Chapter 25 #2
She looked composed. Pale, but steady. Hair pulled back. Eyes sharp in a way that promised me she had locked her grief down for something to be managed in private. For now, she was here, ready for work, and braced for impact.
That scared me more than tears would have.
I didn’t say I was sorry. I didn’t tell her it wasn’t her fault. She already knew both things, and neither of them would help. Instead, I said, “They’re going to turn this into motive—make you the throughline whether you consent to it or not.”
She nodded once. “I know.”
“They’ll say Colin knew too much,” I continued. “That he was advising you. That you weren’t just reporting on the Auditor—you were amplifying him. Tangled up with him.” I didn’t bother softening it. They wouldn’t.
“I know.”
No snark. No protest. Not even the flicker of irritation she usually gave me when I explained the obvious. The absence of it echoed louder than any argument could have.
“Everyone—corporate, the network, and the public—will want you on camera reacting.”
“I won’t.”
That finally made me look at her harder.
She met my gaze without flinching. Her implacable will reflected in her eyes. “Not like that. Not yet.”
I exhaled slowly. “Good.” I had zero doubt that she would, but hearing her commit like that helped.
Mallory wasn’t in the news for the sensation of it all.
She enjoyed the chase every bit as much as I did.
The hunt, and the victory lap when you broke the story.
But it was about the facts, not the spectacle.
She moved around the room, not pacing but not settling either. Folding her arms, circled my office with a thoughtful, but still troubled expression.
“He broke his own timeline,” she said.
“Yes.”
“He escalated…” That gave her pause for a moment, before she continued, “and he picked someone I trusted.”
“Yes.” I didn’t correct her.
“He wants control,” she said quietly. “I thought all he wanted was the conversation.” Her brow furrowed. “That was why I found a way to respond to him. A way he would understand.”
I nodded. “Which is why the next move matters.”
She looked at me then—really looked at me.
“What’s the play, Flint?”
I didn’t sugarcoat it.
“We slow everything down. We lock the narrative. We don’t let them isolate you or turn you into a spectacle. And we make damn sure the next thing you say is something he can’t twist.”
Her mouth curved—not a smile, exactly. More like resolve sharpening into a blade.
“Good,” she said. “Because I already know what I want to say next.”
Somewhere in the building, phones rang and producers shouted as cameramen worked on their angles. Somewhere else, a researcher was backtracking the facts and verifying them. And somewhere out there, a man she called the auditor was waiting to see if she would flinch.
She wouldn’t.
But neither would we.
For the first time since this started, I wasn’t thinking like a producer or a fixer or a friend who wished he could keep her out of the fire. I was thinking like someone who understood the rules had changed and so had the cost.
“Mallory…” I blew out a breath. “You’re not doing this alone anymore. We’re going to vet every single word.”
“You as in director, producer, or…?” she prompted.
I didn’t let her finish.
“In as the guy who’s buried friends and watched good reporting get eaten alive by bad framing,” I said. “I’m in as the one who knows the difference between truth and something that sounds true enough to ruin you.”
She didn’t blink.
“Then you’re in,” she said simply.
I held her gaze for a beat longer, then nodded once. “Okay. Then we do this the right way.”
I stepped closer—not crowding her, just closing the distance enough to make this a conversation instead of a briefing.
“Before we write anything,” I said, “before we touch language or cadence or legal survivability, I want you to tell me what you actually want to say.”
Her brows knit slightly. “I already told you—”
“Not the version you’d put on air,” I cut in. “Not the one that’s careful or defensible or smart.” I held up a hand when she started to push back. “The one you’d say if there wasn’t a camera. If you weren’t being watched. If you didn’t have to protect anyone—including yourself.”
She went still.
Good.
That was the tell.
I softened my tone just enough to keep her there. “Talk to me like I’m not your producer. Like I’m not the network. Like I’m just a guy who knows you well enough to hear it.”
She looked away, just briefly. Toward the window. Toward the city that was already chewing this up and spitting it back out as headlines.
Then she exhaled.
“He took Colin because he could,” she said quietly. “Not because Colin was guilty of anything. Not because he deserved it.”
I didn’t interrupt.
“He took him because Colin was mine,” she continued. “Because Colin represented process. Law. The slow, boring mechanisms that are supposed to handle accountability without blood.” Her jaw tightened. “And because I said—on air—that violence isn’t justice.”
I felt that land in my chest like a weight.
“He wanted to prove me wrong,” she went on. “Or punish me for saying it.”
She turned back to me then, eyes bright with something sharp and unshed. “I didn’t invite him to kill. I invited him to talk. And he answered by making sure I understood the cost of that invitation.”
Anger tightened her expression.
I nodded slowly. “That’s the truth.”
“Yes,” she said. “And I want to say this—” Her voice steadied. “I want people to know that Colin Thorne was a person. Not a symbol. Not a chess piece. He believed in accountability through law. He believed fraud doesn’t carry a death sentence in this country.”
My throat tightened despite myself.
“I want to say that whatever the Auditor thinks he’s correcting,” she continued, “he’s wrong. Because killing the process doesn’t purify it. It just leaves rot with no remedy.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak right away. When I did, it was careful. “That’s strong,” I said. “And dangerous.”
“I know.”
“But it’s honest,” I added. “And that’s why it works.”
She watched me closely. “So?”
“So now,” I said, “we build a version of that truth that can survive the blast radius.”
She let out a harsh breath. “He was my friend. I don’t want to sound righteous—or like I’m exploiting his death to make a point.”
“You won’t,” I said without hesitation. “You’ll sound human. Grounded. And angry in the quiet way that makes people lean in instead of tune out.”
A beat.
“Flint?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“How do we make sure he hears what I mean—and can’t twist it?”
I didn’t smile. This wasn’t the moment for that. “By making it so clean, so precise, that there’s nowhere for him to hide. Blunt enough to land. Solid enough to stand as news.”
Her mouth tipped slightly. Not relief—resolve. “So,” she said, “nothing fancy.”
I snorted. “What? Like you find that a real challenge, McBryan?”
Her eyes narrowed, heat flashing. “Don’t pretend you don’t enjoy pushing me.”
“I’d never admit that,” I said lightly, then pulled the chair out from behind my desk. “Sit. We don’t have time to waste.”
“Yes, sir,” she murmured, brushing past me close enough to register. I noticed. I ignored it. Some lines mattered more right now.
Outside my office, the news machine hummed along—alerts firing, producers circling, and anchors reporting.
Across the city, a crime scene was being processed that never should have existed.
Somewhere else, a cold blooded killer who thought he controlled the conversation was about to learn what happened when two journalists stopped reacting—and started taking it back.
Together.