penthouse suite after lunch to find Hunter sitting at the dining room table, eating some kind of pasta.

“Is this what I pay you for? To sit and eat?”

“Ava’s trying on the new dresses you wanted. She keeps coming out. I think the blue is more her color, but she hates them all,” Hunter said. “How was your trip to Julie?”

Logan stared at his friend and his confidant.

“I want you to bring the sheriff to me,” he said.

“We’re talking about the Crow Valley fucker who likes little boys?”

“Yes.”

Hunter slurped up the final piece of spaghetti. “Do I get a reason why?”

“Luke’s lying, and I have a feeling, Ava’s telling the truth.” The moment he spoke the words aloud, he felt sick to his stomach. Hunter stood up.

“But you never had a reason to doubt. Why do you doubt now?”

“Hey,” Ava said, gaining their attention. “I didn’t hear you arrive home. So, here is the black one.”

She wore a cocktail dress with a plunging neck, and she gave them a twirl. Her blonde hair hung down her back, and he wanted to run his fingers through it.

Luke raped her.

Luke raped her.

“Don’t you like it?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Are you sure? You don’t seem sure.”

“It is stunning, Ava,” he said.

She nodded and frowned. “I’ll go and try on the next.”

He stared at the space where she stood, and he felt like the biggest fucking loser on the planet.

“What makes you think she’s telling the truth?”

“Do you remember the night Luke and the boys arrived? I had Ava come to me naked,” he said. Just recalling the memory now with the new knowledge made him feel sick.

“Yeah.”

“She was completely turned off, and she tried to stay as far away from Luke as possible. She couldn’t stand him. When I told her what happened, she didn’t believe me.” Logan finally turned to look at Hunter. “So far Luke has been trying to cover old tracks and given little snippets of information to one of the women who works for me.”

“What kind of information?”

“How he hurt someone years ago. Tore something from them that I could never have.” He looked back over his shoulder, but there was no sign of Ava. “When I was younger, before I was arrested, Ava and I, we shared a couple of moments. They were fleeting, but I always wanted her. I never told a soul about how much I did. She was an obsession I couldn’t get out of my head.”