Chapter 49: Blackmail in Bloomingdale's
The air in the boutique, once smelling of linen and vanilla, turned to ice in Alexis’s lungs. Keeana’s fingers were light on her shoulder, a mockery of a friendly touch. The threat, whispered so sweetly, hung between them like a poisoned ribbon.
Alexis’s hand, outstretched for the onesie—a soft, grey thing with tiny sketched ninja stars—went numb. She slowly let it fall to her side. She turned, her movements deliberate, to face the woman fully.
Keeana was smiling. It was a perfect, salon-white smile that didn’t reach her cold, assessing eyes. She was all effortless chic, a walking editorial in taupe and cream, her hair a slick fall of silk. She looked like she belonged among the holographic mannequins. Alexis, in her comfortable sneakers and oversized anime hoodie she’d stolen from Mark’s closet, suddenly felt like a tourist in a country with unspoken rules.
“Keeana,” Alexis said, her voice miraculously steady. The pre-law muscle, the one trained by her mother to cross-examine with calm precision, flexed instinctively. “That’s a interesting opening line. Usually it’s ‘how have you been?’”
“Oh, we’re past pleasantries, sweetie.” Keeana’s gaze flicked down to Alexis’s midsection, concealed by the bulky hoodie. Her eyes narrowed, calculating. “I wondered why he went radio silent. Why he changed all his passwords. He’s hiding you. And… that.” She gave a slight, disdainful nod toward Alexis’s stomach. “A bit predictable, really. The clueless fan who gets stars in her eyes and ‘forgets’ her pill. I’ve seen the play before.”
The insult was so blatant, so viciously crafted, it almost bypassed anger and went straight to a strange, clear calm. Alexis remembered the feeling of Mark inside her that very morning, the raw vulnerability in his eyes when he’d called her his anchor. This woman was talking about a different man.A character.
“You don’t know anything about me,” Alexis stated, the words flat.
“I know your type. I know the game.” Keeana took a half-step closer, her perfume—something expensive and soulless—washing over Alexis. “And I know Mark. His career is a house of cards built on likability. Wholesome, funny, relatable. A baby mama drama? With some college girl he knocked up after a few months? The narrative writes itself. ‘Influencer Irresponsibility.’ ‘Abandoned Past Flame.’ The comments section alone would be a bloodbath. His brand partnerships? They’d evaporate. RDC’s next project? Buried under think-pieces about toxic creator culture.”
She let the words sink in, her eyes gleaming with a predator’s patience. “He’ll resent you for it.Eventually. Maybe not today, but when the deals dry up and the memes start, he will. He loves that world more than he’ll ever love you.”
Alexis’s stomach did a slow, nauseating roll. The fear wasn’t for herself. It was the image of Mark, the light in his eyes dimming under a wave of online vitriol. Of Desmond and Leland and Ben, their hard work tangled in his personal mess. The fear was weaponized, and Keeana wielded it with surgical skill.
“What do you want?” Alexis asked, her voice lower.
“Simple.” Keeana smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from her sleeve. “You walk away. You have your… situation… handled. You tell him it’s too much pressure, the fame, whatever sad story you concoct. You vanish. And in return, your little secret stays with me. He keeps his reputation. You get to be a memory he pines for, instead of a mistake that ruined him.”
The audacity was breathtaking. Alexis felt a hot spike of fury pierce the cold calm. She thought of her mother, Ava, in a courtroom, dismantling a lying witness with nothing but facts and tone. She wasn’t in a courtroom, but the principles held.
She took a slow breath, buying a second. She let her own gaze wander, not over Keeana, but over the boutique—the absurdly priced jackets, the artfully distressed sneakers, the whole temple of curated consumption.
“You’re scared,” Alexis said finally, looking back at Keeana.
A flicker in the perfect mask. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You are.You had your shot. You were part of that world. And now you’re not. And you see me, someone who never even wanted a backstage pass, living in the space you lost.” Alexis took a small step forward, closing the distance Keeana had invaded. “This isn’t about protecting Mark. This is about you trying to carve a piece of him back for yourself by removing what you see as the new variable. Me.”
Keeana’s smile tightened. “You think you’re clever.”
“I’m a pre-law student from St. Louis who beats Mark at Fighting Demons: Eternal Conquest on the regular. Clever is the baseline.” Alexis’s mind was racing, connecting dots. “You said TMZ by sundown. That’s a specific threat. Which means you’ve already drafted the tip, or you have a contact on speed dial. That’s premeditation. Extortion, really, if we want to use legal terms. Which I do.”
Now Keeana blinked. The script was deviating.
“You also assume I’m ashamed,” Alexis continued, her voice dropping to a near-whisper that forced Keeana to listen closely. “You assume I’m hiding. I’m not. My parents are a lawyer and a principal. We have family group chats more dramatic than this. You think a TMZ headline scares me? It’d annoy my mother. Deeply. But it wouldn’t break me.” She let a small, cold smile touch her lips. “The question is, what does it do to you? If you’re the source of the leak, and Mark finds out… that’s a bridge burned forever. Not just with him, but with everyone in that circle. You’d be toxic. A snitch. How many influencer parties do you get invited to after that?”
The color drained slightly from Keeana’s cheeks. She hadn’t anticipated a counter-attack. She’d expected tears, panic, submission.
“You’re bluffing,” Keeana hissed, but the conviction was gone.
“Am I?” Alexis shrugged, the movement loose, feigning a nonchalance she didn’t fully feel. “You know what my favorite anime is? Legend of the Galactic Heroes. It’s all about strategy, logistics, the long game. You came at me with a surprise attack.Emotional warfare. But you didn’t scout your opponent. You didn’t know my terrain.” She glanced at the onesie again. “I’m going to buy this now. And you’re going to walk away. And if anything, anything, appears online about this, I won’t go to TMZ. I’ll go to Mark.And Desmond. And Leland. And I’ll show them the security footage from this store—they have cameras everywhere, see that little dome in the corner?—and I’ll let them hear the audio of you trying to bully their friend’s pregnant fiancée into getting an abortion. See how that narrative plays with the ‘RDC Family’ fanbase.”
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the muted jazz and the distant chime of the mall. Keeana’s face was a frozen mask of rage and dawning, terrible realization. She had miscalculated. Spectacularly.
Without another word, Keeana turned on her heel. The sharp click of her heels on marble echoed like gunshots as she strode out of the boutique, disappearing into the flow of shoppers.
Alexis stood perfectly still. She waited for the tremor to hit. When it came, it started in her knees and worked its way up, a violent shiver that made her teeth chatter. She gripped the clothing rack until her knuckles turned white.
She looked down at the tiny ninja-star onesie. Her vision blurred.
After a full minute, she picked it up. The fabric was impossibly soft. She walked to the counter on legs that felt like wood, paid with a smile that felt like plastic, and took the bag.
Out in the mall’s main concourse, the noise was a wall of sound—laughter, chatter, music from other stores. She found a secluded bench tucked behind a giant faux ficus tree and sat down, the bag clutched to her chest like a shield.
She pulled out her phone. Her thumb hovered over Mark’s name. He was at the studio, editing with the guys. She could call. She could tell him everything. She could hear his voice, angry and protective, and she wanted that more than anything.
But she didn’t call.
If she told him, he would confront Keeana. It would become a thing. A drama. The very thing Keeana had threatened, even if the origin changed. It would poison his space, his work, the easy camaraderie of the studio. It would make it real in his world.
She looked at the bag. At the secret growing inside her. At the weight of the world she now had to navigate, a world where a simple shopping trip could become a clandestine battlefield.
She wasn’t just Alexis anymore.She was a variable. A target. A secret-keeper.
She put the phone away. She sat in the artificial light, amidst the cheerful crowds, and for the first time since the two pink lines appeared, she felt utterly, terribly alone. The anchor felt very, very far away.
The synthetic chirp of her phone shattered the hollow silence. Mark’s name glowed on the screen. She stared at it, the vibration a dull buzz against her palm. Her thumb hovered, a traitorous thing, over the green accept icon.
She swallowed hard, forcing air into her tight chest. She answered. “Hey you.” Her voice was strangely bright, a brittle glass bell.
“Where you at, Lex?” His voice was warm, threaded with the familiar background chaos of the studio—Desmond’s laugh, the clack of a mechanical keyboard. “You were gonna send me that link for the Baby Yoda swaddle, remember? Ben’s betting it’s on Etsy.”
She closed her eyes. The normalcy of it was a physical ache. “Got distracted. At the mall. The… the anime pop-up had some new merch.” The lie tasted like copper on her tongue. She pictured the small bag beside her, the secret tucked inside it.
“Sick. Grab me that Gon shirt if they have an XL.” A pause. A muffled, “Yeah, I’m comin’, hold on.” He came back, closer to the mic. “You alright? You sound tired.”
“Just walked a lot.” She looked down at her hands.They were steady. She willed them to be steady. “Thinking about flooring samples. And whether a nursery needs a theme, or if that’s overkill.”
He chuckled, low and easy. “You’re overthinking. It just needs a crib and, like, a big poster of Goku. Foundations, you know?” The word ‘foundations’ sent a silent shiver through her. “We’ll figure it all out.Together. I’ll be home by seven. Want me to grab Thai?”
“Yeah.” The word was too quick, too relieved.“Green curry. Extra spicy.” She needed the burn to cut through the numbness.
“You got it. Love you, Lex.”
“Love you back.” The call ended. The cheerful studio noise vanished, leaving her again in the curated quiet of the mall.She had done it. She had sound like herself. The performance, a small one, was complete.
She stood up, her body feeling both heavy and insubstantial. The walk to the parking garage was a blur of reflected light and echoing footsteps. She slid into her car, the familiar scent of her citrus air freshener now cloying. She placed the boutique bag on the passenger seat.
The drive home was mechanical. She navigated the Austin traffic, her mind replaying Keeana’s words on a toxic loop. He’ll resent you for it.Eventually. The threat wasn’t just exposure. It was a seed, designed to fester in the dark soil of silence. It was the prediction of a rot that would start from the inside.
She let herself into the condo, the hum of the central air greeting her. The space felt different. The sleek surfaces, the impressive view, the curated cool of it all—it felt like a set. A stage for a life she was supposedly living. She walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, pressing her forehead against the cool glass.
Downtown Austin shimmered, indifferent. Her reflection ghosted over the skyline. A young woman in a hoodie, holding a secret that felt too big for her body. She wasn’t clueless. She wasn’t a fan who’d gotten stars in her eyes. She was Alexis Moore from St. Louis County, her mother’s daughter, and she had just been threatened in a designer store.
Anger, sharp and clean, finally cut through the shock. It was a better fuel than fear. Keeana had scouted the wrong opponent. This wasn’t about winning Mark like a prize. This was about protecting something real. Her family.Their family.
But protection required strategy. Not impulse. Telling Mark now, while satisfying, was an emotional move.A reactive one. She needed information. She needed to understand what, exactly, she was up against. She pulled out her laptop, its glow harsh in the dimming afternoon light.
She didn’t search for Keeana. That was too obvious, too easily traced if anyone was watching. Instead, she pulled up the familiar RDCWORLD YouTube channel. She clicked on old vlogs, group sketches from two, three years ago. She watched for Keeana’s appearances, noting the easy physicality she had with Mark, the in-jokes, the way she was woven into the background of his life. She noted the dates, then the gradual drop-off. She opened a blank document and began typing detached, clinical notes: Observed dynamic, pre-2023. Frequent collaborator, non-exclusive label in media. Disappearance from content correlates with launch of Mark’s solo podcast series…
This was her terrain. Research.Analysis. Building a case, even if it was a case only she would ever see. The pre-law student emerged, a disciplined, calculating shadow pushing the scared girlfriend aside.
The key turned in the door at 6:58 PM. Mark entered, a paper bag of Thai food in one hand, his backpack slung over his shoulder. “Knock knock,” he called, kicking off his shoes. “My queen, your sustenance has arrived.”
He stopped in the doorway of the living room, taking her in. She was curled on the sofa, laptop closed beside her, a throw blanket over her legs. A romance anime was playing silently on the big screen.
“You look cozy,” he said, his smile softening. He came over, bent down, and kissed her forehead. He smelled like outside air and studio coffee.
“Long day,” she said, leaning into his touch. She smiled up at him, aiming for the familiar crinkles around her eyes.“But productive. I found the perfect shade of green for an accent wall. Like the leaves on the Senzu Bean plant.”
He laughed, a real, open sound that warmed the room.“Nerd. Let’s eat. Dylan tried to do a new skit today and literally broke a chair. It’s a whole thing.” He headed to the kitchen, unpacking containers.
She watched him move, this man she loved, so unaware of the silent war that had been declared on their quiet morning. The secret sat between them, a third presence at the table.She would keep it. For now. She would armor herself with knowledge first.
“Tell me everything about the chair,” she said, pulling her legs up beneath her. Her voice was light, easy, a perfect mimic of her old self. “Was it at least funny?”
He launched into the story, gesturing with a pair of chopsticks. She nodded, laughed in the right places, and felt the divide within her widen—the woman who was his anchor, and the woman who was now her own sole defender.