17. Damage Control #2
The door flew backward. The metal knob struck the drywall with a dull thud, denting the paint as it rebounded off the wall.
“Don’t you dare lock that door on me, Hayes!” Eleanor shrieked.
She marched over the threshold, her face flushed red beneath the harsh overhead lighting. Blaire pushed past her. My former co-star immediately began pacing the length of the small room.
I did not raise my voice. I retreated until my back hit the edge of the catering table, crossing my arms over my chest. I used the dull ache in my back to keep myself completely focused. The two women scrambled to assess the damage I had just inflicted on their empire.
“You stupid, arrogant boy!” Eleanor shouted, her voice echoing off the narrow walls. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“I just told the truth, Mom,” I said.
I kept my voice deadpan, offering no defense. I wanted them to see that they couldn’t touch me anymore.
“If the studio wants someone to blame for the PR disaster,” I continued, “they should look at Blaire staging lap photos in my trailer.”
Blaire stopped pacing. She pivoted sharply toward the table. The panic in her posture vanished, her shoulders stiffening as she leveled a sharp, defensive glare at me.
“Don’t you dare try to make me the scapegoat for this, Hayes!” Blaire yelled. “You know damn well Eleanor ordered me to post that photo to boost the metrics!”
The alliance fractured in seconds. Eleanor’s face hardened. She whipped her head around to glare at the actress.
“I had to stage those things because you couldn’t keep his attention on your own, Blaire!” Eleanor snapped. “I handed you a golden opportunity to be an A-lister, and you ruined it.”
I stayed still against the table. I let their accusations ricochet off the walls, watching them unravel. They were tearing each other apart to save themselves, oblivious to the trap I had laid on the stage.
“You didn’t hand her anything,” I said. “You just used her to harass my wife out of Los Angeles.”
Eleanor took a step closer to the table, her neck tense with sudden fury.
“I arranged that entire anniversary dinner at The Rustic Hearth to save your career from that pathetic nobody! You were too weak to cut her loose, so I did it for you!”
I let her confession hang in the air, counting the seconds in my head to guarantee the broadcast caught every single word. The truth was far more malicious than I had ever suspected, but hearing her admit it aloud destroyed any lingering loyalty I had to Los Angeles.
I pushed off the wood.
I reached up and unbuttoned my tuxedo jacket. Slipping my fingers beneath the lapel, I located the small clip of the wireless microphone resting against my collarbone.
“What are you doing with that wire, Hayes?” Blaire asked.
I ignored her. I pinched the clasp and pulled the microphone loose.
I reached down to my waistband, tracing the thin black cord, and unhooked the transmitter from my belt.
I held the rig up between us under the overhead lights.
I tapped the casing directly next to the glowing red transmission indicator.
Then, I opened my hand and let the hardware fall.
The transmitter hit the ground, and a second later, a violent, amplified crack ripped through the Green Room speakers as the microphone struck the floor.
Blaire flinched backward, covering her ears against the high-pitched noise. She looked down at the carpet, staring in horror at the blinking red light.
“Eleanor,” Blaire whispered. “His microphone is still hot. The audio feed is still transmitting.”
Eleanor froze. Her hands dropped to her sides. Her eyes locked on the glowing hardware as she took a slow, unsteady step backward away from the microphone.
“What have you done?” Eleanor demanded. “The booth cuts the audio feed the second you walk off that stage!”
I stepped toward the door, leaving the blinking hardware in the center of the room. I had destroyed the machine that kept Sutton hidden in the dark.
“Not when the control room is too busy panicking over the video feed to kill the audio board,” I said. “Enjoy the lawsuits tomorrow morning, Mom.”
I turned my back on them and pushed the exit door open.
The night air hit my face, offering a brief reprieve from the stifling heat of the theater wings.
The relief lasted exactly two seconds. A massive swarm of paparazzi rushed the gap before the door even finished swinging outward.
White-hot camera flashes strobed against the brick walls, washing out the entire alley.
Dozens of stringers jammed the alley, shoving digital recorders and microphones toward my chest.
“Get out of my way,” I muttered, shoving a lens hood aside.
They did not yield. The pack surged forward, their boots scraping against the pavement as they fought for a better angle. A man in a battered baseball cap shoved his recorder toward my face, his voice cutting through the overlapping shouts.
“Hayes! Did you really just breach the Meridian contracts? Who is the pregnant wife?”
I stopped walking. The crowd instantly tightened the circle around me, their lenses whirring as they waited for me to flash the camera a charming smile.
My mother had trained me to smile through these ambushes, to offer practiced deflections that kept the brand pristine.
That version of me was dead on the stage behind me.
I looked directly into the center cluster of flashing bulbs.
“I am walking away,” I said, my voice carrying over the noise. “But let me make this clear to every single publication listening right now: if anyone sets foot near my family, I will bury you in crippling litigation.”
The camera flashes multiplied, strobing across the sea of photographers. A woman pushed past the front row, holding a smartphone high to record my face.
“Are you threatening the press?” she shouted. “Are the studios suing you?”
I stared at the glowing phone in her hand. I wanted nothing more than to hail a car to the airport and catch the first flight north. I wanted to see my wife. But breaching a multimillion-dollar franchise contract meant emergency injunctions, asset freezes, and ruthless corporate lawyers.
If I fled Los Angeles tonight, the studio would drag their legal circus straight to Driftwood Blooms. To actually protect Sutton’s peace, I had to stay in the city and dismantle my empire brick by brick.
I reached into my trouser pocket and pulled out my corporate phone.
The screen was bright, cluttered with dozens of missed calls from the studio executives and my mother’s agency.
I did not decline a single one. The phone was the tether that had kept Sutton trapped in the shadows.
I walked over to a trash can sitting in the alley.
I dropped the device into the garbage. It hit the rusted metal with a sharp clatter.
“I have no public image left to protect,” I told the reporters. “Which means I will spend every cent I have dragging you through the courts if you harass my wife.”
I turned away. I pushed through the remaining wall of bodies, ignoring the hands grabbing at my jacket, and stepped onto the main street.
A yellow taxi idled near the curb, exhaust pluming into the cool air.
I flagged the driver, pulled the door open, and slid into the backseat.
I pulled the door shut, cutting off the noise of the paparazzi.
The cab smelled faintly of stale smoke and pine. For the first time in three years, the isolation did not feel like a cage. It felt like freedom.
“Take me to Century City,” I told the driver. “I have a meeting with my lawyers to end my career.”
The driver put the car in gear without a word.
The tires squealed against the asphalt as we pulled away from the curb, leaving the swarm of reporters behind us.
I leaned my head against the glass, watching the streetlamps blur past the window.
I let the theater fade into the dark behind me, heading straight into a legal war room so I could finally go home.