“What are you talking about?” She blinked and shrugged. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You know exact
ly what you did!” I glared at her and tried to control the urge to start swinging. “You hacked Greyson’s security cameras! You tried to blackmail him!”
“Oh…” Her expression faded. “Yeah, you’ll never be able to prove that.”
Well, now I’m not going to be able to resist the urge to start swinging.
I wasn’t a violent person and I wasn’t a fighter—I had never even been in a fight. That didn’t stop the rage from boiling over until I lunged at Meghan and pulled her down to the floor by her hair. My open hand left a mark across her face and she started screaming, but I put my hand over her mouth to silence her. If one of the neighbors called the cops, I was definitely going to jail, so I had to work fast.
“Where’s the footage? On your laptop?” I looked around her apartment and slowly slid my hand away from her mouth. “If you scream again, my nails are leaving a scar.”
“What the fuck, Chrissy…” Meghan started trembling when I pulled my hand away from her mouth. “You—you can afford to pay! You’re rich! I have nothing!”
“You have a family that loves you. You have an apartment that they’re paying for—how can you say you have nothing?” I snarled at her and balled my fist. “I grew up without a father. I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for Greyson’s generosity—I’m sure as hell not going to let you destroy him so you can make a buck!”
“I wasn’t going to show anyone the footage!” Tears formed in the corner of her eyes. “I was just—I needed some money. I knew it was nothing to him after I saw that house…”
“Where’s the footage?” I pushed a fingernail against the bottom of her eye. “Tell me!”
“It’s—on my laptop. The password is Meghan.” Her face twisted into a grimace and tears started to pour out of her eyes. “My laptop is on the table by the couch…”
“Don’t you fucking move.” I stood to my feet and kept an eye on Meghan as I grabbed her laptop.
“Chrissy—I’m so sorry. I wanted to be your friend, but…” A sob stifled her words.
“I don’t want to hear your fucking sob story.” I knelt down on the floor and put the laptop on her chest.
I opened the laptop and found what I was looking for. The footage was in a folder on her desktop. I deleted it and checked to see if she had a cloud account—it wasn’t even set up. I left the laptop on her chest and found her cell phone. She didn’t fight when I grabbed her hand and used her fingerprint to unlock it. I deleted everything from it as well. I still didn’t trust her, and I knew enough about computers to know that the stuff could still be recovered in the right hands—unfortunately, it was too valuable to risk giving her an opportunity to do that.
“I’m taking these.” I closed her laptop and stood.
“Wait—I need my laptop for school.” She sat up. “And—you can’t take my phone!”
“Consider it a small price to pay for what you did. You could go to prison for trying to blackmail Greyson—and he’s got enough money to make sure that happens. Is that what you want?” I narrowed my eyes at her.
“No!” She shook her head back and forth.
“I’m sorry I was such a lame friend.” I walked to the door and slammed it behind me.
My heart was beating hard in my chest and my pulse was racing when I got back to the car. I couldn’t believe I had actually attacked Meghan—and watched her melt into a ball of tears in front of me. It was—kind of exhilarating, even if I was something that I never imagined myself doing. I was going to miss my first class, but I couldn’t let Greyson worry. I also had concerns that Meghan’s laptop or phone could have tracking software on them. I was afraid that she would try to call the cops or something once she regained her composure. I drove to the beach and walked out onto the pier—a few seconds later, her laptop and phone were in the ocean. There was no way anyone would recover anything off them—if they were ever even found.
Hopefully, Greyson will be proud of me for handling this myself.
16
Greyson
I was still angry when I woke up. I planned to spend the day at home—possibly even day drinking—but after Chrissy left for school, I realized that was never going to work. I still had a business to run. Lauren could manage it without me most of the time, but we had canceled meetings the previous day. I didn’t want to get further behind by canceling more. I put my anger in the back of my mind long enough to get ready and head to the office. I had no idea what I was going to do if the footage actually leaked—or what kind of damage control I needed to do before that could happen. I was used to handling shit for my clients—but there was too much panic to make the right decision when it came to myself. I certainly didn’t want to have to make a call to Candice Banks—but there was a possibility it was inevitable.
“You made it in.” Lauren looked up at me as I walked through the front door.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Anything yet?”
“I don’t think the group that hit those celebrities accessed your cameras.” Lauren turned her monitor towards me. “I talked to Ricky and he said those guys—they do things remotely and are really good at hiding it.”
“What does that mean?” I sat down next to her desk.