With Max unemployed, Alec returns and offers to help him form a new computer company. Naomi attempts to persuade Bryce to rehire Max at his company after she takes over ownership, but she refuses. Naomi convinces Navid to take Bryce out for drinks to find out why she betrayed and ousted Max from his company. After a few drinks, Navid learns from the half-drunk Bryce that Alec set up Max's firing. Meanwhile, Annie decides to sign up for a writing program in Scotland for the next two years and gets Riley a tablet as a Christmas present, as a way of telling him which in turn angers him into thinking Annie doesn't want him to go with her because he is in a wheelchair. Elsewhere, Silver is distraught when Teddy refuses to sign over his parental rights and tries to convince her to let him co-parent the baby. Adrianna wants to reconcile with Dixon after he has been torturing her with work. Dixon tells Megan that he was in the accident that caused her father's death and instead of getting mad, she forgives him. Elsewhere, Liam receives another blackmail letter about Vanessa's accident which the blackmailer demands $500,000. Unsure who to trust, Liam shows the letter to Annie who agrees to lend Liam the money to help trap his blackmailer. But when Adrianna tells Ashley that she spotted Vanessa at a beauty salon, Ashley wrongly suspects that Liam is headed for a secret rendezvous with Vanessa and kidnaps him.