Page 120 of Not the Plan

“How did you know?” Her question was so soft Isadora had to lean over to catch it.

“Because all of the rooms at Ike’s were bugged. There’s avideo of you telling Julian that you wanted to stop, and he said he’d use the videos against you too. He didn’t know he was also being filmed.”

Daria stammered, her eyes wide. “B-but if he didn’t know, how—”

“Karim,” Isadora said. “Once he found out about the videos, he guessed that the owner of Ike’s might have taped Julian too. Do you mind if Karim joins us? It’s perfectly fine if you don’t want him to. He’s only seen a couple of seconds of the videos. Hasn’t seen anything with you, really. But I understand if—”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I was gonna tell him anyway. Ask him to help me. Julian has no business being pro tem.”

“Okay,” Isadora said. She reached for Daria’s hand. “You let me know if you want Karim to leave, or if you want me to, at any time, okay? And Daniel will be in soon. He and I wanted to talk to you before we confront Julian. We want him to turn himself in, but that means what he did will come out, at least to the police. It’s not our place to make that decision by ourselves.”

“Oh God. Daniel must be livid,” she said.

“He is. At what Julian did to you. It’s immoral and a felony.”

“But I agreed to, at least at first.”

“Did he lay out his whole plan?” Isadora asked. “Ask for your input?”

Daria shook her head.

“Did you know you were being filmed?”

“Not at first.”

“And when you told him you wanted to stop, he threatened you. So no, we don’t think this is your fault. But it impacts you, so we wanted to talk to you first.”

—

“I’m so sorry, Daria,” Karim said, once he’d joined them and Isadora had brought him up to speed.

She dabbed at her eyes with the tissue Isadora had given her.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” she said, attempting a smile. “I knew Julian kept you out of it.”

He shook his head. “But when you came in while we were having lunch. You seemed uncomfortable. I should have followed my gut.”

Daria let out a sad laugh. “And somehow guessed what was going on? You’re a good guy, but you aren’t a mind reader.”

Isadora nodded. “You are a good guy, Karim. I’m sorry I lost sight of that.” She breathed through the coldness in her chest. She’d meant to echo Daria’s praise, not expose her raw nerves.

“Um, thank you…both,” Karim said, blushing, his gaze intent on the edge of the folder in his lap.

—

Daniel arrived. After a brief discussion between Daria, Karim, and Daniel, Isadora laid out her plan.

“Karim, can you bring Julian here once he gets in? We’ll confront him with the video where Daria says she wants to stop. Then we’ll contact the compromised members and tell them that their videos have been deleted. Next, we call the capitol police and have Julian taken into custody until the local police come for him.”

Karim nodded. “I can do that.”

“I’d rather ask the other members if they want to come delete the videos themselves. Or see it done. So they’re confident it’s over,” Daniel said.

“Makes sense,” Isadora said. “But won’t it be weird for them to see each other? Maybe they don’t want to be in the same room together.”

Daria cleared her throat. “If it’s all right with everyone, I’d rather not be in the same room with all of them at once either.”

“Yes, of course,” Daniel said. “I can speak with them individually. No reason to have a group discussion.”

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