Queen of Blackmail

Rex inserted a thumb drive into Natasha's laptop and copied its contents while she was down in the laundry room, as planned. "I'll let you know what I find," he told Marion. She nodded, and Rex pocketed the thumb drive just as Natasha pushed open the door and entered the room with a basket full of folded laundry. She stopped and looked at Rex curiously. "Just a work colleague," Marion said. "Oh, OK," said Natasha as she continued on down the hall toward the bedrooms to put away the clothes. Late that evening, as Marion was preparing for bed, she received a disappointing text message from Rex. "Couldn't find anything incriminating on the laptop. It's unusually 'clean,' as if she's trying to keep as little as possible on it. With two-factor authentication on most of her accounts, I could not access them. If I'm being totally honest with you, as both a friend and a coworker, there are no guarantees as to what may or may not be out there. Only she knows what’s what. All I can say is that I didn't find anything obvious. Just do what I told you to do with the card I gave you and copy her phone when she's in the shower. Even if I don't find anything there either, as we both know, this doesn't mean there might not still be something out there. She seems pretty smart from what you've told me, which means she likely would have hidden anything out there really well. She probably has hidden files, two-factor authentication, and military-type security that only law enforcement with the proper warrants could get through. It still doesn't hurt to take a cursory glance. The bad news is that no matter what I find on the phone, you only have two choices. You either trust her and hope for the best, or you get rid of her. And I don't mean by killing her, of course, LOL." Marion replied with: "Kicking her out doesn't guarantee my safety." Marion waited a minute as the three dots danced on her screen. Then a reply came. "That's not what I meant. Talk to you tomorrow at work." Marion went to bed that night feeling no more confident that Natasha wouldn't turn on her than she had earlier. The thing was that she was getting to really like having her around. She was getting older, and finding a partner was getting harder despite the fact that she had aged well. But there was just something about Natasha. She loved having a travel buddy and their evening chats. She also couldn't deny the fact that she loved having someone take care of the chores so she had more free time to relax or socialize with friends and family. But she knew she couldn't expect Natasha to completely abandon her life in the US, including her husband, and stay with her forever. Maybe if they parted amicably, Natasha would never share the video and she would be fine, but she couldn't guarantee that. Either way, she was dreading Natasha's eventual departure more and more. She was becoming more dependent and used to having her around, to the point that the thought of her leaving left her feeling a bit lonely and sad. She didn't want to grow old and die alone, so how could she convince Natasha that returning to the US was too risky and that she should stay with her, forever travel buddies, and maybe even more? Well, she couldn’t of course.