Page 201 of By A Thread

“She won’t do anything about it,” she said, studying her nails. “She’ll let me out of it and play nice.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, Elena. I remember you confessing that my mother was your idol when you were a teenage model doing car shows and catalog shoots. You know who that sounds like to me?”

She gave a shrug as if she couldn’t care less, but those unnatural green eyes were watering.

“My father,” I said.

Her eyes darted to me, wide with surprise. “You know?”

“I guessed. What did he promise you?”

She slumped against the cushion. “The cover ofIndulgence. I can’t do both.”

“Why would you chooseIndulgenceoverLabel? They’re not even in the same league.”

“It’s a good opportunity,” she parroted.

“Says my father who landed a job with them, and now he’s poaching content fromLabel. I repeat, why are you doing this?”

She worried her lower lip between her teeth hard enough that I was concerned the filler would leak out. “He has something of mine,” she said.

“Christ.” I shoved my hand through my hair. “What?”

“A tape,” she answered in a tiny voice.

“What kind of tape?”

“What kind of tape do you think? A sex tape.”

I sighed. “Elena, come on. You know better than that.” I knew her manager personally, a no-nonsense woman who schooled her charges in all the ways the world could chew them up and spit them out if they weren’t very smart and very cynical.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know he made one.”

“That’s illegal.”

“I can’t prove it, and he knows it,” she said, fat tears finally fighting their way past the jungle of lashes.

“How did my father get the tape? Did someone sell it to him?” Maybe I could finally find a way to hang Paul Russo. Blackmailing family was one thing, but this was an entirely new low.

She shook her head.

“You don’t know?”

She took a shuddery breath. “He made it.”

66

Dominic

My mother was still in the office when I got back. She’d gathered the troops in her office. Linus, Irvin, and Shayla were joined by a handful of editors. There were cartons of Thai food and bottles of wine on every flat surface. People paced and slumped and threw out ideas while my mother twirled her reading glasses by the arm and shot them down one by one. Irvin was kicked back in a chair, his phone glued to his hand.

“Mom? A minute.” I hooked my thumb over my shoulder, not wanting to air our dirty Russo laundry in front of everyone else.

She picked up her tea and followed me into the hall.

“Come on, people, focus,” Linus said, clapping his hands as we stepped out. “We have seventy-two hours to come up with a plan, shoot it, and write the goddamn story.”

“Did you talk to Elena?” Mom asked.