Chasing Blue

#42: My Knight.

Present

Isabella

I whip my head in his direction, shocked and numb at what he said. I see Jacob holding back a smirk as Austin walks from around me back to Julie. He presses the spacebar on his laptop and the screen opens a video. I narrow my eyes to see it clearly.

"You were right, Julie O'Connel," Austin turns around to her. "You were right when you said pride comes with privilege." She's just staring at the laptop screen looking petrified. "But do you know what else comes with privilege? Power."

He taps the spacebar and the video is of a hotel room. Julie is wearing a black hair wig that only reaches her shoulders. She's with a man. She's seducing him and the entire video is a CCTV camera recording. The second Julie stands up from the chair and darts toward the laptop, Austin shuts it and blocks it with his body.

"How did you get that?" Julie whisper-yells at him.

"Power," Austin mutters and crosses his hands across his chest. "Everybody has dirt on them. You just have to dig deeper."

Julie's face is completely pale and in turmoil. I don't understand anything. I'm too confused with whatever he's meddling and holding as leverage but I don't want him to manipulate her using that. I know exactly how it feels when someone's dignity is at stake. I don't want anybody to undergo that.

"What do you want in return to delete that?" Julie demands from him and he just stares at her.

"You're not a bad person, Julie. You're not Noah." I flinch exactly like her at the mention of his name. "You had a rough childhood, but everyone had it rough in their own defined ways. Nobody has the right to belittle anybody's trauma. But what we do is move past those events. We hope and strive for a better tomorrow. We let go of the past and embrace the future's opportunities."

"I get it that you're blackmailing me, tell me what you want." She says brushing her hand through her hair and pacing in front of him.

He takes a step toward her and holds her arms to stop her from pacing. She looks at him, sweating, crying, and in fear. I watch him steady her as he makes her sit on the chair again.

"I'm not blackmailing you, Julie. If I wanted to do that I wouldn't have waited three days." He gestured to the laptop, "I got the video of how you really got into Berlin University--"

She gets defensive, "--that doesn't prove anything I didn't have sex with him, I only--"

Austin closes his eyes. "Hey, I'm not labeling you anything. That was your choice, but it is an offense. When I got the bug removed from my phone, the buyer contact was traced to your number. I even got your address when I traced the buyer account. I'm not trying to scare you. I'm trying to tell you that I had all the opportunity to expose you and end your career in a snap, and I chose not to."

She covers her face in her hands as she begins to sob. I turn to May and ask for her phone. She looks confused when she handed it to me. I search for the recording and play it, dragging the cursor to somewhere in the middle of the memo.

"--I helped Noah escape the quarters. I brought him to your house and I just thought he'd scare you a little but I did not expect him to almost kill you. I obviously couldn't let my half-brother murder you so I did what I had to do. He needed that medical help."

I hit the stop button when Julie's eyes widen, threatening to almost pop out of their sockets.

I hand the phone to Austin, "You're not the only one with leverage."

"How did you--when did you--" Julie stutters as more tears stream down her face.

Austin glances at the phone and then at Julie. "I only had stuff from your past but this is a straight-up confession, Julie." He shows the phone to her. "And why we haven't exposed this out yet is because we don't want to. We don't ever want to, right?" He looked at me.