Neon Red [Order The eBook] [Zayn]

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(DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. It's important to remember this is all totally fabricated, embellished, and exaggerated for entertainment purposes.)

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Show some weakness for me, boy

When you're running, running

Abi Ocia | Running

February 2018

New York, New York

TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter is super long (sorry!) but I didn't want to break up the action. This chapter can also be a bit disturbing at times for those who are sensitive, so you may want to reconsider reading this one. But I just wanted to break  up the monotony with some serious drama before it all ends in a few weeks!

The letter, which arrived in an unmarked envelope, instructed me to pack my passport and head to JFK's Private Jet Terminal. There were no further instructions. It arrived out of the blue the night before and ordered me to be ready by 7AM. I immediately called Taryn and panicked that the extortionists were back and probably looking to kill me because of Tobias' involvement. I reached out to Haz and he said he hadn't gotten any packages and offered to go with me. I declined, not wanting to bring him into any danger, and refused to take his calls to deter him from coming after me.

My last resort was to call Tobias, who said that he had not seen any action between the two suspects they'd unmasked last year, and advised that I did not correspond with this individual any further. We then set up a virtual meeting to go over the new evidence, and I was scheduled to speak with him later today. Still, I was stumped. What could they possibly want now? Had the photos been passed beyond the original extorters, and now a new player was involved? I suppose it was naïve of us to believe this thing would simply go away after the drastic measures they'd taken to entrap us. Of course they'd passed the material on. Probably immediately sold it to multiple dark web organizations for exorbitant sums of money. Since Haz and I were globally famous, Tobias had warned that our case was especially challenging, as we were cash cows guaranteed to enrich the lives of anyone who found even the remotest opportunity to blackmail us.

On some Hail Mary, kamikaze type shit, I said fuck it and became determined to meet these motherfuckers face-to-face. It was time to stop running and lay eyes on my tormenters once and for all. This was chess, not checkers, and I had the power to shift the leverage. If anything happened to me, they'd have an incredibly famous body on their hands, and it would make global news for years to come. There was no way in hell they could outrun the FBI with that sort of heat on them. And it was certainly worth the risk if I could negotiate and spare Haz from ever having to deal with this shit again, or to keep him from being extorted into bankruptcy in an effort to protect me. He didn't care if the photos leaked, but he knew I did and would therefore give up his every dime to protect me from it. How was that fair to him?

I couldn't involve T either. She'd try to stop me from handling this face-to-face or call the authorities, and I was just so far past the stage of reasoning. I'd fill her in once I landed wherever the hell they were taking me. I packed a quick bag, grabbed my passport, called a car, and left before she made it to my apartment. She called me like a hundred times, along with Haz, and I eventually shut my phone off to prevent myself from chickening out. I needed to settle this shit or at the very least see what they could possibly want now.