Chapter 220: Ruthless Von
<🎧 Song Recommendation: Janice STFU by Drake>
...
Emily could guess what had happened after seeing Chloe’s condition, but leaving someone like Sammy bleeding in the hallway would create a massive media circus that could ruin the award ceremony tomorrow.
"We can’t leave him out here," Von said while bending down to grab Sammy by the jacket.
He effortlessly hoisted the unconscious man off the floor with one hand. To Emily and Chloe, it looked like Von was picking up his phone.
Seeing Von handle Sammy, Emily quickly rushed over to help up Chloe to her feet.
She was still shaking and clutching her bruised shoulders but she managed to walk as Emily guided her into Von’s room.
Loki, still in her black cat form, casually trotted behind them, her tail swishing in the air. She was quite satisfied with how things had turned out.
Once inside the suite, Von carelessly tossed Sammy onto the rug in the center of the living room. Sammy groaned softly but didn’t wake up.
Emily guided Chloe to the sofa and quickly poured her a glass of water from the mini-fridge.
"Drink this, Chloe. You’re safe now," Emily said softly. "Are you okay? What happened out there?"
Chloe took a shaky sip of the water. She took a deep breath, trying to steady her racing heart.
"I... I was just walking down the hall," Chloe explained with a cracking voice. "He was drunk... And he just grabbed me and started screaming about how we ruined his life and his movie. He pushed me to the floor. If Von hadn’t shown up..."
Von’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. He walked over to the unconscious Sammy and crouched down beside him.
"He’s angry because his movie flopped and ours is succeeding," Von muttered. "But putting his hands on you was so stupid of him."
Von didn’t want to wait for Sammy to wake up naturally. He walked over to the fridge and got a large bottle of cold water, emptying all its contents on Sammy.
The drunk actor’s eyes immediately flew open as his body became soaked in cold water.
The slap from earlier still made his face ache him, leaving him confused. He tried to sit up, but a heavy foot pressed down firmly on his chest, pinning him flat against the floor.
Sammy looked up and saw Von staring down at him with eyes as cold as ice.
"Where... what is this?" Sammy slurred, panic rising in his chest as he realized he was trapped in Von’s hotel room.
He saw Chloe and Emily glaring at him from the sofa.
Suddenly, his arrogant ego flared up, masking his fear.
"Get your foot off me, you little punk! Do you know who I am?! I’ll have you arrested for assault! I’ll ruin your entire career!"
Von didn’t move his foot. Instead, he leaned down closer and his voice became a terrifying whisper.
"You’re right, Sammy. You are a big star. "But you’re also a very stupid man. Do you know who that girl on the sofa is?"
Sammy gritted his teeth. "She’s your co-star. So what?"
"She’s also Leviathan’s niece," Von stated simply.
The color instantly drained from Sammy’s face. His bravado vanished and was now replaced by terror.
Asides from being one of the best selling rappers of the generation, Leviathan was infamous for his dark ties with the street.
"If I make one phone call to Leviathan right now and tell him that a drunk, washed-up actor put his hands on his niece..."
Von didn’t need to finish for Sammy to figure what will happen. This won’t even be a matter that will just end in court. His life will be ruined forever, that’s if he managed to survive Leviathan’s wrath.
Sammy started breathing heavily as he tried to come up with something.
"No... What- what are you saying? I didn’t touch her, you were the one who hit me."
His shameless comment aggravated Emily who was with Chloe even more, but she let Von continue the talking.
"Have some sense. There are cameras all over the hallway. I can have the hotel manager pull the CCTV footage right now. It will show exactly who threw the first punch, and it will show you throwing a woman into a wall. You want to test me?"
Sammy’s face immediately paled after realizing he was surely gone for.
"Wait... wait, please. Let’s not do anything crazy. I was drunk! I wasn’t thinking straight!"
"I know," Von simply replied. "Which is why we are going to make a deal."
Von searched Sammy’s jacket pocket and retrieved his smartphone. The phone’s screen was a spider web of cracks, but it was still working just fine. He held it up to Sammy’s bruised face, and the screen instantly unlocked via Face ID.
"First of all, you are going to compensate Chloe for the emotional distress and the physical pain you just caused her," Von commanded, navigating straight to Sammy’s banking app. He tossed the unlocked phone onto Sammy’s chest. "Wire her five hundred thousand dollars right now."
"Half a million?!" Sammy’s eyes bulged. "Are you insane?!"
Von simply pressed his shoe a little harder into Sammy’s chest, slightly cutting off his air. "Do you want me to call Leviathan instead?"
"No! Fine! Fine!" Sammy gasped, his hands shaking as he picked up his phone. He only had a little over six hundred grand in his account, but he wasn’t left with any other choice in this situation.
With Emily and Chloe watching in absolute disbelief, Sammy hastily typed in the wire transfer details. He drained half a million dollars from his personal account, sending it directly to Chloe’s banking details that she had called.
"It’s done," Sammy wheezed, throwing the phone back onto the rug. "Take the money. Just let me go."
"We’re not done," Von said.
Before Sammy could react, Von picked the phone back up. While navigating the apps, he checked his messaging apps and found some unread chat. Among them was a text message from a contact named [Kelvin, Agent] that stood out.
[The critics couldn’t kill the movie. I told you not to listen to Julian 🤦🏻 Just don’t do anything stupid tonight.]
Von paused, staring at the message. The pieces of the puzzle instantly clicked together in his mind.
The random, overly harsh reviews from top-tier publications. The coordinated walkouts during the standing ovation. It hadn’t been a coincidence. He knew that all along, but now it was confirmed.
"Well, well," Von said, a dark smirk forming on his lips. He clicked into their chat and quickly scrolled through the chat history.
"So it wasn’t just bad luck. You and Julian actually paid those critics to write those trash reviews about Perfect Ruins."
Emily gasped from the sofa. "I knew it! And that’s illegal! It violates every festival rule!"
Sammy’s eyes widened in sheer horror. His biggest, dirtiest secret was completely exposed.
"Give me that phone!" he yelled, trying to grab it.
Von easily swatted Sammy’s hands away and quickly navigated to Sammy’s email app, searching for keywords to get more evidence.
He found a goldmine. There were forwarded emails from Kelvin, detailing the exact offshore transactions made to the critics to sabotage the movie.
With a few quick taps, Von forwarded the entire email thread and the text messages directly to his own phone.
"You are finished," Von said, looking down at the pathetic A-lister. "I have the wire transfers, the text messages, and the names of every single corrupt critic you bought."
Sammy looked like he was about to cry. His career was flashing before his eyes. "Please... Von, please. I’ll do anything. If that gets out, I’ll lose everything."
"You already lost," Von said, stepping back and finally removing his foot from Sammy’s chest.
"Here are my terms. You have two choices. The first choice is this, I leak this video of your bruised face, I call the cops for assault, and I send this phone to Leviathan."
Sammy couldn’t believe how absurd that choice was, he pleaded internally and asked. "What’s Choice B? Please, give me Choice B."
"Choice B... Hmm. Tomorrow morning, right before the award ceremony, your team is going to release an official public statement. You are going to confess to the bribery."
"What?! I can’t do that!"
"You will," Von interrupted. "And not just that, you will include that Julian West and you orchestrated the bribery. Then you will apologize to the fans, and you will officially withdraw your name from the festival awards."
Sammy stared at Von in horror. Von was forcing him to throw not just his career, but Julian’s career or risk spending time in jail.
"If you do that," Von continued, "I won’t call the police about the assault. And I won’t call Leviathan. But if you try to play smart, I leak the emails and you go down in flames anyway. Choose."
Sammy looked at Von, then at Chloe, and finally down at his shaking hands. He was entirely backed into a corner by a twenty-year-old kid. He had no leverage, no power, and half a million dollars less in his bank account.
"Fine," Sammy whispered with a broken and defeated voice. "I’ll do it. I’ll release the statement tomorrow."
"Good," Von said, tossing Sammy’s phone onto the floor next to him. "Now get out of my room before I change my mind."
Sammy didn’t need to be told twice. He painfully pushed himself off the floor, keeping his head down.
He didn’t say another word as he limped toward the door, opened it, and disappeared into the hallway, looking like a completely broken man.
The hotel door clicked shut and silence filled the room once again.
Emily stared at Von, her jaw slightly dropped. She had been close to Von for a while, but she had never seen him act this way.
He hadn’t just beaten Sammy in a fight; he had completely dismantled the man’s career, extracted half a million dollars, and ruined Julian West all in the span of ten minutes.
"Von..." Emily breathed out. "That was... insane."
Chloe slowly stood up from the sofa, holding her shoulder. She walked over to Von and looked up at him with gratitude.
"Thank you, I was really scared. If you hadn’t come... Much thanks to your cat too."
Loki hopped down from the sofa and stretched her front legs, letting out a small meow as if to say, ’You’re welcome, humans.’
Von offered a reassuring smile. Sammy’s actions had gone a long way to help them.
"Get some rest, both of you. Tomorrow is going to be a very interesting day," he added with a smirk.
