A Drop of Pretty Poison: A Brother’s Best Friend Romance (Pretty Poison Trilogy Book 2)

It’s time to change tactics. After hearing the tone of Laiken’s voice last night, like she genuinely wasn’t sure if we’re going to be all right, I realized I’ve been going about this all wrong. There’s no way to show her how he really is when he’s working so hard to hide that side of him from her. And by me pressing the matter, all it’s doing is putting a strain on our marriage.

But I can’t do this alone, either. There’s strength in numbers, but as far as I’m concerned, there’s only one other person I need for this.

It’s early, barely past sunrise, when I walk into the gym. Cam used to come here at three in the morning just to get it in before he went to work. But now that we’ve been renovating the bar, he’s able to come a little later. Still early as fuck though.

“Hey,” a woman greets me. “Haven’t seen you around here. Are you new?”

I don’t miss the way she puffs her chest out and licks her lips to make them shine, but if she saw who is currently sleeping in my bed right now, she would know she doesn’t stand a chance.noveldrama

“Nope. Just looking for Cam Blanchard.”

She smirks. “Oh, so you’re a friend of Cam’s, huh?”

Great. We’re playing a game of “tell me you’ve fucked my best friend without telling me you’ve fucked my best friend.”

“Yeah, I’m also married to his sister, so you can put your tits away. Thanks.”

Maybe it’s rude. According to Laiken, I have a tendency of being that way. But in this instance, I don’t think she would mind. The woman’s smile drops off her face and she looks a little offended, but that’s not my problem.

I walk around the counter and further into the gym, finding Cam over by the weights. His eyes widen when he sees me.

“Damn, I never thought I’d see the day,” he says.

I chuckle. “Yeah, don’t get used to it. I choose to work out in other ways.”

He puts the dumbbells down and cringes. “Gross. That was only okay to say when it wasn’t my sister you were referring to.”

“Fair point. Forget I said that.”

“I wish I could.” He goes over to a machine and sets the weight. “So, if you’re not here to work out, what has you up at the asscrack of dawn?”

Honestly, I haven’t slept yet. I laid there for a while, listening to the sound of Laiken’s breathing, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t doze off. My mind is on an endless loop. After hearing the fear in Laiken’s voice, I knew that if I don’t figure out another way to go about this, there’s a chance I could lose her.

And that’s not a fucking option for me.

“You need to steal Mali away from Monty,” I tell him.

He lets the weight fall and slam down inside the machine. “No.”

“Just hear me out.”

But he’s not even up for that. “I’m not doing it, man. You saw his house. He can literally give her everything she’s ever wanted. I can’t compete with that, and I’m not about to try.”

“Bullshit,” I scoff. “She wants you. She’s always fucking wanted you. You’re just too stubborn to let yourself see it. But that’s not even what I’m worried about here. We just need to get her the fuck away from that douchebag.”

He sighs, grabbing a towel and using it to wipe his forehead. “I thought you were letting that shit go.”

“I tried, but I can’t.”

There’s no other way around this. Nothing I can tell him that will make him understand my hatred for Monty other than the truth. And he’s the only one who can help me get rid of that fucker once and for all.

“I’m going to tell you something, but I need you to promise you’re not going to go all Cam the Criminal on me,” I say seriously. “Your ass has to stay out of prison, so no violating your probation. We’re going to do this shit the right way. Or at the very least, the discreet and untraceable way.”

That gets his attention. “What is it?”

“Cam,” I press.

His eyes roll. “Yeah, yeah. No punching anyone. Got it. What is it?”

I take a deep breath and when I let it out, the secret I’ve been keeping comes with it. “He has a sex tape of Laiken.”

“What?” he balks. “What the fuck do you mean he has a sex tape of Laiken? Did he touch my sister?”

Shaking my head, I push my hair out of my face. “No. It’s of Laiken and me. While we were sneaking around, Monty let us borrow his boat. I should’ve known he was up to something, but I was too caught up in everything to realize it. Turns out, he had planted a hidden camera on it and recorded the whole thing. That is the proof he threatened me with.”

Cam’s knee bounces, and I can tell he’s holding back the urge to go rip him to shreds. “And I’m guessing she doesn’t know about it?”

“I didn’t tell her,” I admit. “I realize now that I should’ve. She would have never talked to him again if she knew, but it’s too late for that. If I bring it up now, she’ll just think I’m making it up because I don’t like him. Not to mention the fact that I kept it from her.”

He huffs out a laugh and looks up at me. “You don’t fuck up small, do you?”

“Have I ever?” I joke. “To be honest, though, it’s probably better she doesn’t know, just in case this gets ugly. Innocence by ignorance.”

“No, you’re right.” His head drops and he’s still for a second, then he throws his water bottle across the room. “That fucking prick. He did that shit and then has the nerve to act like we’re all friends?”

I need to rein him in, before he does something that makes me regret telling him in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love nothing more than to be rid of that piece of shit, but not at the expense of losing my best friend.

“We’ve got to be smart about this,” I tell him. “He might just be some entitled rich kid with boundary issues, but that doesn’t mean he’s not connected.”

“He can’t get away with this shit, though.”

“And he won’t. We’re going to figure out a way to make him pay for it, but it has to be in a way that doesn’t jeopardize any of us—especially Mali. I don’t know what she’s doing or how into him she is, but she’s in a dangerous spot.”

For the first time since this conversation started, Cam looks less pissed and more worried. He’s done pretty well at holding himself back when it comes to her, but that doesn’t mean she’s not one of the people he cares for most. If I had to guess, after what happened that night with Isaac, I’d say she’s tied with Laiken for the top spot.

“If he does anything to her, the rules we just agreed to go out the window.” There’s no bluffing in the way he’s talking to me. Every word coming out of his mouth, he means it. “I don’t care if I spend the rest of my life rotting away in a jail cell.”

I sigh heavily. “No one is going to jail, and she isn’t going to get hurt. We just have to find the right way to go about this.”

He nods. “No, I know. You’re right. But before we do anything, we need to find a way to erase that video. That way he can’t release it and make Laiken collateral damage.”

“I’ve tried. Literally tried every possible thing on the internet.”

“What is this, amateur hour?” He reaches forward and grabs my phone out of my hand. “We need an actual hacker. Someone who knows what they’re doing. And Monty isn’t the only connected person we know.”

He holds up my phone, showing me Marc’s contact. I really didn’t want to get him involved in this. Not when so much is at stake. He has more to lose than any of us. But Cam has a point. We need someone with skills that we don’t have, and if anyone would know of someone we can trust, it would be him.

Fuck. I really hope this shit doesn’t backfire.

I WALK IN THE door, feeling better than I have in over a week—which is surprising given I still haven’t slept. It could be all the sex we had last night. I swear, we just couldn’t get enough of each other. But I figure it’s more about having Cam on my side now. That I’m not alone in my war against Monty.

We’re going to bring that motherfucker to the ground.

Just as we thought, Marc knew exactly who to get in touch with. He didn’t want to know any more than the fact that we need a hacker, and I don’t blame him. I prefer it that way. Now we’re just waiting for a time and place to meet the guy.

I find Laiken sitting at the island, drinking a cup of coffee, and she smiles when she sees me.

“Hey, you. Where’d you run off to? Your note was kind of cryptic.”

Shrugging, I kiss her forehead. “Just went to the gym to talk to Cam about some things. Sorry if you were worried.”

Her brows furrow as she shakes her head. “No, I just…you seem different today.”

“I feel different.” I come closer, wrapping my arms around her. “I want you to know that Monty isn’t going to be an issue anymore.”

She places her hand on my chest and holds me back a bit, and I can tell by the look on her face that she’s thinking the worst. It makes me chuckle.

“Don’t worry. I didn’t do anything to him.” Yet. “I’m just not going to let him get to me anymore. I still don’t like him, or trust him for that matter, but I do trust you. And that’s all that matters.”

The smile that stretches across her face shows her relief. “Thank you.” Standing up, she hugs me tightly and then kisses me. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

In the worst timing ever, a yawn pushes its way through and forces me to break the kiss. Laiken giggles as I pout. I want to kiss my wife, dammit.

“You okay?” she asks amusedly.

I nod, rolling my eyes as I yawn again. “I’m fine. I just don’t sleep very well after we fight.”

“I get that. I don’t either.” She picks up her phone off the island and types something into it, then puts it down. “What do you say we go cuddle in bed and watch a movie? You can take a nap.”

“Don’t you have work in a few hours?”

Her phone dings and she smiles as she glances at it. “Nope. Just got Blake to fill in for me.”

Thank you, Blake.

My grin widens as I grab her wrist and pull her up toward the stairs, since carrying her probably isn’t in the best interest of either of us right now. But a day spent in bed with my girl should more than fix that.

And as I lie with my arms wrapped around her, I know there isn’t a thing in this world that I wouldn’t do to protect her. Even if she doesn’t believe she needs protecting.

I FEEL LIKE I’M in some low-budget black ops movie. The kind where you dress in disguise and go to a secret location. When Cam got a reply from the hacker, he called me and pretended to need my help with something at the bar. I hate lying to Laiken, but I had to. If she knew what we were really up to, she’d lose her shit.

And I’d probably lose her.

Cam follows the instructions in the message, knocking twice, then three times, then once. It takes a minute or so, but the door finally opens. The guy standing on the other side is not at all what I thought he would look like. You always picture hackers as computer nerds. Not this one, though.

He looks like your average college student, complete with a pair of plaid pajama pants and bed hair. The only thing that tells me we’re in the right place is the massive computer setup I can see from the doorway.

“You Marc’s friends?” he questions.

Cam nods. “Yeah. I take it you’re—”

But he can’t finish his sentence because the guy shushes him immediately and gestures for us to come inside. When he shuts the door, it looks like we just walked into some kind of panic room. He locks at least six deadbolts, and three chains.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “When you do what I do, you tend to make some enemies.”

Again, low-budget black ops.

“You’re fine, man,” Cam tells him. “It’s when you start locking things we can’t unlock that I’ll have an issue with..”

The guy forces out a laugh. “Yeah, none of that.”

It goes quiet, and it’s in no way comfortable. But thankfully, he claps and heads to his computer.

“Right, so.” He sits down and starts typing. “I will say that I don’t like that you insisted on being here as I do this. Or the fact that this guy is a senator’s son.”

What the fuck? “So, what? You had us come all the way down here to tell us you’re not going to do it?”

Turning around, he stares at me with zero emotion on his face. “Yes. I gave away my secret location for something I could have said over a text message.”

As he rolls his eyes and goes back to what he was doing, Cam chuckles. “I like this guy.”

“Fuck off.”

“Lucky for you,” the hacker continues. “I hate the government more than I hate to compromise.”

Cam and I stand behind him, watching him type a million miles a minute. The computer screen is filled with code in multiple different areas, and we couldn’t read what it says if we tried. It’s like another language, and this dude is fluent at it.

“You said we’re looking for a video?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I answer. “It’s a sex tape taken from a hidden camera on a boat.”

A few minutes and a thousand keystrokes later, he sits up straighter. “Okay, I’m in.”

How in the fuck? I tried for hours to figure out a way to hack into his phone, and this guy did it in a matter of five minutes. I really should have paid more attention in school.

“I believe this should be it.”

With a click of his mouse, the video appears on the screen. Cam looks away, but the sound of Laiken’s moaning flows through the speakers.

“Damn. Who’s the babe?”

Both of us glare at him. “My wife,” I snap at the same time Cam says, “my sister.”

He glances between us, and his brows raise. “Because that doesn’t sound complicated.”

The noise stops as he spins back around and presses the spacebar to pause the video. He pulls open a drawer and takes out a thumb drive, inserting it into the computer.

“Once I erase this, the only place it’ll exist is in this drive,” he tells us, then he pauses. “Wait a minute.”

“What?” I growl. “Don’t tell me you can’t erase it.”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s not that. But you should see what else this guy has on his phone.”

Cam and I lean in to get a better look. There are tons of pictures and videos—from girls our age to older women. And it doesn’t stop as he scrolls down. It’s like this guy is just some sick pervert who collects illicit videos of women without their permission.

“Wait,” Cam orders. “Scroll back up.”

He does, and the moment I see what Cam did, my stomach drops. For Laiken and Mali’s eighteenth birthday, they both snuck off to get tattoos. Laiken’s is the one that’s hidden along her spine, only visible when she’s undressed or in a bikini. But Mali’s wraps around her side. It’s much more obvious.

“That one,” I say, pointing to it.

The video starts to play, showing Mali’s bedroom. It’s empty at the beginning and then she walks in. She closes her door and stretches her neck to each side. She grabs some clothes out of her closet and lays them out on her bed before leaving the room, but when the camera angle switches to the bathroom, my jaw locks.

“This fucker has her whole place bugged,” I mutter.

Meanwhile, Cam is gripping the desk so tight it looks like it might break. Mali turns on the shower, but the second she starts to lift her shirt, we both turn away.

“Shut it off,” Cam tells him.

I knew this guy was sick, but I didn’t realize just how deep it all went. “Add that one to the drive, and then delete them all.”

“If I do that, he’s going to know someone hacked him,” he argues.

“Do I look like I give a fuck?” I roar. “All of them.”

He must have some sense of self-preservation because he sighs heavily but does exactly as I say. “Your goddamn moral compass is going to get me killed.”

Once he’s done, he pulls the thumb drive out of the computer and holds it out to me. I pull the wad of cash from my pocket and we trade. As I put the only existing copy of the sex tape in my pocket, I know it was well worth the five hundred I had to pay for it.

We’re clearly dealing with someone more psychotic than we originally thought. We need to tread carefully, to both protect the girls and keep Cam out of prison. But loaded with the proof we got tonight that he’s not the guy he says he is, it should be enough to get him out of our lives.

We’ll see how much he values the pristine reputation of the Rollins name.

It’s time he gets a taste of his own medicine, and I hear blackmail has a bitter taste.