Caught Between My Bully and My Stepbrother novel · Chapter 13 of 32

Chapter 13: The Vault

I didn't pick up the key.

I left it on the counter between us and poured her a coffee she hadn't ordered.

"Sit down," I said. "Please. Just for one cup."

She looked at the door like she might still run.

Crew got up from the end stool and moved two seats farther away to give her room.

She sat.

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen. Nineteen in March."

"Okay. What's in the Vault?"

"I don't know exactly. You have to pay to see it." Her chin wobbled. "A girl on my floor paid. She told me in the bathroom like she was doing me a favor."

I took out my phone.

The account's page had a gold lock icon pinned to the top.

"The Vault. Uncut. Unfiltered. $9.99 a month."

I paid the people who were ruining her.

The screen opened into a grid of thumbnails.

There were dozens.

A girl crying on a bathroom floor with her mascara down to her chin.

A girl throwing up in a sink while somebody off camera laughed.

The Kappa girl from Saylor's burner, the whole video this time, not the cropped one.

The girl from the lab, in the shower, with the audio.

Then a pool at night under string lights.

A girl climbing up the ladder with her top gone and her arms crossed a second too late.

The caption said, "Welcome week, uncut edition."

I closed it before it could play.

My hands had gone cold around the phone.

"Don't tell me what's in it," she said.

"I won't."

"Everybody on my floor has seen it."

"Then everybody on your floor knows what that account does." I leaned on the counter. "If you leave tomorrow, the clip stays up, and you're gone. They win twice."

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