TENACITY

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Trey wheeled his chair to the right side, seating her. "I won't beat about the bush in any of these things I'm about to say or reveal. If at any point you think you can't take it, let me know and you'll be escorted outside, okay?"

She nodded though she had no intention of walking out. He hesitated, then leaned in to press a brief kiss to her lips. "We'll be okay." Gale set the water down and she thanked him, uncapping it to take a sip.

Trey stepped back, resuming his position at the head of the table as Gale resumed his behind the computer. "Sorry about that," he apologized. "Back to you Nicolysse." She looked away from Lexi to scowl at Trey.

"As you probably know by now, I'm not interested in getting back with you," he stated bluntly. "I needed to be next to you to give the idea that I was over Alexandra. But during this time of pretense, I came across some dirty secrets. Would you like to know?"

She became stoic, no expression painted on her face. "You're going say something anyway regardless of my answer, so go ahead. Let's see if you've really found 'secrets' like you claim you do," she said, dropping the hand she used for the airy quotes.

Trey smirked with a nod. "You're right, I would." He walked leisurely around the room again. "You always wore an aphrodisiac around Mitchell to get him to fall in love with you, to make me jealous, and to trick me into believing my friend was against us being together only because he loved you himself."

Nicolysse rolled her eyes. "It's in the past. Get over it."

Trey nodded slowly, the hand that wasn't holding the remote sliding into his pocket. "Again, you're right. It is in the past and it wouldn't have mattered if you weren't really into Mitchell yet leading me on for my money. You know how I know that?"

Trey pulled up a slightly grainy video, pressing a few buttons to clear the video's resolution, then Nicolysse was on full display—a slightly young version, but definitely her.

She slid a man a picture of young Samantha and leaned back. 'I'm going to have one of her roommates take her to the club and drug her. A server will spill drinks on her and direct her to a room to change.

'All you have to do is use her, mentally scar her as much as possible so that she wouldn't dare show face next to Mitchell again. He's mine. Understood?' The man opposite her nodded, rising as he tucked the picture in his pocket.

As the man walked away, the camera caught his face and Trey paused the video, turning to Nicolysse. "Of all the people available, you had to hire the campus' alleged rapist to physically hurt someone because they were getting the attention of someone you liked?" Trey shook his head.

"Well, a little bird alerted Mitch to what was going to happen and by the time we all got there, Cameron had his hand up her skirt. Then we smelt the heavy aphrodisiac in the room. Jason and I pulled Cameron off and left the room while Mitchell took care of her."

"What point are you making?" Nicolysse cut in, a perfect brow raised in question.

"You'll know soon." He pulled up another video of Nicolysse talking to a guy they hadn't found yet. "You remember him and what you made him do right?" In the video, Nicolysse wrote something on a paper for the man and as she gave it to him, it came on display. Trey paused, zooming in. "Lexi, do you recognize that?"

Alexandra squinted, trying to make sense of the scrambled letters and numbers. "It looks like a number plate," she murmured. Trey didn't say a word as he waited for her to figure it out, and when she did, her jaw dropped. "That was my mother's car—the one in which they died!"

He nodded, because if the pain on her face said anything, it was that she'd figured it out. Nevertheless, he played the next video showing the man going around the parking garage as he tried to find the car with the number plate he'd been given.