Boots Up (Port Ranch Book #1)

Chapter 20

MITCH

Rage. That was the only emotion I could process right now. Gone was the anger I had with Brielle when I saw her with him earlier today. Brooke was right, there was so much history between the two of them and it was now clear that she thought she had no choice but to meet him. If I do nothing else in the rest of the time I live here, I’m going to make sure that Lex the Douchebag has lost all his control over her. 

“I’m going to kill him,” I snarled as I looked at the pictures she handed me.

“You can’t, Mitch. You can’t tell him that I told you.”

“The hell I can’t Brielle how are you not angrier about this? Did you tell your mom and dad yet? You should call the cops, this shit isn’t legal!”

“No,” she pleads again. “We can’t. I can’t tell anybody. I shouldn’t have even told you, but I didn’t realize that you saw us and I couldn’t handle the idea of you being mad at me. Please don’t be mad.”

“Of course, I’m fucking mad, Brie. It just isn’t at you. How did he even get these?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. We just haven’t been as discreet as we thought we were.”

“But why would he even take these? What does he gain by having these?”

She shrugs, “I don’t know, Mitch. He’s just a sick fuck that can’t handle seeing me with somebody else. He was pissed that night we were at Nikki’s, he’s probably been stewing since then.”

“So this is why he wanted to meet you today? To show you these?”

“Pretty much. He texted me this morning and said that he needed to talk to me and that it would be in my best interest if I met up at our spot.”

“And you just went?”

Brie throws her hands up in frustration, “He plays these damn mind games and makes subtle threats if I don’t do what he wants. I’m sorry that I didn’t trust you enough to say anything, Mitch. I was hoping it was just something stupid he wanted and he’d listen to reason in person. You don’t know him as I do. I figured he was just going to say what he always says.”

“Which is?” I asked, intrigued.

“He just says that he wants me back. That he knows he messed up, but if I give him another chance it’ll be better. I guess I thought I could tell him no because we’re dating and he would have laid off. You’re fucking twice his size. I didn’t expect…well…those,” she says, referring to the pictures.

“Except this time he pulls out pictures of us having sex.” She starts to tear up again and I reach over and swipe her tears away with my thumb. “I’m sorry, Brielle. I hate that he has pictures of you like this. In fact, I’m pretty much raging that anybody else besides me has seen you like this. I just wish you would have told me.”

“He said he’s moving to Canada.”

“Thank fuck.”

“I know, but I don’t know if he means it. He wants me to go with him. I thought it was another one of his inappropriate requests but then he gave me the pictures and then threatened to sell them to the media. He said they’d love a good former athlete sex tape story.”

“Tape?” I growl.

“He said he has video too. I can’t do this, Mitch, he’s going to go to the media and tell them everything. He knows about you going and getting a drug test. He knows why you were fired, he knows about your DUI. He said if I didn’t go with him, he would ruin you and the paparazzi would flood into town and take over the ranch and the family would be ruined”