Chapter Five Charlotte
Chapter Five
Charlotte
“You didn’t?” Jax’s jaw falls open.
“What else was I supposed to say? He practically cornered me.” I’ve just finished recounting the full events of this morning’s meeting, sparing only a few key details. Mainly, that I’d already met Lucifer in Gluttony’s club a couple nights earlier. I’m not sure why I skipped that particular part, but somehow it feels private.
Like something meant only for me.
I spear another forkful of lo mein, shoving the noodles into my mouth. The garlic, ginger, and soy sauce form a delicious blend. The Chinese takeout container clutched in my hand is still fresh and warm, carried only a few feet home to our tiny one-bedroom apartment from the restaurant downstairs, but I would have eaten it with just as much gusto if it were cold and days old anyway.
They don’t make it this good in Kansas. Not even close.
I abandon my fork in the container and cover my mouth with my hand while I lick some oyster sauce from my lips.
I swallow another bite before I cast Jax another helpless expression. “You’re looking at me like I’m crazy.”
“You are crazy. White-girl crazy. This is the same as thinking a mountain lion is a cute kitty and trying to pet it.”
I groan. “I don’t know why I said it. The truth just sort of ... slipped out.”
Jax gestures for me to continue, her chopsticks still in her hand. “So, you mean to tell me that you called out the owner and billionaire CEO of the whole damn company for not being ‘self-reflective’ enough in your very first meeting, and somehow you still have a job?” She gapes before using the utensils to grab another bite of sticky rice while she mutters something in Vietnamese. “White-girl privilege at its best. I think you’re insane. Lucky, but insane.”
“You and Imani both.” I try and grin a little, poking at my dinner. “But what else was I supposed to do when he called me out in front of everybody like that? Lie? ”
Jax lowers her brows at me. “Yes,” she says, the sound muffled through her chewing.
“Lie? To Lucifer?”
She swallows then. “Lie. Bend the truth. I don’t know. Maybe anything except damaging the pride of the devil?” She shakes her head, still watching me like I’m flirting with trouble, which only causes me to deflate further.
“He took it all right from Imani,” I mumble. That sinking feeling that I’ve royally messed up claws its way inside my chest again. “And what is he paying me for if not for my opinions? That’s half of public relations, anyway. Opinions crafted into stories.” I drop my fork into the box like it’s disappointed me. That was a weak argument, even for me.
Jax points her chopsticks toward me. “But Imani’s earned her place, you haven’t.”
“I know. I know .” I let out a groan, sinking farther down into my chair. “Now I need to help Imani come up with a plan that’s going to blow him away on top of all the mess we’re dealing with. And how exactly am I supposed to do that when he already hates me?”
“Does he though?” Jax lifts a brow suggestively. “Sounds to me like you got away with murder.” She smiles playfully.
She’s fishing for gossip about today’s headlines, and we both know it.
I shake my head. “You know I can’t talk about that. Especially not after that meeting.” I grab at one of her containers to distract her, only for her to swat my hand away with a mumbled “Get your own wontons, bitch,” making us both laugh.
Side-eyeing me, she uses her chopsticks to expertly drop one of the wontons onto my plate and winks, watching me for a long beat.
When I still refuse to answer, she sighs. “Fine. Don’t tell me. I get it. You signed that crazy NDA, I know.”
“There’s not much to tell at this point. Besides, I think there’s more to it, anyway.” I stuff the wonton into my mouth before she can take it back.
Jax bats her lashes, her new teal eye shadow glittering. “Oh? Do tell.”
I shrug once I’ve finished chewing. “I can’t help but think it’s only the start, or at least it feels like that.”
She places her plastic soup container on the table, setting her utensils down beside it. “What do you think he gets out of all this, anyway? Coming topside, I mean?”
“Hell if I know. A chance to play God?”
“I think it’s more than that.” She looks up at the spiritualist altar she placed on our dingy living room wall when she first moved in, her eyes going momentarily dreamy like she’s seeing something I can’t. Jax is a psychic. In her words, a lightworker or a sixth-generation shamanic healer, as she calls it. At least professionally.
She’s also an aspiring Broadway actress, the kind of fun-loving party girl I’ll never be.
“What do you mean?” I steal another wonton from her when she isn’t looking.
She plays with the black and blue ends of her hair a little, her expression still dreamy. “I mean, an influencer who has a known beef with Lucifer’s brother shows up dead when Lucifer’s at the club, and, well, it doesn’t really seem like a coincidence, does it? There’s a lot that’s going on there behind closed doors. That’s all I’m saying.”
I stay quiet then, falling silent under the guise of chewing. I was careful to leave out any details that would violate my NDA when I told Jax about the meeting, but she’s perceptive as hell. Maybe clairvoyant, depending on which of her clients you ask. But I have no doubt that spilling the tea about who exactly facilitated the murder at Gluttony’s club, even to my bestie, would be a violation of the terms of my employment, one that’d get me fired immediately.
My shoulders slump, and I curl in on myself, still poking at my food. I don’t like keeping secrets from Jax, and the distance it creates between us bothers me. We’ve been friends since I first arrived in the city, and while it may have been only a handful of weeks that we’ve been living together, already she feels like a sister to me, the best friend I’ve ever had.
I trust her. Unconditionally.
Can’t say that about anyone else in my life.
“Hey, don’t look so down on yourself.” She places her hand over mine and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “I’m sure whatever you and Imani come up with will blow him away. Think of it as an opportunity to impress your boss. That’s all.”
I nod, turning back to my lo mein. “If you say so,” I mutter halfheartedly.
I want to tell her everything that’s plaguing me, but each time I open my mouth, that dark laugh comes back to haunt me, reminding me of all the ways I’m unworthy, of all the ways I don’t belong here.
And to all the lengths I would go to make certain I no longer feel that way.
“So, I’ve been thinking . . .”
Imani groans from where she’s seated at her desk several feet away. Somewhere amid all the chaos, it just became easier for me to hole up and work at the spare table in her office rather than us running down the hall or pinging emails at each other constantly. “I’m not certain I like where this is going.”
It’s been four days since that initial headline ran, and the surrounding media nightmare has been relentless, to say the least. Imani and I have been working together around the clock, the task of rerouting this narrative consuming my whole first week. She wasn’t lying when she said I’d need to be available. On call, almost twenty-four seven . It feels as if we’ve fielded interviews and made statements every hour to every major news company within the Western Hemisphere. LA, Chicago, London, Paris—even Tokyo and Beijing. Everyone wants to know what Lucifer has to say about the murder in his brother’s nightclub.
Or better yet, if he’s responsible.
The gossip magazines are going crazy, and even some of the more conservative congregations, like my father’s, have announced this is another sign of the second coming. Leave it to evangelicals to somehow make someone else dying about themselves. I try not to roll my eyes at the thought. It’s no laughing matter, really. The victim was a famous rag-mag journalist and flamboyant media personality known by the stage name Paris Starr, who’d apparently had several well-known and, more importantly, very recent altercations with Lucifer’s brother Azmodeus in the days preceding his death.
Imani and I have attempted to drop subtle hints about Az and Paris’s feud in the media’s direction nonstop, but it’s no use. No one’s nearly as interested in Az’s culpability as they are in the possibility of Lucifer’s, and I’ve rehashed the details so many times with so many different reporters that at this point, I’m pretty sure I could recite it all in my sleep. I even had to talk myself out of spending the night in my office last night.
In my defense, it hasn’t taken me long to learn that NYC commutes are a nightmare.
Hell embodied.
The angle Imani and I have taken with this story is that it’s all an unfortunate tragedy, a random coincidence that no one could have predicted. The sort of coincidence that’s sure to happen when you make your living in NYC’s exclusive VIP scene, where everybody knows everybody. After all, NYC may as well be a small town, if you know the right people.
Never mind that, according to all the details Imani’s told me, we know without a doubt that Azmodeus is to blame. There’s hardly a more subtle calling card for a man who’s literally Lust personified than ensuring his victim dies naked and with a still-throbbing penis, though thankfully those all-important details haven’t leaked to the press—yet—which is a whole other part of mine and Imani’s job. Aiding the police investigation in any way possible, providing them any information they may need.
The rest remains a mystery to me.
Pointing fingers would only make Lucifer look more guilty. Instead, we’ve gone out of our way to accommodate both the media and the investigation, as well as the victim’s family. Imani even had me contact the victim’s partner and his parents to offer to pay for the funeral, but that seems to be the approach of anyone with money, really.
Pay who you can to keep quiet.
Together, we managed to get the family to make a statement absolving Lucifer of any responsibility, saying how Paris loved to frequent Gluttony’s many clubs, particularly The Serpent, and it was a sheer coincidence Lucifer happened to be there that evening, especially since his appearances at his siblings’ clubs are so rare. We’ve even commissioned an honorary gold-and-diamond-lined remembrance plaque with Paris’s name on it to be placed outside one of Gluttony’s other clubs. I’m not even sure whether Paris Starr ever set foot inside any of Gluttony’s other businesses, but that’s the story we’re telling.
Not that it’s done us any good.
The rag mag and influencer conspiracy theories keep spiraling. To the point that one of the nastier ones even ended up with a full-page spread in Entertainment Weekly .
Something has to give.
“Just hear me out. Please?”
Between all the late-night hours and the early morning calls, Imani and I have developed a close working relationship quickly. She’s fierce and brilliant and willing to listen to my ideas, no matter how new to this I may be. To a point.
“You have two minutes before I’ve got another call from Hong Kong. Make it quick,” Imani grumbles from behind her fourth coffee.
That’s all the permission I need.
“What if what we need isn’t a good way to spin this, but a distraction story?”
At that, Imani perks up a little. “I’m listening.”
“Lucifer finally showing his face.”
She rolls her eyes. “Girl, we’ve been through this.”
“I know. I know. I get that he gave the project to me as a fool’s errand, but hear me out. What if we don’t treat it that way?”
Imani’s brow lifts like now she thinks I’m truly crazy. “You want more work?” She rotates her desk chair away from me, shaking her head in disbelief.
“No, not more work. Less work. Once this is all behind us, that is. What if we approach the plan to Lucifer showing his face in a fresh way? I know you said he’s shot it down every other time, but at this point, what have we got to lose?”
Exasperated, Imani flops her head onto the back of her chair. “Other than more sleep?”
“It’d be the perfect distraction from this,” I offer.
“What exactly are you proposing?” Her hand goes to her temple, her tell for when she’s quickly losing her patience, but I haven’t lost her attention just yet.
“We treat his image like we do any other luxury good. Limit access. Create exclusivity.”
She rotates her chair enough to look at me skeptically. “Go on.”
I close the screen of my laptop, directing all my attention toward my pitch. “Instead of a free-for-all press release or appearance, what if we make it like an exclusive launch party? But instead of a new product, it’s a new start to the company’s branding. One with Lucifer finally in the public eye.”
She purses her lips. “Rebranding is a classic move of the guilty.”
“But it works. We could even pair it with the launch of a new product.”
“The Giovaldi account?” Imani quirks a brow like I’ve piqued her interest.
“Yes, like the Giovaldi account.” I smile widely. “Or maybe even the start of a new philanthropy foundation? Nothing looks better than giving back to the community.”
My father’s congregation taught me that.
They fell for his games every time. Hook, line, and sinker.
Imani nods thoughtfully, at least considering it. It’s one of the many qualities I admire about her. She may be an executive hotshot, but you’d never know it from the way she treats me and the other staff she works with.
She’s quiet for a beat before finally smiling. “I don’t know if it’s me or the four cups of coffee talking, but I like it. Why the hell not?”
I squeal excitedly, clapping my hands a little.
Imani shoots me a pointed look. “Don’t get too excited. We’ll still need Lucifer’s approval. Do you think you can pull a presentation for it together before tomorrow’s meeting?”
We’ve been working toward tomorrow’s all-hands meeting the whole week, preparing to detail all the ways we’ve protected the company’s brand amid the media chaos.
I glance at the table that’s temporarily become my desk. Messy, scattered papers cover the surface. The air smells like our recently finished coffee, and I still have several hours of work to complete, but I’m not stupid enough to miss an opportunity when it’s been given to me. Not one like this. “Yeah, I think I can manage to get something together by tonight.” I gather the papers and start to arrange them into neat little piles.
“Good,” Imani says. “After this call I’ll leave you to it. I’ve taken enough damn interviews. I’m taking the rest of today as PTO. It’s time I got some sleep.”
I make a mock salute with my hand. “I’ll hold down the fort, boss. Promise.”
Imani nods appreciatively at the same time her desk phone buzzes, a sign of the downstairs secretary attempting to connect her overseas call. She picks up the receiver on the first ring. “One second, Jeanine.” She presses down the mute button before she turns and looks at me. “Good work on this, Charlotte. I mean it.” She smiles at me, giving me all the encouragement I need before turning back toward her desk.
I grin like a fool, organizing my papers before quickly returning to my work. I settle into my seat and straighten my posture, filled with a newfound determination to prove myself. For once that determined feeling stays with me as I work, keeping me grinning even as the sun fades from early morning into the long-darkened shadows of the night.