Chapter 66

One last score to settle. Christian pulled up at the huge estate again, remembering the last visit; hightailing it out of here like his nuts were on fire, Hope trailing barefoot behind him.

Her ex's reaction to his revenge campaign, wasn't what he expected.

"You had them both deported?" He'd asked incredulously, his already huge brown eyes seemingly warping to twice their size.

"Yes. Back to Mexico, and Russia."

The ex laughed uproariously, wheezing even - which Christian found a bit perplexing; a strange reaction to unfortunate news about your closest friends who'd suddenly gone missing, but he continued on. "It'll probably get a bit messy for the Mexican one; when the feds went out there they obviously found all the pot she was cultivating in her backyard, so now there's going to be a few criminal charges mixed up in there too."

At this point the ex turned serious. "You know, she has a kid."

"I know, I know. Thing is, her custody of the child was revoked in court years ago by her ex; visitation, shortly thereafter. Best thing for the child really, because her mother was non-compliant where taking her meds were concerned. A un-medicated schizophrenic has no business being responsible for a child. You know it, I know it. Especially since she was self-medicating with marijuana, which actually exacerbates the illness. Right now, some kind of facility is probably the best place for her, even if it is a prison; they'll probably demand she take her meds and she won't be free among the populace to continue trying to wreak havoc."

Hope's ex nodded. "And what about Greta?"

"The Russian? Oh, I'm sure she's just a garden-variety psychopath; I doubt that even a deportation will make her a better person, she gets off on preying on people. I think targeting Hope for all those years was some form of... sport to her, like hunting. There's no way someone like that will stop, but that's not my problem, it's Russia's. Eventually she'll go too far or do it to the wrong person, and I'll let what's left of the red army handle that bitch."

At this point the ex exploded into another fit of laughter, and Christian rolled his eyes impatiently.

"The other two guys from your...gang...well, you'll find out about that in the press, later this week. That leaves you."

Hope's ex looked at him again, wide-eyed, before quickly recovering, putting on an air of indifference. "My fanbase is too huge, and devoted. Even if you do release the pictures you have, they won't care. At this point in my career, I'm indestructible."

"We'll see about that," Christian said, starting to turn away.

The ex kept talking, undeterred. "Not only that, after all the years I've put in, I probably have more pull in a lot of places than you do. Nothing will happen to me, and if anything, you'll just fuck yourself if you leak them."

Christian turned back and faced him again, and didn't appear all that convinced; then seemed to remember something. "You convinced Hope to leave me and come here purely for spite, to try and get under my skin. She told me that you got her here and pretty much dumped her off on the staff."

The ex looked at Christian impassively.

"Did you ever give a shit about her?"

There was a long pause. "I loved what she told me she was; turned out it was all a lie."

"Was it? She told me what happened with that, and I got to know her pretty well. She's hard to get to know, but pretty easy to read. I wonder if it isn't her having been dishonest so much as you created your own fantasy image of her in your mind. Then when you saw the reality of her and she wasn't what you assumed she'd be, you got angry at her for not living up to it and decided to punish her for it. You lied to your fucking self and you took it out on her."

The exes eyes narrowed, turned malevolent; but he said nothing.

Christian continued on angrily, "You know, she really loved you, and the shit you fuckers did to her, did a number on her, and made it hard down the line for someone like me who really loved her to get through all those goddamn walls she'd built up."

"Don't lay that guilt-trip bullshit on me, " he snapped. "It was about fame for her - and she got what she wanted, alright - just not the way she expected. It was a game to her, and she lost. "

"Really? Because when she was with me, she never asked me for a dime; and when those pictures got out, she could've used that to try and make a few bucks, she could've done talk shows or anything else to try and draw attention to herself. She never did. Was it really that she's a gold-digging famewhore, or is that just the shit you say to give yourself and the others an excuse for what you were doing to her? The ironic part is, even if what you said were true, there's no way that any of that justifies stalking, harassment and death threats and invading someone's privacy for over five fucking years."

By this time the ex was clearly livid, but he was a coward. He held his tongue and just glared.

"I won't even get into those other two silly fucks she used to go out with. All you people did was just feed on and use the shit out of her."

"Like you did, right?" The ex snapped suddenly, startling Christian. "Where's she now, and when's the baby due?"

Christian stared, stricken.

The ex smiled triumphantly.

Christian strode out wordlessly.

A couple days later, it was very busy in the world of music news :

Grey Enters Music World

Christian Grey decides to expand his empire into the record industry - buys shares in the biggest companies and Clearchannel

Everyone was so busy talking about that, that the subsequent dismissal of two has-been pop stars from their record contracts, went by relatively unnoticed.

...Besides - a few days after that the whole world was in a tizzy over another legendary musician's arrest for tax evasion. That morning everyone woke up to see him, plastered on the front page in handcuffs, his giant dark eyes, dazed.

A couple months later. Another star-studded bash. This time, for the Grey's marriage anniversary. Another dramatic speech - "I love my wife", Christian started, Ana beaming in a gown that cost more than most people's houses, with an enormous canary yellow diamond (that she'd thrown quite the tantrum for a few days earlier), on her right hand.

"...So, yeah. I don't know what her ultimate goal was, but she's failed miserably, and I'm sure she knows it. " Christian finished finally a few days later, lifting his chin in the air and meeting the doctor's eyes.

Flynn said nothing.

Christian forged on, "I don't know where she is, and I don't care. At this point the best thing for everyone involved, is for her to stay gone."

"What if this is your child?"

Christian waved dismissively, then started picking at his suit absent-mindedly, "That's purely a rumor, probably something that she made up herself, or one of her boyfriends. There were so many of them. Even if there is a kid, I doubt it's mine; not my problem. It's a sad story, it's pathetic, but she made her bed, she has to lie in it."

Flynn just stared at him.