Chapter 29

*Ryder*

"My dad is going to contact you soon. He's going to make it appear that you two are working on a movie together. He's gonna make it appear that that's where you've been for the past couple of months. The story's going to be that he wanted to clean you up before offering you the project."

"I still don't see how that's going to work. Your family only works with the best. I've never acted a day in my life. Besides, my reputation doesn't mesh with the clean-cut actors and actresses he usually works with."

"Don't worry about it. My dad already has a press release ready to go out about the project you'd be working on. As to your reputation in the past, everyone knows my dad's image, and that this is something he would do, so it shouldn't be a hard sell."

"As to why you disappeared, that too is something he would do. He would clean you up first before he ever puts you in front of one of his cameras. So that's the story you're going to go with. You don't have to do anything; just wait until after you get the heads up and head back to L.A. They'll buy the story, trust me."

"But what about Elena? I can't leave her to these monsters. Knowing what they've been doing to her while I was too high to know is eating me up inside. This is all my fault. They're hurting her because of me." Because I didn't love Janie, she and the rest of them have been making Elena suffer.

The more I showed my hatred for my situation, the more they attacked her in the press. Knowing that Mary and her brood had been behind it only pissed me off further. And knowing what part that witch had played in all of this, not to mention my so-called father-in-law, makes me want to end them all.

"If you go to her now, they will for sure kill her, so you're gonna have to play this game for a little while longer. You didn't sign a prenup, and your post-nup is pretty much void or invalid, so you're going to get her to sign a paper giving up her rights to anything that belongs to you."

"How am I going to do that? She'll never go for it." This was one of the things I'd been struggling with because I didn't want to give her a dime, not even enough to get a cup of that fancy coffee she liked so much. If I thought I disliked Janie before, learning what I now have has made me despise every molecule of her demonic ass.

"No, she won't, but we'll let you know when and how you're going to get her to sign, don't worry about it. Reggie is going to be in L.A. to keep an eye out, and my dad is going to put people with you. Do not eat or drink anything from Janie or anyone associated with her ever again."

"You know how to go about doing that. You two don't have a very good relationship anyway, so she wouldn't find it too strange. They're going to try and get you hooked again; that's the only way they can trust you. You are going to stay clean, but as I said, my dad working with you is going to be the excuse you use for being clean and staying that way."

"Do not let on that you know any of this. Do not let on that you remember anything, OK? Do not change anything about your actions around her, do not become too lovey-dovey to overcompensate, just keep being who you were before sans the addiction."

"I'm not sure I can do this. I can't imagine being around her, or any of them, knowing what I know and not losing my shit. They stole my fucking life, and for what? Money? They took everything that was good from me, made me hurt the only person I've ever loved in a way that no human being ever should be, and you want me to pretend that I don't want to murder every last one of them in their fucking sleep?

"You have to. If you want to get back to her, you have to swallow it all for now and do as I say. Do not show your anger or your distaste for her or the people around her, OK? We'll be in contact through the men that my dad is going to put on you. They'll be there to protect you, so don't be too worried about your own safety."

"I'm not worried about my safety. The way I feel now, I could take a bear with my bare hands. I'm worried about her, Elena."

"Don't worry about her. Someone will cover her no matter what they send her way."

"What is it? Some kind of PR team?"

"No, it's worst. It's my nieces, and they have a grudge against your wife. Those people that you fear are going to pale in comparison to what they can do." He smiled fondly while telling me that three little ten-year-old girls could out-smear the worst Hollywood had to offer.

I've been at the receiving end of smear campaigns before and know the damage they can do to one's life and reputation. But he seemed pretty confident, and remembering who he was gave me the tiniest bit of hope that he knew what he was talking about.

"What about the church and Mary?"

"That's not your concern. It will be taken care of. Oh, by the way. If you see this name turn up on social media, don't interact."

"Who's this?" I looked down at the handle he showed me.

"That would be my nieces. You can thank them for me being here."

"I don't get it. You came all the way out here because some ten-year-olds asked you to?"

"No, I came here because they hacked your shit and pieced together the fact that you were in trouble."

"Hacked my shit? How, what do you mean?"

"Don't worry, you're not the only one they hacked. Everyone involved has been compromised. Your girl must be one of a kind because they're willing to go to bat for her. They've already contacted Janie, by the way. So, the game has begun."

"They contacted her about what?"

"Don't worry about that. Your only job is to get out of there safely and in one piece because my nieces feel sorry for you. Had they found anything incriminating about you, you'd be on the receiving end of what your wife, her dad, and everyone else is about to experience, and let's just say it's not good."

"What did they find?"

"As far as you and your marriage are concerned, they found the stuff I showed you. All the conversations between Mary, your father-in-law, Matt, and Scott. There's more, but I'm holding onto it for now. Just don't be surprised when you see that name show up everywhere in the next few days. By the way, you've got two months, that's it."

"Two months; what do you mean?"

"Once you get back to L.A., you'll have two months to get your shit together. At the end of two months, the papers should be signed, and you should be able to move on with your life. It's as much time as we were able to get you. Don't waste it."

He just turned and walked out the door like he didn't just drop ten bombshells in my lap. The whole thing sounds like a James Bond movie, but some of it verified some of my own suspicions, and that's the only reason I'm even entertaining this whole mess. Someone like him wants me to believe that he's doing this because of little girls. It seems so farfetched.

I added the name he'd shown me to my alerts, and it dinged immediately. "The fuck!" I looked at the picture that popped up on the screen and read the caption. It kinda looked like Janie and my head of security in a lip lock. Is he saying that three little girls did this? Where did they get the picture?

***

*Janie*

"No-no-no, this can't be happening." I looked for the name of the sender, but there was nothing. How is that even possible? I didn't know you could send a message with no return number and no email address. I felt real fear for the first time and looked around the room at all of the windows, suddenly feeling exposed.

The phone dinged in my hand with an alert that my name had shown up on some social media platform, and I was almost too scared to look. My hands shook with dread as I opened the notification, and my worst fear stared me back in my face. My phone started ringing immediately, and I threw it against the wall in anger when I saw that it was my dad calling.

This can't be happening, not now, when Ryder was still missing, and no one knew where he was. I screamed for the maid, who came running and held out my shaking hand. She knew what I needed without having to be told and rushed to get one of my happy pills and a glass of water.

"Give me more."

"But ma'am, you're not supposed to…." A hard slap across the face reminded her that she was not allowed to question me or any of my decisions. "Know your place bitch, or you're fired." She held her cheek and whined like a little shit while I downed the pills and waited for sweet surcease to kick in.

"Get out of my face." I threw the glass at her as she fled, then wiped my nose that was already starting to run. My phone hadn't broken into pieces, more's the pity, and it kept going off every few seconds.

I ignored it and locked myself away in my bedroom, not willing to deal with anything right now. I don't know why I was so afraid, to begin with. It's not the first time someone had tried to overturn my apple cart, not the first time someone tried to destroy all that I had worked for.

Each time Mary had come through for me. She's the most powerful woman in L.A. Even though she's never been an actress or anything, she and her daughters are some of the biggest, if not the biggest, stars on the planet. How is that again? I can't remember, and my brain feels too fuzzy to go diving into that cesspool right now.

Either way, it doesn't matter who this person is or how they got the picture of me and Ryder's head of security going at it. Mary will fix it. I crawled into bed, ignoring the alerts from the phone. I have it set up so that it alarms differently according to who the news is about.

That last one sounded like Mary's alarm, but since no one really knew about the connection between her and my family or the part she'd played in getting Ryder to marry me, I didn't think that this had anything to do with what was going on with me. Or maybe she was already on the job doing damage control.

If that was the case, then I really had nothing to worry about, and a nap sounded great right about now. If things don't work out, we can always do what we've always done in the past. Dredge up some kind of drama with Elena to take the spotlight off ourselves. It's worked beautifully in the past, and I do like seeing her name being dragged through the mud.

I felt a slight pang of unease at the thought. There was something teasing the edge of my mind, but I couldn't quite recall what that was as I sunk down in the bed and pulled the covers up over my head to drown out the sound of the phone alarming and ringing in turns from the next room.

Just before my eyes closed, I remembered what it was that had been evading my thoughts. Yeah, why doesn't that bitch ever seem worried about anything we say about her? Since coming out of hiding after three years, she seems…. unbothered.

Now that I think about it, she seems happy, while I've been miserable. I tried fighting the effects of the drug in my system as my mind began to race. Why didn't I notice it before? She seems to be winning. The new album, new TV show, new everything, while I'm stuck here wondering where my husband was.

It's not fair. I have righteousness on my side; that's what Matt said, and he should know since he's a spiritual advisor. As long as I was the one married to Ryder, I'm his wife; it's sanctified; she's nothing. I won, I won, I won. I felt tears burning a trail down my cheek but was too weak to wipe them away because the drug had turned my limbs to mush, and all I wanted to do was sleep. I'll deal with that bitch when I wake up. I won.