Page 41 of My Best Friend's CEO Dad

He looks at me bleakly. “I know. She might choose for us.”

Fear runs down my spine, a tingle I usually only read about in books. It’s like all the stress of the situation culminates in that one teasing trail of anxiety. There’s so much that could go wrong for us, so much that could twist us up, and yet we’re still sitting here, sharing secret smiles, like we’re trying to make ourselves believe it could all be okay.

He sighs. “I wish we didn’t have to face any of it. I wish we could leave and get far away. Forget my company. Forget our responsibilities.”

“Could you really do that?” I ask.

“I think I could forget everything,” he says fiercely. “I could forget the company. I could forget the world, but I couldn’t forget?—”

He cuts himself off, biting down like he can’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t need to—Kayla. We could let the rest of the world go and give ourselves to each other—ignore what people say, gold digger and all that crap—but he’s right. No matter where we went or what we did, Kay would always be there on some level, watching, judging, and hating us.

“This is a delicious steak,” I mutter. “Thanks.”

He nods. “You don’t have to thank me. It sounds cheesy, but cooking for you is a pleasure.”

“I don’t care if it sounds cheesy,” I tell him. “The cheesier, the better.”

I try to smile, but it feels so false knowing that, dozens of miles away, Kayla has no idea her boyfriend is a psychotic blackmailer with a fake name, no clue I want to throw myself at her dad, strip myself naked and rub my body against his to feel the heat and passion. The memory of bubbles popping like, soon, our dream will. Pop, and then we’ll come floating back to reality.

I stuff another chunk of steak into my mouth.

CHAPTER 20

FINN

Since Lukas learned my real name, thinking of myself as Ethan is weird.

I’m drunk; I won’t lie. A lot of my life feels weird lately. I’ve got this disconnect with reality, like I’m watching myself, looking back on what I’ve done. I remember what I thought about Kayla the first time we had sex. She’s a good lay, but that’s crap. I’m not that callous. That’s a shield I put up.

Walking down the waterfront, I reach into my pocket, take the whiskey flask, and slug some more back. If I can get money, maybe I can find a way to fight back and save Ashley. Am I really a sociopath? Do I believe that about myself?

I’ve gone too far to back out, though. I lied to Kayla and used her. She doesn’t deserve what I’ve done, but it’s not like I can snap my fingers and take it back now. It’s not like she’d ever understand.

My steps veer left and then right. Stopping near the water, I suck in big lungfuls of the sea breeze, trying to bolster myself. They want to meet with me, probably to make more threats.

When I hear the car pulling up, I stand up straight, hoping to hide how wasted I am. It’s a black sedan with tinted windows, the usual deal. A bridge casts a giant shadow over us. The traffic flows up there, with all those people having no idea what’s happening below.

The car stops, and a man steps out. He has such a plain face. That’s what always strikes me about the leader of this gang. His name is Nobody; that’s what he calls himself. He’s around mid-thirties, I guess, with smooth skin, no blemishes, a cut-and-paste haircut, wearing a suit with nothing remarkable about it.

“You’re late,” he says.

“I got lost,” I tell him.

That’s true, but not in the physical sense. I’ve lost my sense of right and wrong. I want it back. I don’t want to pretend I’m some big bad wolf anymore. I want to be a good person if I’m still capable of that.

“Get in.”

I’ve got no choice but to climb into the back of the car. He turns around and drives me out to a small outhouse-type building. He doesn’t say anything since there’s nothing to say. We both know what he’s going to show me.

Parking up, he steps from the car and doesn’t even bother to threaten me. I follow him numbly into the building. Several masked men stand around a room lit by a naked bulb light. The floor is damp, something dripping down the walls. The place reeks of metal and filth.

My sister, Ashley, is tied to a chair in the middle of the room. She’s not bleeding or anything, but she looks skinny and terrified. She’s older than me, twenty-three, but I’ve always seen it as my job to protect her, even if I tried for a while to pretend I was some sociopath who didn’t give a damn. Next to her is Sebastian Walker, the man who co-founded one of the biggest multimedia companies in the world. He’s got a nasty bruise across one side of his face.

Nobody—what a self-important prick—walks behind the pair, tapping his fingernail against his teeth. That gesture is the only noteworthy thing about him. It’s bizarre.

“Your job was simple,” he says, tap, tap, tap. “Seduce the girl. Find something we can use publicly to dismantle the smiling, ugly veneer Lukas Larson presents to the world.”

“So you can tear down a pillar of technological enslavement,” I murmur.

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