I reached a hand up to seize his collar but stopped myself before I made contact. Seth recoiled at the close proximity, which gave me a bit of satisfaction. At least the prick was afraid of me. As he should have been. I could turn him into a bloody mess in under a minute if I wanted to, and he knew it.
“So, what’s your excuse?” I demanded.
Seth’s face smoothed out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I sucked in a breath so fast it burned my nose. “Seth, I swear to God—”
“And I swear I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
I could tell by the look on his face that I wouldn’t get a confession out of him. Not without real work. But we both knew what he’d done, and I wanted to find a way to make him feel bad about it.
“I saw Riley,” I told him.
“Good for you.”
“Do you really not realize what you’re risking here? Maybe you don’t have a business to protect, but Davis does. His name being dragged through the dirt will mean trouble for your whole family. Do you honestly think your parents won’t take action if they find out about what you’ve been up to?” I nodded at the foyer around us. “How much money do they send you each month? And what are the terms of that check? I bet you’re supposed to be a good boy, am I right?”
Seth’s eyebrows angrily bunched together. “This isn’t about the list. It’s about her. You want her all for your own.”
“No, I don’t,” I answered, more as a reflex than anything.
“You’re a bad liar, Xavier. You never act this crazy. You want Riley all to yourself.”
“I put her on the list,” I barked.
“Only because I saw you two together. How do I know you’d only just met her? Maybe you’d been keeping her to yourself for months.”
A new jolt of anger shot through me. “Don’t try to change the subject, Seth.”
He kept barreling on, pretending he didn’t hear me. “I guess you won’t mind if she and I go out again. I was thinking about taking her out on my new yacht.”
A chill seemed to sweep into the foyer. “You didn’t go out with her.”
Seth smirked. “Okay, sure. Whatever you say. I didn’t.”
“Riley would never touch a loser like you.”
Seth’s eyes flashed. “You think you’re so much better than everyone else. Like you’re God’s fucking gift to women and—”
I waved my hands, cutting him off. “I swear to God, if you ruin things for me...”
“What?”
I put my face so close to his that I could smell the fear coming off him. “I will fucking destroy you.”
Seth gulped and took a half step back. “You don’t have the power to do that.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Davis is already pretty pissed after you brought a girl into the office. He will be furious to hear about this new development. You might as well kiss Enigma goodbye right now. You’re two seconds away from expulsion from the club.”
Seth lifted his chin. “It will be kind of hard for you to kick me out, considering all the information I have on you. No one has to find out about the list, but what about your fighting? That doesn’t look good. And not just for you. It’ll make Davis look bad too.”
The realization of what he was saying hit me like a train. He was right. Seth was fucking right. As much as I wanted to get rid of him, and even if Davis and Julian were in agreement, it wouldn’t be simple. We were all inextricably tied together. What damaged me damaged them. Davis wouldn’t risk giving Seth the boot and then having him leak my affairs all over town. The smarter choice would be to just try to manage and placate the dumb kid.
“We’re not done yet,” I snapped before turning away, then slammed the front door behind me so hard the hinges rattled. Even if Seth’s door had fallen right on the floor, it wouldn’t have brought me any relief. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and the worst part was that I put myself there. I should have seen all of this coming. Even if Seth wasn’t seeking to blackmail me, someone else would have done it sooner or later. I was foolish to think that I could spend my life doing whatever the fuck I wanted.
Knowing I wouldn’t be able to stand still for even a minute, I took the stairs. The pounding of my shoes echoed in the empty stairwell. I needed a plan. I’d fucked things up hardcore, and I needed to figure out a way to fix them. It was too bad I had absolutely no clue where to start.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Riley
I stared at the ceiling, the little popcorn-like balls up there blurring together. I hadn’t spent this much time in bed since I had the flu. What I was currently going through resembled the flu a lot, actually. My limbs felt like they were made of lead. My stomach churned. My head ached.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Xavier, the list, Seth, Xavier, the fights, Xavier… it was so bad that I’d called out of work for the night. I knew there was no way I could go into the bar and be productive to any degree. At the moment, I could barely eat. I wouldn’t be able to function again until I figured out my next move.
The list was the main thing preoccupying my mind. If I weren’t thinking about that so obsessively, I’d be crying over Xavier. The way he’d touched me in his office that morning, the way he’d kissed me. For a moment, it had made me forget all about the drama going on. The man pulling me closer to him wasn’t the kind of person who would beat up innocent people or catalog women like they were objects to be shopped for in a magazine. He was someone else entirely.
But it was just a facade. It had to be. I’d pushed Xavier to talk about the list, and he didn’t even come close to saying he regretted creating it. The worst part was that he put me on it.
The thought made my eyes fill with tears. I pushed my fingertips against my eyeballs, trying to send the tears back in. I refused to cry over this. No way. I was going to actually do something.
I’d spent so much of my life sitting around and letting shit happen to me. I’d let people make my choices for me—been passive and overly agreeable. But everything that happened recently had helped to wake me up. I could no longer sit by while that despicable list was in existence. I had to find it.
If I could get my hands on it, I could contact the women on it. I could let them know what was going on so that when Xavier or Seth approached them, they would know what was really up. I could save them from some of the pain I wasn’t able to avoid.
As far as options, I had two places I could start. Or two people, rather. And I wasn’t talking to Xavier. If I so much as saw him, I’d burst into tears.
That left one option.
Steeling myself, I sat up and grabbed my phone. Just pressing Seth’s name on the screen felt wrong, but I did it anyway.
“It’s about time,” he answered.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” he purred. He was probably trying to be seductive, but I grimaced at the attempt.
“Can we… talk? Like, in person.”
“Yeah, of course. What’s this about?”