“Can I speak to her alone first please, Papi?”
He sucks on his top lip, considering my request. “Fine. But I need to speak with her too. You got any decent coffee in here?” he asks Benji, who nods his agreement and then the two of them walk into the small kitchenette, leaving me watching Toni alone.
I let her finish her set before I interrupt her.
“Hey, Toni,” I say, my voice cracking with the nerves.
She spins around and faces me, her face lighting up in a smile.
“Hello, princess. To what do I owe this pleasure?” She looks behind me, no doubt looking for Jax. Looking for her accomplice?
“I wanted to show you something,” I say.
At the sound of voices, she looks over to the kitchen and frowns. “Your father’s here with you?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s going on?” she says and the change in her tone is instant.
“I told you I wanted to show you something.” I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and open the email with the images of her and Jax. I scroll to the one of them sucking each other’s faces and hand it to her.
The reaction on her face is of shock and disgust, and it seems genuine, unless she’s an amazing actress. Maybe she is?
She peers closer at the screen. “Is that supposed to be me and Jax?”
I flick to the next image, which is the two of them sitting in the same restaurant, but their faces are much clearer. “You tell me.”
“What the hell? Who? Where?” she snarls as she glares at me. “You know that’s not me, Lucia. Me and Jax. We’ve never… Where the hell did you get those?”
“Toni, please?” I beg her. “Is there something going on with you two?”
Her face softens a little. “No, Lucia. There is only one person in your relationship I have any interest in that way, and we both know who that is,” she whispers and my cheeks flush pink.
“But these pictures?”
“I don’t know what magic fuckery someone has pulled, but I’m telling you that is not Jax and me. Why the hell would someone want you to think that it was?”
“They were sent to me and my dad. I think the sender wanted us to doubt Jax. To think that you and he were trying to extort money from us. I dunno,” I shake my head. None of this makes any sense to me, and the one person who could make sense of it all is on the other side of the country.
“I don’t follow,” she says with a frown. “Extort money how?”
“That’s the other thing I need to tell you about,” I say as I pull the brown envelope from my purse and hand it to her. “Somebody took videos of us in Dallas.”
I watch Toni’s face as she flicks through the still images of her, Jax and me. I didn’t bring the other ones of just Jax and me. She doesn’t need to see those too. Her pretty features are pulled into a frown of disgust and anger. “Sick fucks,” she hisses. “How fucking dare they!”
“I-I’m sorry,” I mumble. “We had no idea anyone was watching.”
“I know,” she shakes her head. “I bet Jax is pissed? Is that why he’s not here? Is he currently tearing people apart as we speak?”
“It’s a long story,” I say with a sigh. “But my father saw them too.”
“Oh, Lucia,” she puts her gloved hand on my arm. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. It was kind of awful. I mean…”
“I get it. Fuck!” she hisses. “So what did they want?”
Toni listens intently as I tell her about the demand for money and how we paid it. “Jax is hoping to find the source of the videos so they never see the light of day,” I finish.