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Of course, she would be wrong about that. Oh-so wrong.

She's wrong about all of it. And the reason she's wrong has a name, and the name is Beck Cross, one of my business partners and oldest friends.

Here's how an asshole like me, who has never once lost control of anything, loses control of it all in seconds.

It took Beck less than a day. I came into the office the next morning on no sleep, thinking I was hiding it. He walked into my office without knocking—the bastard never knocks—and stood there looking at me the way he looks at a company he intends to own, like the deal is already done and he's only confirming the price.

"You're being weird," he said.

I told him I was fine.

"You've been fine for eleven years, Thorne. You walked past Sloane just now like she was a coatrack, and you signed the same page twice before ten. You're not fine. You've got a woman."

It wasn't a question. He just knows shit. That's his whole talent. He reads a room the way I read a contract, and that morning, I was a very easy read.

I should have lied better. But I'd had no sleep, and the thing that kept me up all night slipped out. I told him there was a woman on a website. I did not tell him the website. I absolutely did not tell him it's the woman who answers our phones. And knows our schedules. And sets our client meetings.

Beck, naturally, lit up. "A camgirl. Elias Thorne pays a camgirl. This is the best day of my life. Show me, man."

I should have thrown him out. Told him I had work to do. Or even to just mind his own business. Instead, I turned my monitor toward him. That’s the mistake I kick myself over.

He checked out her profile longer than I wanted him to. Long enough to see her photos, disguised as they are, check out the reviews men have left for her, and listen to her recorded greeting.

I watched him study all this, which was its own particular hell, and I caught the exact second his face changed. I know that face. It's the one he gets when a company he’s looking at turns out to be worth a fortune.

Then he went still. "Wait." He leaned in. "That's—" His voice dropped. "That's Agnes. That's our Agnes. Front-desk Agnes."

"Yes."

"Fucking reception Agnes."

"Yes."

“Whoa.”

After that, for once in his life, Beck had nothing to say. Unfortunately, his silence lasted only seconds. When he got his voice back, a look came over his face, the one he gets right before a deal. It's the one that's made us more money than we could ever spend, and I realized too late that I hadn't confessed a weakness. I'd handed him an opportunity.

The opportunity to fuck with me.

"Okay." He rubbed his hands together like he was sitting down to a good meal. "Here's what we're going to do. What's the name of the site, you say? CamALot?" He already had his phone out. "Who came up with that stupid name? Oh hey, here she is. She's got a booking page. Private sessions. Anyone with the money can buy her time." He was tapping as he talked. "So we buy it. All of it. Every slot, every night. She never has to wonder where the money's coming from, and no other man on earth gets within a mile of her."

He said it like it was a kindness. And that's the sick joke I'll take to my grave. The best thing about Diablo, the hour I found her, was that my money only ever bought her time, never her. Beck's fix, in under a minute, was to buy all of it. To take the one person alive who wanted nothing from me and turn her into a line item we'd split three ways. And when he said no other man gets within a mile of her, I didn't say no.

I didn't argue. That's the part I hate. I knew better.

Our other partner, Theo Marsh, had some backbone. Theo has a conscience, which is inconvenient in a partner and a catastrophe in this. When we told him, he said no. He said it three times. He said the word HR. He said, "She's a person, she works for us, this is insane," and he was right. And then he said the decent thing, the one I'd already thought of and buried. "If she needs money, then we help her. Give her a raise. Pay off whatever it is. She never has to do this again."

Beck shot it down without blinking, because Beck isn't a decent man, and standing there letting him, neither was I.

"With whose name on the check?" he said. "You hand Agnes a raise that doesn't match the job and she asks why. You've met her; she’s no dummy. In fact, she's sharp as hell. She'll have it figured out right off. That much we know. And the second she knows we know, she's gone. Off the desk, off the site, out of reach, and still in whatever hole she's climbing out of. The only money that woman will take without a single question is money from strangers on the internet." He spread his hands like he'd solved it for all of us. "So we're strangers on the internet."

That was the part I hated him for. He was right. The same anonymity that kept her safe kept us safe. The only way to put money in her hands was to make sure she never knew it came from us.

And I let him, because Beck was offering me the one thing I wanted and would never have asked for. But I knew the rest of it even then, standing there saying nothing. The honest version existed. Three men who’ve got what we do, could have made her problem disappear and left her out of it completely—no camera, no crowns, no court. We didn't, though, because that would have ended the shows, and not one of us wanted the shows to end. Me least of all. We told ourselves we were the only safe way to help her. What we really were was three men who'd found something we had no intention of giving back. Savior complex and all that bullshit.

Then Beck showed Theo the site.

He hasn't missed a night since. Beck watches her like a prize. I watch like a man who can't have what he wants. Theo watches like he's already stepped between her and whatever's chasing her. He tips steady, never for the show, and every message he sends is about her—did you eat? are you drinking water?—not because he's soft, but because he's the only one of us who looked at her and decided he'd be the one to get her out. He's not the gentle one. He's the dangerous one, because a man who's appointed himself your rescuer doesn't quit. Which is exactly why, of the three of us, he's in the deepest.