Chapter 8 #2
Rawlings leaned forward, both hands braced on the table now, tension written through his shoulders. “You’re not leaving the building without someone on you.”
I stilled. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he said, his control slipping just enough to show the frustration underneath. “You don’t go anywhere alone. Not until this is handled.”
A short, humorless breath left me. “You’re babysitting me now?”
“If that’s what it takes,” he snapped.
“No,” I said immediately, the word landing harder this time. “Not happening.”
“It’s already happening,” Char cut in. My gaze snapped to her, and this time she held it, completely unbothered by the shift in the room. “Bea stays with you,” she added, nodding once toward the table.
Toward the newcomer.
My attention followed the motion before I could stop it, landing on Bea as she sat there, pen still in her hand, hovering just above the paper like she hadn’t decided what to do with it yet. She hadn’t looked up, but the stillness in her posture gave her away.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I snickered, dragging my focus back to Char. “You’re assigning me a handler? And a rookie at that.”
“I’m assigning you oversight,” she corrected.
“I don’t need it.”
“That’s not up for debate.” The flippant way Charlotte declared my new status was irksome, to say the least.
Who the fuck do these people think I am?
My jaw tightened, something more territorial settling in under the irritation now. “Absolutely not.”
Rawlings pushed back from the table hard enough that the chair legs scraped against the floor. “You lost the ability to say no the second you landed that punch,” he snapped, the restraint in his voice finally giving way to something closer to anger. “You don’t get to dictate terms here, fuck face.”
I stepped in closer without thinking, the distance between us shrinking into something that wasn’t professional anymore. “Careful,” I growled, a steady warning laced in the syllables. “You don’t get to talk to me like that.”
“Or what?” he shot back, already halfway out of his chair. “You going to take a swing in here too?”
My hands flexed at my sides before I forced them still, the tape pulling across my knuckles as I held the tension there instead of letting it move.
“Enough.” Ezra’s voice cut clean through the room, calm but absolute. He stepped forward, placing himself just enough between us to break the line without making it a show. “Sit down,” he ordered Rawlings, quiet but not optional.
Rawlings held it for a second, chest tight, jaw set, before he dropped back into his chair with a muttered curse, dragging a hand down his face.
Ezra’s attention shifted to me. “And you take a breath.”
I did. Once. Slow. Controlled.
Across the table, movement flickered again. Bea’s pen pressed into the page hard enough to crease it before she forced it to move, like stopping completely would draw attention. She still hadn’t looked up, but the tension had reached her anyway. It always did.
Char exhaled slowly, unimpressed. “Can we all put our dicks away and get back to the actual problem?” she stated flatly, her gaze sweeping across the room. “Because this isn’t about ego. It’s about this fucking video mucking up a rebuild season.”
The room reset around her, not completely, but enough.
“We need visibility,” she continued, already moving forward. “Consistency. Something we can manage.”
“You’ve got it,” Rawlings said, his voice still tight. “She stays with him.”
I shook my head. “No.”
Neither of them acknowledged it.
That was worse.
“We control access, proximity, exposure,” Char continued, her tone sharpening as she built the structure out in real time. “We decide where he is, who he’s with, what gets seen.”
She paused then, just long enough for the next problem to surface.
Rawlings saw it first. “That looks bad,” he said.
Char’s mouth curved slightly. “Only if we let it.”
My stomach tightened.
“She can’t just follow him around like a damn puppy,” Rawlings continued. “That raises more questions than it answers.”
“We don’t hide it,” Char said, a twinkle sparking in her eyes. “We define it. She’s not watching him. She’s with him.”
“No,” I retorted immediately, the word cutting through before anything else could form. “Absolutely not.”
“You don’t have to like it,” she replied.
“I’m not doing it.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Charlotte let the room settle into an uneasy silence before continuing, “She’s clean. No history here. No baggage. No existing narrative. It’s perfect.”
Bea sat very still.
Too still.
“I’m not sure that’s the right approach,” Bea finally sad carefully, her voice measured, even, but there was something underneath it. “We could redirect this in a more authentic way. Community involvement, outreach—”
“No,” Char cut in immediately. “Too obvious.”
“It works,” Bea pressed. “People respond to—”
“Northbend is not people,” Char snapped. “It’s a market. And they will smell the bullshit before he even steps foot in a Boys and Girls Club.”
Bea’s jaw tightened.
Just slightly.
She knew she was losing the argument.
I looked from Charlotte to Erza, and understood exactly what this was.
Not a conversation. A decision. Made without me.
Something colder settled into place under my ribs, sharper than the irritation that had been there before.
Fine. If they wanted a story, I would give them one.
My gaze shifted, landing on Bea fully this time. She held it, didn’t flinch, didn’t look away, still trying too hard to stay steady in a room that was already moving past her.
And now tied to me.
I let the silence stretch just long enough for it to matter before I spoke.
“So which is it?” I quipped, my voice low with a teasing brow raise. “My place or yours.”