Page 49 of Axel

“But you don’t really know me.”

“Yes, I do.” He cocks a grin. “You flip off drivers who honk at slow pedestrians. You give lost tourists directions. You tip every busker and barista way too much. You threw a butter pecan milkshake at some boys who were picking on a girl waiting for the city bus, and?—”

“Yousawall that?”

“Stanley the Stalker strikes again.” His thumb caresses my hand. “Yes, Ruby, I see you. The butter pecan was a guess, but I know it’s your favorite ice cream.”

“That’s freaky.”

“I preferimpressive, but hey,” he smirks, “you know I like getting freaky, too.”

He lets go of my hand, and I grab a breath because he’s right. I was bullied, but now I’m strong. By the time I was a junior in high school, I’d had enough. I fought back. My sister, Scarlett, taught me her MMA moves, how to punch and choke, and I spent more time in suspension than in school. Honestly, fighting back helped to relieve the stress that triggered my seizures.

This is who I am now.

“So, since you like getting freaky,” I let go of my napkin to twirl the knife on the table, “you’ll like my plan.”

He leans back in his chair. “Okay, let me hear it.”

“Hear it? No, it’s happening. I rented a night at the chalet where Nick and Zar were illegally filmed. I’m going tomorrow to give the owner’s camera an erotic performance. Then, I’ll wait for him to bribe me, too, and when I go to pay him, you can kill him.”

Axel’s speechless, then furious. “The fuck you are.”

I silently mouth, “It’s happening.”

“It’s a death trap.”

I mouth again. “It’s happening.”

“Ruby…” He clenches his fist like he wants to pound the table, but won’t draw attention. “You areNOTgoing alone to a criminal location where you’ll expose yourself to be illicitly filmed, then bribed. Yes, I’ll kill the man bribing Nick, but you’re not going to find him that way.”

“It’s theonlyway.” I keep spinning the knife. “I called Liam Farley while you were in court today. For five hundred dollars to his Venmo, I got thethreenames of who owns that LLC, so now we have to find out which one is the criminal.

“So,” I sigh, “you can either come with me tomorrow and make it an even more convincing show for the camera or wait for me to get the intel on the man bribing Nick all by my silly self.”

“We’renotfucking on camera,” he seethes. “I’d never let us be exposed like that.”

I shrug. “I didn’t expect you would. But you can sit out of range of the camera while you play my boss, and I’m your secretary. We’ll pretend we’re having a naughty affair and rented the chalet where I give you a dirty show until my husband calls, and we have to leave.”

“You’renotmarried.” He grits his teeth. “And you sure as fuck won’t give a dirty show to anyone.” Pause for his smirk. “Except me.”

“Come on,” I huff, “think with your Carolina lawyer brain, not your jealous Bratva balls. The owner doesn’t know I’m not married, and sextortion is the fastest growing cybercrime in this country, and hiding adultery is a top reason for it.”

I lean forward, hissing my whisper, “Nick isn’t his first victim, and he won’t be the last. Imagine how many rentalproperties this guy has, how many people’s lives he’s ruining because he’s violating their privacy.”

Axel fumes, but runs the calculations. He’s tempted in more ways than one; I knew he would be.

“We go,” he orders, “but we do itmyway. There are loopholes in your mission, and I never operate alone.”

“You won’t. You’ll be with me.”

“No,” he corrects. “Remember, you’reminenow. You’ll always be withmeand another king.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

RUBY

I’m distractedand trying to find my seatbelt when I hear Axel’s greeting.

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