Chapter 74: DIRTY

"I’m scared."

"I know."

"Two days, Chance. That’s all he gave me."

"Then we use the two days." I kept my voice steady even though anger was already burning under my ribs. "You don’t answer his calls. You don’t open the door if he knocks. And you sure as hell don’t go downstairs. Let me think. Just... give me a little time."

She was silent for several long seconds. Somewhere on her end a faucet dripped. Finally she exhaled. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay. I won’t... I won’t do anything yet. But if we can’t fix this..."

"We will."

I didn’t know how. Not yet. But the alternative was unacceptable.

We said short, tense goodbyes. The call ended.

I stayed on the bench with the phone still in my hand, staring at the dark screen. Around me the park continued like nothing had happened, joggers, a woman walking a dog, wind moving through bare branches. None of it matched the noise in my head.

Karim had finally made his move.

He had the photo. He had a deadline. And he had Sarah half-convinced that the only way out was through his bed.

I stood up slowly and rubbed both temples with my fingers.

Not good.

Not fucking good at all.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

MAIN MENU

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

NAME: Chance Brooks

LVL: 15 [133/1490]

RANK: Homewrecker

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ CORE STATS ]

> CHA: 40 [Min. 2 | 0.5 cost]

> END: 12

> PER: 30

> LCK: 4

> IBE: 31

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ ENERGY ]

> LUST: 200/200

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ACTIVE PERKS: Expand]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SIN POINTS: 1609

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

????????????

I unlocked the door and stepped inside, still carrying the residual heat from the run and the heavier weight of the phone call. The apartment felt smaller than usual. I dropped my keys on the counter, pulled my phone out, and was already scrolling to Sarah’s name when a knock came at the door.

Three quick raps.

"Chance? It’s me." Sarah’s voice.

I crossed the room in two strides and pulled the door open.

She stood in the hallway looking like she had left her apartment the second the decision formed in her head. A plain white tank top clung to her chest, thin enough that the shape of her breasts and the faint outline of her nipples showed clearly underneath, no bra. Matching white hotpants sat low on her hips, short enough that most of her thighs were bare. Her hair was pulled back messily. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry, like she had already cried herself out and moved into something sharper.

She stepped past me without waiting for an invitation, arms full of nervous energy.

"Chance, what are we going to do? He has the photo. He showed it to me again this morning through the door, he didn’t even come inside, just held his phone up to the peephole like it was a joke. Two days. That’s all he gave me. After that he said he’ll send it to Hubert’s work email and to three of his friends. I don’t know what to..."

"Sarah."

"...and Hubert will lose his mind, you know how he gets, he’ll think I’ve been fucking you for months, he’ll..."

"Sarah. Sit down first."

She stopped mid-sentence, breathing hard, and looked at me like she had only just remembered I was a separate person in the room. I guided her toward the couch with a hand on her elbow. She dropped onto it heavily, the hotpants riding up another inch. I stayed standing, crossed my arms, and leaned back against the kitchen counter so I could think.

For a few seconds neither of us spoke. The only sound was the faint tick of the wall clock and Sarah’s still-uneven breathing.

"Okay," I said finally. "Walk me through it again. Exactly what he said. No panic, just the words."

She swallowed and nodded, hands clasped tight between her knees.

"He said he has the photo from the coffee shop. Clear enough to see both our faces. He said if I don’t... if I don’t sleep with him, he’ll send it to Hubert. Not just Hubert, Hubert’s supervisor, two of the guys Hubert drinks with, and he’ll post it in some group chat they all use. He gave me until the day after tomorrow. After that he does it whether I agree or not." Her voice dropped. "He smiled the whole time, Chance. Like he was doing me a favor by giving me time to think."

I stared at the opposite wall and forced my jaw to unclench. "Has he tried to contact you since?"

"One text. Just a clock emoji and the number two. That’s it."

"And Hubert still doesn’t know about the photo?"

"No. If he did, the whole building would know by now."

I nodded slowly. The situation was worse than I had let myself admit on the phone. Karim wasn’t bluffing for leverage he planned to cash in later, he was on a timer of his own making. Two days was long enough to let fear do the work for him and short enough that Sarah couldn’t come up with a clean solution on her own.

"You’re not sleeping with him," I said.

Sarah looked up at me, eyes shining again. "Then what? We just wait for the photo to land in Hubert’s inbox? You didn’t see his face when he thought I was only touching myself. If he sees me sitting with another man in a coffee shop looking like... like that..." She gestured helplessly at nothing. "He won’t care about context. He’ll decide I cheated and that’ll be the end of it. Or worse."

"I know."

"Then what do we do?"

I didn’t have a clean answer yet. Money could solve some problems, but hiring someone to lean on Karim was the kind of move that created new ones. Going to Hubert ourselves would only confirm whatever version of the story Karim decided to tell. And simply ignoring the deadline was not an option, men like Karim followed through when it cost them nothing.

"We use the two days," I said. "We find something he cares about more than getting his dick wet. Everybody has something."

Sarah let out a short, broken breath that might have been a laugh. "He doesn’t care about anything except the next woman and not getting caught. You’ve heard him through the walls."

"Then we make getting caught look expensive."

Before she could answer, my phone rang on the counter.

I glanced at the screen. Unknown number, but I already knew the voice that would be on the other end. I exhaled through my nose, answered, and put it to my ear.

"Yeah."

"Kiddo." Mark’s voice was warm, almost affectionate. "Last favor. Same guests from the other night. They want one more game before I leave the country. Tonight."

I closed my eyes. Of course.

"I’m not really in the mood, Mark."

"Didn’t ask about your mood. Eight o’clock. Same table."

I knew I couldn’t refuse. Not cleanly. Not without creating a different kind of problem.

"Okay... fuck. Okay. I’ll come. But I have work, eight won’t work."

"Ten it is, then. Perfect."

I stared at the floor. The last thing I wanted was another night on public transport with twenty thousand dollars already burning a hole in my life and Karim circling upstairs.

"Can you send someone to pick me up? I don’t want the bus."

"Of course, friend. Just be ready at ten."

"Wait, where do I send the location?"

Mark laughed, low and amused. "Oh, I know where you live, silly Chance. Be ready at ten."

The line went dead. I lowered the phone and set it back on the counter harder than necessary.

Sarah was watching me, arms wrapped around herself. "Who was that? Was it about Karim?"

I shook my head once. "My sister’s bullshit. Don’t mind it."

She studied my face for a second longer, like she didn’t fully believe me, then let it go. The bigger problem was still sitting between us on the couch.

"Two days," she said quietly.

"I know."

"I’m scared, Chance."

"I know that too."

This was terrible. Just when things had finally started going my way, Sarah’s system corruption and everything that came with it had to happen. And now, as if things weren’t already bad enough, Karim was blackmailing her, no, us, trying to force us into submission.

I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t let it happen.

I’d already come too far for this. I’d sacrificed too much, worked too hard, and pushed through too many obstacles to let someone like Karim come along and take everything away from me. Everything I’d spent so much time building, every little victory I’d fought tooth and nail to achieve, it was all suddenly hanging by a thread.

And for what? So he could get his way? So he could hold everything over our heads and make us dance to his tune?

No. Absolutely fucking not.

I wasn’t going to stand by and watch him tear apart everything I’d worked so hard for. I hadn’t made it this far just to surrender when things got difficult. If Karim thought he could scare me into submission, he had another thing coming.

He wanted to play dirty?

Fine.

I could play that game, too.