Page 3 of Filthy Liar

A quick glance at the screen on the wall tells me Wilson is already digging.

Silence bounces around the room.

Cole doesn’t say a word. Tag glances his way, then to me. Finally, he looks up at Wilson, who gives a tight nod.Go ahead. I haven’t found anything—yet.Tag leans back in his chair, sliding into the good cop role with ease. “Look, Jeff. Can I call you Jeff?”

The billionaire nods.

“The thing is, as you say, proof can be faked just as easily as photos. Maybe—maybe—you can survive pictures, if there’s nothing else. Literally, nothing else can come out like this. And don’t get me wrong, I know we’re all men with urges here, but—”

“I don’t like younger women,” Mayfair interrupts. “Idefinitelydon’t like girls. That’s disgusting. Lively was disgusting, and not only is that photo not real, but I went out of my way to never cross paths with him. That’s not the kind of business person I am. Period. You won’t find anything.”

“What do you like, then?” Tag shrugs. “Bondage? Threeways? A little good-humored humiliation?”

Mayfair’s throat bobs.

Tag grins, another broad we’re-all-guys-here friendly face. “Is that it? You’re afraid something else gets out?”

“I wish it were that simple.” Mayfair scrubs a hand over his face, then sighs. “I’ve never had a particularly long relationship, and while I like the physical side of it as much as the average person, I’m not into ropes and whips and chains—in either direction.”

When he doesn’t continue, Wilson looks up to the camera, making eye contact from the other side of the continent. “But you do make all of your intimate partners sign NDAs.”

Jeff nods. Then he gestures to the form document we had presented to him, with our own signatures on it. “It was presented to me as a good idea by our legal team, a long time ago, and no partner ever had an issue with it. But the photos I’m being blackmailed with…they have a copy of that NDA. It’s been forged with a young woman’s name. I have never met her in my life. I swear to you, that’s the truth.”

I stand up and pace to the sideboard, where someone—Cole, probably—filled a pitcher of water before the meeting started.

Once upon a time, we had a receptionist who made sure there were bagels or muffins there as well, but then I fucked her for a summer. And she took off for the hills.

So I’m not really one to judge another man for fucking up his life in the most ordinary of ways. I pour myself a glass of water. “Tell us about the blackmail. How long have they been in contact with you, what have you paid them already, and how did the contact begin?”

Without hesitation, he digs into the whole story. He hasn’t yet paid anything out. They made contact to his personal email address, not through an intermediary, and he’s been slow-rolling them with his responses for three days.

“Why did you come to us? Why not handle this with your internal security team, or with Scott?”

Jeff shakes his head. “I’d prefer my brother not be involved. He’s living his best life in California, and he’s been through enough.” He glances at Cole. “I came to you instead of my own team because I’m not sure it’s not an inside job. I know Scott trusts you, and if I went to him first, he’d probably say I should hire The Horus Group.”

“Well, our reputation stands for itself. We’ll do our best to help you,” Cole says, the first time he’s spoken since we sat down. His brow is still pulled tight, but the storm clouds have passed. It’s as close to an endorsement of this client as we’ll get.

I nod, then look at Tag, who turns to Wilson on the screen.

Our hacker jerks his chin up. “On it.”

The next night,following that hunch I had based on an overheard conversation, I make sure the wrong people see me buy a pretty young socialite a drink at the Kennedy Center.

By the end of the concert, she’s warned about me.He’s dangerous. The rumors are true. Jason Evans may look like a Washington insider now, but he’s an ex-SEAL who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, and his first clients were…well, Amelia Dashford Reid is dead now, isn’t she? He got her husband off a murder charge, you know. But that family…

Fuck those fuckers. That family—at least the younger generation—has removed themselves from the narrative, and the ghost gossip doesn’t matter. I’m not above using it, though.

Over the next week, a few things slide into focus.

First, we don’t think Jeff Mayfair is the only person being blackmailed with false documentation of connections with Lively. So far we haven’t found anyone else willing to admit it, but the routing number for the off-shore bank account has pinged around a bit on the Dark Web in recent months.

They’re a hired gun, and hired guns like regular work.

Instead of paying them off, Wilson had Mayfair make a low-key but public statement waiving all NDA agreements, personal and professional. It sparks speculation that Mayfair might be running for public office, and still the photos don’t make a peep anywhere—and the blackmailer doesn’t return with new demands.

The second thing that pings onto our radar is that my half-brother, Mack, has started a quiet and unexpected campaign to join the president’s administration. It’s an attempt to course-correct from the inside, and it’s an uncharacteristically bad move, but he’s the older brother, the more successful brother, and guidance between us has always moved in a single direction. He gave us the seed money to start The Horus Group. We’ve outgrown the need for him as a silent investor, but that history still exists.

And the third and final element on the three-dimensional chess board for our firm is the growing public acknowledgment that the current administration has lost the trust of its closest NATO allies. It’s been a long two years with an incompetent casino king position as the leader of the free world, and global relations are getting frayed at the edges. This is my area of particular interest. It’s why I was at the French Embassy. It’s why I’m concerned about Mack’s agenda.

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