Page 67 of Our Little Dove

“Ugh, we had a great time at first, but things got rocky after the first week…” she trails off as she plops down on one of the stools in the kitchen.

“What happened? Do I need to make good on my word? I will kick him in the nuts for you,” I say, trying to lighten her mood.

Molly chuckles at the reminder of the text I sent her the day Joel asked her out on their first date, but her smile fades as she looks down while picking at her nails. “I think he’s been cheating,” she whispers, and I can hear her trying to hold back tears.

“We broke up when he dropped me off at my apartment,” she sniffles. “What?! Oh, M, I’m so sorry!” I say, shocked at her words.

“Yeah, I think he’s been fooling around with cam girls…” she trails off as she wipes away her tears. “Oh God, tell me what happened!” I take a seat next to her and wait for her to continue.

“He was acting shady and spent so much time on his phone. He practically ignored me the last few days of our trip, so I let my suspicions get the best of me and checked his phone last night when he fell asleep,” she explains.

“It was locked so I had to press his thumb on the biometric scanner without waking him up. I kept telling myself that I wasoverreacting and that it’s probably nothing but when I saw the payments he was making to this website, my heart broke.”

“Fuck, I’m so sorry. What website was it? Maybe this is all a misunderstanding,” I say, trying to find the silver lining in this mess. Joel is secretive and very private, but he seemed happy with Molly, I can’t imagine him being such a sleazy prick.

“It took me a while to get onto the site but when the logo popped up on the home page, I nearly threw up. It looked like some underground BDSM porn site. The logo is a woman’s mouth biting down on a fucking ball gag,” she says, her sadness transforming into anger as she speaks with tears rolling down her cheeks.

My eyes widen and my heart drums so fast, I can practically hear it pumping in my ears.

I know that logo…

Before the torrent of emotions rushing at me, renders me completely speechless, I choke out the one word that has plummeted my life and my morals into a pit of never-ending darkness. My voice is barely above a whisper as I utter the name.

“Hush…”

Molly’s breathing quickens in shock as she turns to me, her eyes wild as she glares at me. “What did you just say?”

Sucking in a heavy, shaky breath, I repeat myself. “Hush. I’ve seen the logo before. Wait, you said he was making payments to them?”

“Yeah, he was probably paying to watch some random whores get fucked like animals; all while we were supposed to have fun on our trip,” she says angrily. My stomach churns at her words.

She could have seen the video I was in. Would she think I am one of those “whores” if she stumbled onto the fucked-up little film they made of me? Why was Joel making payments? Is he one of their sick viewers or was he paying “actors” like Fintan and Kieran?

I am too stunned to say anything as I am trying to process everything. Molly gets up and heads to the fridge and I barely register her movements until she holds out an ice-cold bottle of vodka after taking a sip straight from the bottle.

“Here,” she says, offering me a drink. I hesitantly take the bottle from her and take a small sip, the cold liquid stinging my throat as it goes down.

Yeah, vodka for dinner seems fitting for the shitshow we are about to unpack.

“I asked him about Hush on the drive home and that was the end. He started screaming at me and told me I should have trusted him. He tried to tell me that it waswork stuffand that I should stay off his phone and out of his business. Can you fucking believe that?”

Taking another swig, I cough through the burn of the vodka as it washes down my throat. “What? He said it was work?” I ask, my mind whirling as I try to process her words.

Is Joel working for Hush?

As much as I despise what Alex did to us, I can’t get her out of my mind since she let us go and that pisses me off to no end. Everything she did plays on a loop in my thoughts nearly every waking moment.

Fintan and I have been distant, but the one constant topic of conversation is her.In some sick way, we care about her despite the things she’s done to us.

We have been keeping an eye on her comings and goings for the last few days. I was reluctant at first when Fintan came up with the idea but in a fucked-up way, seeing her feels familiar when everything else has been turned upside down.

She has no idea that we are watching her and in a way it feels poetic. We are watching her like she watched us through the cameras in that basement. It brings me a twisted sense of comfort.

Alex is present in the back of my mind every time Fintan and I share a moment. Without her, who knows if I would have ever confessed my feelings.

Would Fintan have taken me seriously if I came out before we met her?

Would I have even bothered saying anything with his long string of one-night stands that he’s been sneaking in and out of the building or the studio since we moved here?

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