Thirty Four
Colt
The door flew open, slamming against the wall so hard I was afraid it would put a hole in it, and Hunter strolled in without a care in the world.
Hailey squealed, pulling the sheet up under her chin, eyes wide, while I bolted upright. “What the hell, dude? What are you doing?”
He waved me off, walked over to my chair, and plopped down in it. “Please, like I don’t hear you two every night. This isn’t going to make much difference now.”
I cast a quick glance at Hailey, worried about her reaction. She blinked slowly, once, twice, three times, then shook her head faintly and stared at him in silent disbelief.
With a groan, I dropped back onto the pillow. “Why are you in my room at half past eleven at night?” He better have a good reason, considering he might have just cock blocked me.
“I did it.” That was all he said, and I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about.
“Did what?” I asked exasperatedly, running my fingers through my hair.
“I’ve got the tape.”
That sentence was enough to make me snap back into an upright position at the same moment Hailey asked, “Really?”
Hunter gave her a deadpan stare. “I usually mean what I say.”
“How the fuck did you do that?” I gaped, my eyebrows raised.
“So Ella’s idea actuallyworked?” She sounded stunned and excited at the same time.
Hunter snorted. “It’s not like that idea hadn’t crossed my mind before, but I needed … let’s call it support, and I wouldn’t have asked for it if Blaze hadn’t … Never mind. Anyway, I got the video back, deleted all copies from his network, and even bagged a nice little bonus in case he still has a copy on an external device somewhere.”
Who the hell was Blaze?And if thissupportwas who I thought it was, I needed to have a private conversation with him.
“What exactly do you mean by bonus?” Hailey took the words right out of my mouth.
Hunter grinned, a malicious edge to the curl of his lips. “Something that, if it fell into the wrong hands, would put your father behind bars for the foreseeable future. In other words, something that would definitely carry enough weight to blackmail him back if necessary.”
“Do I even want to know?” I asked. My eyebrows felt like they were about to disappear into my hairline.
“Meh. Probably not. I’ll just put it in my special folderwith the other things I keep up my sleeve for emergencies.” He shrugged nonchalantly, then clapped his hands loudly, causing Hailey to startle, and stood up. “Good, then that’s taken care of.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Hailey yanked her arms out from under the sheet, remembering in time she wasn’t wearing much underneath. She quickly grabbed it again and clutched it to her chest. “It’s over now?Just like that?”
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Well, I guess if I were you, I’d let him know that things are going to turn out a little differently than he thought they would.”
“But …” Hailey stared ahead with her mouth agape, like she couldn’t wrap her head around what was happening. To be fair, neither could I. “Wait, did you also find out who sent him the video?”
“I took care of that too,” he informed us with a small nod.
“And?” Hailey asked, eyebrows arched as if she didn’t believe she had to ask.
“And what?” If I didn’t know that Hunter didn’t have a clue what she wanted him to tell her, I’d think he was playing games with her.
She threw her hands up in exasperation and grabbed the sheet again as it began to slide down. “Andwas it Nico who sent this stuff to my dad?”
“Oh. Yeah, I thought that was obvious.” Hunter shrugged and started for the door again.
“Wait!” she called, really aggravated now, and I had to stifle a laugh. I knew that her curiosity was eating her up from the inside and that she wouldn’t be able to rest until Hunter spilled all the details. Not that my best friend had even remotely intended to do that.
As with so many things, he was practical about the whole situation — he got to the point, and as long as the end result worked for him, he didn’t care about any details.
