Page 95 of Brassy Bigwig

As the four of us chow down our dinner from Katz's Delicatessen, Chloe and I exchange nervous glances back and forth with one another. She doesn’t want to be the one to tell Shelby about the video we found any more than I do.

“What gives, lovebirds?” Shelby calls out as she watches us from across the table. “You’ve been shifty eye-fucking the shit out of each other since we got here.”

“Nothing—” I begin before Chloe cuts me off.

“No, it’s okay,” she assures me. “I have something to show you and Reed, Shelby. I’ll be right back.”

As she walks into the bedroom to retrieve the letter and phone from her purse, Shelby pins me with a glare.

“Is she pregnant?”

“What? No.” I answer quickly.

“You’re both acting very weird.”

“Just… wait until she shows you what she needs to show you.”

A moment later, Chloe reappears from the hallway with the phone and letter in hand.

“I got this at the office today. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

Both Shelby and Reed have matching grim expressions on their faces as Chloe hands the phone to Shelby.

“He said if I didn’t leave D, he would leak this on to the internet. Don’t worry, I’m the only one who’s seen it.”

Reed rests his arm on the back of Shelby’s chair as she presses play. Together, they watch in horror as I hear the same audio I heard earlier today. Moans, grunting, thrashing, cries of pain and pleasure. There’s no denying what’s on that tape, and it could ruin Shelby if it got out. Reed would probably get a pat on the back and an atta boy or two for his role.

This is the longest amount of time Shelby has gone without speaking around me. When the recording has finished, she places it on the table and looks from me to Chloe.

“That was hot. Can you send me a copy?”

“Shelby!” Chloe exclaims.

“What? I look good. Let him share it, I don’t care.” Shelby rolls her eyes and shrugs it off.

Believing her actions can only be a defense mechanism, I turn my attention to Reed who has a look of disbelief on his face.

“You okay, Reed?”

“Uhh…” He pinches the bridge of his nose before looking at me. “I don’t… I don’t even know. I’m pissed he was able to get this footage. It makes me wonder what else he has on us. He had to have gotten through the Wi-Fi at the apartment in order to get access to the footage. That’s the only thing I can think of.”

“Wouldn’t that mean he’d have to be close by to figure out which network was yours?”

“Yeah, he’d have to get really close. Like in the hallway. Shelby, can I borrow your phone to check the footage real quick?”

Chloe speaks up again as Shelby hands her phone off to Reed.

“If Blake needed to hack the apartment’s feed from the hallway, I would assume he would need to do the same from outside the penthouse door?”

“Yeah, I would think so. But there’s no way he can access the penthouse lobby outside without making it through security and obtaining an access card.”

“That only makes me feel a little better. He is tenacious, D. If he wants it badly enough, he will find a way. Shelby, you guys need to change your Wi-Fi password or something. Maybe get one of those systems that randomly changes it every day or hour or whatever.”

“You may as well be speaking Spanish to me. I don’t understand techie. Talk to this guy.” She juts her thumb at Reed.

“I’ll change it as soon as possible and get a VPN set up, too,” he agrees. “Fuck. Here, look at this.”

Reed places Shelby’s phone on the table and presses play on the video he pulled up. Chloe and I both stretch as far across the table as we can in order to see. On the screen, I catch a glimpse of a man walking up and down the hallway outside of the apartment door holding an electronic tablet. He’s wearing a hoodie, pulled low over his eyes. It casts a shadow almost to the bottom of his chin.

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