24. BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS #2
“Alright. I’ll call him. Thanks, Tate.” I breathed, a newfound fire in my gut flaring to life with a calculated purpose.
“Watch your back, kid. We’re going to war.”
The line went dead, and I didn’t hesitate for even a fraction of a second.
My call to Jim rang twice, and when the line clicked open, the background noise instantly filled my ear.
It didn’t sound like a quiet hotel room.
There was the distinct echoing clatter of production crates being loaded into trucks and the low murmur of tech crews bustling around.
Jim must still be backstage at the arena.
Probably sitting in his leather chair, staring at dark monitors and refusing to leave until the last cable was packed.
“Cal?”
“Jim, I’m sorry to call you this late,” I started, my voice tight. “But Tate told me I needed to talk to you right now, before we leave Boston.”
“Okay, talk.”
For the second time tonight, I didn’t hold back, spewing everything that had been happening behind the scenes for Silas and me.
When I got to the part regarding tonight and Presley’s direct threat to my future, I quoted his comments verbatim.
Only milliseconds after the words stopped flowing, I heard the sharp sound of a clipboard hitting a metal desk violently through the receiver.
“He said that to you? That entitled little corporate punk. You know, I watched Presley grow up. I was at Mark’s wedding.
I love that family like they’re my own blood.
I’ve even protected the Murran name through scandals that would have destroyed any other company in this country.
But I cannot, and I will not, stand the arrogant jackass of a man Presley has become.
He thinks because his name is on the marquee he’s allowed to play God with the production side?
Creative belongs to the people who bleed for it, not the pampered kids who inherited the checkbook without having to lift a finger,” he ranted, his breath huffing like he just finished running a marathon.
“Give me a couple of days. I’ll reach out to a few people on the roster as well as the writing team regarding their own issues with Presley.
Because I know for a fact that you and Silas haven’t been his only targets over the last six months.
You’ve just been the most public ones. He’s been bullying the younger talent, manipulating scripts to punish the top guys, and playing games with people’s livelihoods just to satisfy his own pathetic need for control.
He thinks he’s some genius because he made some flashy digital changes, but the metrics don’t lie.
Television ratings are dropping, house show loops are down, and this ridiculous manipulation of the championship storyline to settle a personal grudge is the final straw.
The Board is already twitching. I’ll reach out to Tate myself tonight, and we’ll coordinate on this.
I’m hoping that if Tate and I go to Mark first as a unified front we can ease into the situation.
After all, Tate and I are two of Mark’s original old reliables in this business.
We were his top guys, his champions-turned-management.
That should still hold some weight with him.
That, and his son’s arrogance is single-handedly causing irreparable damage to his legacy.
Go home, Cal. Take care of your husband.
Let us handle all this old-guard bullshit. ”
“Thank you, Jim,” I whispered, a profound sense of relief finally releasing the tension in my shoulders. “We’ll be waiting.”
“Don’t let him see you sweat, son. We’ve got your backs. Goodnight.”
The line went dead. I lowered the phone, staring out at the dark Boston skyline. For the first time all night, the suffocating knot of anxiety in my stomach loosened completely.
Silas and I had spent our entire lives fighting alone.
We were used to bracing for the hit because nobody was ever coming to save us.
To have titans of the business, men whose legacies were untouchable, willingly put their own careers on the line just to protect ours?
It was a profound kind of loyalty that rarely existed in this industry.
Presley thought he could bury us. He thought he could throw us into the shadows and leave us entirely isolated. He was dead wrong. We had an army behind the curtain now, and I had just drawn up the blueprint for his execution.
The baseline atmosphere between Silas and me was a blanket of defeat.
We navigated the airport like two ghosts, our street clothes pulled tight against the chilly morning air, our eyes fixed firmly on our boots to avoid the double-takes from fans who had undoubtedly seen the news of the suspension on the website at dawn.
Silas was a nervous wreck for the entire duration of the flight back to North Carolina. Every time the jet engines roared, or the plane hit a pocket of minor turbulence, he flinched, his fingers picking frantically at his cuticles until they were raw.
Going home to the Reed land meant being immediately, inescapably faced with the inevitable questions from Scott and Maverick about what had happened in Boston.
Regardless of how good Silas’s relationship with Maverick was currently, the deep, historical dread of having to face his father after having been suspended and stripped of his crown was a gut wrenching prospect.
He was terrified of the old-school backlash.
He was terrified of Maverick throwing his own failures back in his face, telling him he hadn’t protected the business, that he’d made a spectacle of the gold.