Chapter 2 #2
Two hours later, I was sitting across from my editor in his cluttered office, spreading documents across his desk like playing cards.
The adrenaline of the gala had burned down to something quieter and more complicated, and I was grateful for the familiar smell of old coffee and printer toner, the fluorescent lights that had no interest in being atmospheric.
This was real. This was work. This was the part of the night I actually knew how to do.
“Environmental violations here, here, and here.” I pointed to the relevant pages.
“The wetland mitigation report is signed by an inspector who, according to county records, was supposed to be on medical leave when this was filed. And these construction timelines don’t match the permits on file with the city. ”
Howard Chen was sixty-three, balding, my longtime editor and reluctant mentor — the best investigative journalist I’d ever worked with before he moved to editing. He studied the documents with the intensity of a man who’d uncovered corruption before I was born.
“You got all this tonight?”
“Tonight and from a source. Marco Benedetti — he worked on the foundation crew. Says Laurent’s people signed off on subpar concrete work. There are code violations buried in that lakefront site that could sink the whole project.”
Howard leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking under his weight. “Sebastian Laurent. You understand who we’re talking about here.”
“A billionaire real estate developer with political connections and a reputation for making problems disappear. Yes, I understand.”
“Do you?” Howard’s eyes were sharp behind his reading glasses. “Laurent doesn’t just have connections, Em. He has leverage. On city council members, on planning commissioners, on…” He trailed off.
I didn’t like the way he trailed off.
“On what?”
“On people who can make stories go away.”
I felt cold suddenly. “You’re not telling me to drop this.”
“I’m telling you to be careful.” Howard removed his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Laurent has resources you don’t. Legal teams, PR machines, friends in high places. If you come at him, you’d better have more than circumstantial evidence and a construction worker’s word.”
“Marco has documentation. Dates, photos, internal communications—”
“Which can be dismissed, challenged, buried under a mountain of legal motions.” Howard sighed. “I’ve seen this before, Em. Good journalists with solid stories who get crushed because they underestimated the machinery they were fighting.”
I thought about Sebastian across the ballroom — the complete absence of concern on his face when I’d laid out what I knew.
The way he’d said I suspect we’ll be seeing each other again like he already knew how this would end.
And underneath that, threading through everything whether I wanted it to or not — the balcony.
The city below. The way he’d held me through the aftermath like steadiness was something he offered without thinking.
He’d known who I was the entire time.
“I’m not going to underestimate him,” I said. “But I’m not going to walk away either.”
Howard studied me for a long moment. “There’s something else you should know.
” He pulled a folder from his desk drawer.
“I did some digging when you first pitched this story. Laurent Industries has subsidiary holdings in a lot of places. Real estate, development, construction. But one of those subsidiaries has ties to media ventures.”
My stomach dropped. “What kind of ties?”
“Investment ties. Stake holdings in various outlets.” Howard pushed the folder toward me. “Including, as of eighteen months ago, a twenty percent stake in our parent company.”
The words landed somewhere I hadn’t thought to guard.
“You’re telling me Sebastian Laurent has ownership interest in this newspaper?”
“Not directly. Through a subsidiary of a subsidiary. Most people wouldn’t even catch the connection.” Howard’s expression was grave. “But yes. The man you’re investigating has financial ties to the organization that signs your paycheck.”
I stared at the documents in the folder. Shell companies, holding structures, investment chains that probably required a forensic accountant to fully trace. But there it was — a thread connecting Sebastian Laurent to the very newspaper I worked for.
“Does he know?” I asked. “Does he know I work here?”
“I don’t know. Probably not, at this level of removal.” Howard shook his head. “But if you publish a story that damages his reputation, his investments… Em, are you ready if this story implicates someone higher? Possibly even our owner?”
The question hung between us, heavy and impossible.
I thought about Sebastian’s confidence. His lack of concern when I’d laid out what I knew. The way he’d said I suspect we’ll be seeing each other again like he already knew how this would play out.
Maybe he did. Maybe he’d known from the moment he caught me in that service corridor that he held cards I didn’t even know existed. And maybe he’d decided, somewhere between the corridor and the balcony and the ballroom, that he could afford to let me keep playing anyway.
That thought put ice in places the November air had never reached.
“Yes,” I said finally. “I’m ready.”
Howard nodded slowly, something like pride flickering across his weathered face.
“Then we do this right. Ironclad sources, documented six ways to Sunday, legal review at every step. Laurent wants to play games with ownership structures and media leverage, we make sure there’s nothing he can use against us. ”
“And if it implicates the parent company?”
“Then we take it to outlets he doesn’t own.
” Howard gathered the documents into a neat stack.
“You’re not alone in this, Em. But you need to understand — from this point forward, you’re not just investigating a real estate scandal.
You’re potentially taking on a man with the resources to destroy your career, your reputation, and this newspaper if he decides you’re a threat. ”
I stood, tucking my clutch under my arm. The voice recorder inside it contained hours of audio from the gala — evidence I’d need to transcribe, analyze, and protect.
“He already thinks I’m a threat,” I said. “He just hasn’t decided what to do about it yet.”
Howard almost smiled. “Then let’s make sure you’re ready when he does.”
I walked out of his office into the quiet newsroom, my heels clicking against industrial carpet. The night shift was sparse — a few reporters chasing deadline stories, the cleaning crew emptying trash bins. Normal. Familiar. Unchanged.
My phone buzzed. Jenna.
You never answered. Hot worse or corrupt worse?
I stood in the middle of the empty newsroom, looking at the screen for a long moment.
The honest answer was neither. The honest answer was that hot and corrupt had turned out to be the same person, and I’d found that out in the worst possible order, and the part that scared me most wasn’t the corruption at all.
It was the balcony. It was for now. It was the way he’d pressed his lips to my temple afterward like punctuation on a sentence neither of us had finished writing.
Both, I typed back. Definitely both. And it’s so much worse than I expected.
The response came immediately. When has that ever stopped you?
Never. That was the problem.
I stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the parking garage, watching my reflection in the metal doors.
A journalist in a borrowed dress, clutching evidence against a billionaire who might already own part of her employer — and who had, twenty minutes before she’d known his name, dismantled her completely on a balcony forty floors above the city.
I wasn’t walking away from this story. Not from the corruption, not from the man at the center of it, and definitely not because he thought he could outmaneuver me.
Sebastian Laurent thought he knew how this would end.
He was wrong.
But for the first time, standing in that elevator with the city falling away beneath me, I wasn’t entirely sure I was right either.