Mia announced that she was finally over Liam Carter on a Wednesday night, and five women in our dorm suite cheered like she had just beaten cancer. I didn’t clap. I was too busy wondering how a girl who had spent three years sacrificing money, grades, sleep, and dignity for one man could supposedly stop loving him between breakfast and dinner.
Chapter 3
Two hours later, I parked near Liam’s apartment on 14th Street.
Detective Vance knew exactly where I was. So did the officers positioned nearby.
The plan was simple in theory and terrifying in practice: get Liam talking long enough to connect himself, Mia, Ray, the debt, and the photographs.
I climbed three flights of stairs and stopped outside apartment 3B.
Through the thin door, I heard Mia crying.
“What if they go to the police?”
Then Liam’s voice.
“They won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because people like Sasha don’t want their families seeing those pictures.”
My hands turned cold.
“The girls will find the money,” Liam continued. “Ray gets paid. My account gets cleared. Everybody moves on.”
“But Chloe didn’t come.”
A glass hit something hard inside the apartment.
“You had one job, Mia.”
“I tried.”
“You were supposed to bring five girls.”
“I stood in front of her suitcase! She knew something was wrong.”
“She doesn’t know anything.”
I took out my phone and called Mia.
Her ringtone sounded inside.
“Who is it?” Liam asked.
“Chloe.”
“Answer it. Put her on speaker.”
Mia’s voice trembled when she answered.
“Chloe?”
I forced panic into my breathing.
“Oh God, Mia. I just saw everything. Haley sent me the emails. They know my address. What did you do?”
“It’s a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding?”
“The studio has some problem with its management company. We can fix it.”
“How?”
“If you finish your session, they’ll close your file.”
Through the door, I heard Liam whisper, “Get her here.”
“I have twelve hundred dollars,” I said. “I’ll bring it. Just tell me where you are.”
Mia gave me the address.
“Come alone,” she added.
“Okay.”
I ended the call.
Liam laughed inside.
“Call Ray,” he said. “Tell him number six is coming.”
That was enough.
But I wanted him to say it to my face.
I knocked.
Liam opened the door wearing a gray cashmere sweater and the same expression of casual superiority I had seen for three years.
“Chloe. Come in.”
Mia sat on the sofa clutching a pillow. Her mascara had streaked down her face. She looked small, exhausted, and frightened.
Liam locked the door after me.
“Where’s the money?”
“I lied.”
His smile disappeared.
“What?”
“I didn’t bring money.”
Mia looked up.
“And I know about the fifty-five thousand dollars,” I continued. “I know Ray Geller is using those photographs as collateral for your gambling debt.”
Liam stared at me.
Then his face hardened.
“You always thought you were smarter than everybody.”
“No. Just smarter than you hoped.”
“I didn’t sell anybody.”
“Really?”
“Mia came up with the plan.”
Mia’s head snapped toward him.
“What did you say?”
“Shut up.”
“You told me they were going to hurt you,” she whispered.
Liam rolled his eyes.
Mia stood.
“You said you would kill yourself if you couldn’t pay them. You said if I saved you, we’d finally be together.”
There it was.
The center of the whole tragedy.
Not money.
Not even fear.
A promise.
Liam had discovered exactly what Mia wanted most in the world and priced it at fifty-five thousand dollars.
“I told you what I had to tell you,” he said.
Mia stared at him as if someone had erased the room around them.
“You promised you would marry me.”
Liam laughed.
It was a cruel, humorless sound.
“Look at yourself. You think I’d marry you? You’ve spent three years doing whatever I asked. You paid my bills. You covered for me. You wrote my assignments. You were useful.”
Mia’s lips parted.
“That’s all?”
“That was always all.”
She sank back onto the sofa.
For the first time since I had known her, Mia looked at Liam without love.
I wish I could say I felt satisfaction.
I didn’t.
I felt pity.
Then Liam reached toward the kitchen counter.
When his hand came back, he was holding a folding knife.
The blade clicked open.
Mia made a frightened sound.
“Here’s what happens now,” Liam said. “Ray is coming. You finish the photo set. He closes the account. Then everybody goes home.”
“And if I refuse?”
He stepped closer.
“Then you don’t get a choice.”
My pulse thundered.
He smiled.
“You think your friends are scared now? Wait until those pictures hit every message board on campus. Parents. Professors. Employers. They’ll never get rid of them.”
“You really shouldn’t have said that out loud.”
His brow tightened.
“What?”
I pulled my phone from my coat pocket.
The recording timer was running.
Beneath it was an active emergency connection.
A dispatcher’s voice came through the speaker.
“Units are in position.”
Liam’s face lost all color.
Then the door exploded inward.
Officers flooded the apartment.
“State police! Drop the weapon!”
The knife hit the floor.
Liam barely had time to raise his hands before officers forced him down and secured his wrists.
Mia screamed and pressed herself against the sofa.
“I didn’t know! He made me do it!”
An officer cuffed her too.
Detective Vance stepped through the ruined doorway.
He looked at me.
“You all right?”
I nodded.
From the floor, Liam twisted his head enough to see me.
“You set me up.”
His voice was shaking now.
Gone was the campus prince.
Gone was the rich boy who believed consequences belonged to other people.
“I didn’t set you up,” I said.
I looked at the phone in my hand.
“I gave you an audience.”
