Sabrina
The first process server arrived the next morning. I clocked him immediately. Bland man, bland sedan, bland manilla envelope.
Not Eastgate. No, they couldn’t. Not with the feds currently investigating.
Blackbriar Capital Ventures.
Meg had warned me that this would likely happen. Investors had lost hundreds of millions after the leak, not counting the secondary lawsuits once the cancer reports became public.
She picked up on the first ring.
“Read it to me,” she said, like she’d seen the man himself.
“Breach of confidentiality.” I scanned the papers. I was all too familiar with legal filings. “Tortious interference, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, and a few statutory securities claims.”
“Motherfuckers,” she hissed. “I’ll get to work.”
“No.” I sighed. “This will all get worked out in the courts. I need to be focused on Maplewood. I can’t let this derail all the work we’ve done.”
A familiar crash sounded in the background.
“Was that a child or sensitive government secrets?” I asked.
“Yes,” she responded as she jabbed at her keyboard. If I knew Meg, she had a satellite image of my mom’s house pulled up right now.
“Leave it alone.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, the familiar roil of nausea creeping up inside me. “Go take care of your kids. And stay focused on Maplewood. We need to nail the Games proposal and Gabe’s recall vote.”
“No fucking way,” she growled. “We’re in this together. You don’t get to be all noble and sacrifice yourself while billionaire Wall Street dicks drag you through litigation hell.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” I said. “You covered our tracks, and the feds redacted my name from the grand jury transcripts. No one from my firm would ever; it would tank the entire company. And I had to promise them I would not say a word.”
“I’m not blaming myself.” She laughed. “I’m blaming Ethan Calloway.”
“What?”
“You think I’m going to let some asshole fuck with you and not hack into their lives and learn every detail I can? It’s called friendship.”
I sank into the kitchen chair and put my head in my hands. “Tell me.”
“The legal actions have been simmering for months. We knew it was likely. But all this exploding yesterday? It was Ethan.”
“How do you know?”
“Because his executive assistant forwarded an ‘intelligence report’ to four media contacts at 2:14 p.m.”
I blinked a few times. We were in that meeting then. Was he actively sabotaging me from the same room?
“You hacked his assistant?”
“No. I hacked Ethan. The assistant was just collateral damage.”
“Meg.” My breath shuddered. I loved her, but this could get me into even more hot water.
“Please,” she scoffed. “Rich nepo babies deserve it. And he said awful things about you.” She was shouting now.
Very little surprised Meg, but she was loyal to her core.
“He has a whole narrative. That you’re unstable, unethical, and a danger to Maplewood.
He implies you’re influencing the ‘ineffective Mayor Gabriel Harding’ and trying to scam the town. ”
I laughed. “Scam the town? Out of what? A few bottles of maple syrup and alpaca knit socks?”
“It’s serious. He mentioned your personal involvement and said that Gabe’s judgment is compromised and he must be recalled.”
Red-hot rage flashed inside me. “That motherfucker.” It was one thing to drag me; I deserved it. But Gabe?
“So on a scale of one to ten,” she asked sweetly, as if she could sense the shift in my energy, “how badly can I destroy him?”
“You can’t at all. Not yet.” I stood and paced. I needed a plan. A strategy. And my team. “We will fuck him up, but not right now. First we save Maplewood and make sure Gabe keeps his job. Then we get revenge.”
“That’s my girl,” she said. “Should I text the others? Rally them at the command center?”
“Yes.”
Once we ended the call, my first inclination was to pack my bags and run.
Get out of this place and lie low while I waited for the dust to settle.
But then I looked around my mom’s house, taking in the childhood photos and the cheery floral curtains.
Considering the life I’d unexpectedly built for myself here.
I placed my hand on my stomach. “Baby, I’m so sorry about this. But Mom’s gonna fix it. Sometimes life requires we do the hard thing.”
I had to stand firm and face this. Finish my job. Then I’d be coming for Ethan Calloway.
The rest of the team beat me to the library. At the sight of them, emotion washed over me. I expected scorn and judgment. Instead, I found a group of women ready and willing to fight.
“Where’s Marigold?” I asked.
“Home,” Mom said softly, her face ashen. “She just came back from New York. She’s very tired.”
That was strange. Marigold usually had the energy of someone forty years younger. Last week she’d overseen the senior center charity auction and then gone line dancing.
My chest tightened with worry. Before I could ask for more information, Harper piped up.
“I have a full containment strategy,” she said. “I think we counterattack.”
Around her, the multiple monitors glowed, like she was in some kind of military command center instead of a library conference room where she ran maple syrup social media.
“I’ve already buried four defamatory hashtags and redirected traffic using bear content. And I have that video of Gabe chugging maple syrup going viral again.”
Nina smiled at her. “Hot farmer content for the win.”
Harper held out her fist and Nina bumped it.
“She bullied the algorithm into submission,” Nina said proudly.
I held up a hand. “Girls.”
The room quieted.
“This is a distraction. Someone is weaponizing my past to keep us from succeeding in our mission.”
Harper scoffed. “But—”
“I appreciate your loyalty, but this isn’t about me. It’s about Maplewood. There are forces out there that want us to fail. That want this town to suffer. But it’s more important than ever that we stay focused.”
“How?” my mom asked, “with this news everywhere?”
“I went to Birch Hollow yesterday.”
The collective gasp made me smile.
“Did you take weapons?” Nina asked.
“No. But it quickly became clear that this is bigger than we thought. It’s not just a small-town rivalry. There are people out there who want Maplewood to fail. They want us divided, exhausted, and scared. Because they’ll profit from our demise.”
My mom’s face turned red. “Do they know who they’re fucking with?” she asked, her voice deep.
“No.” I smirked at her. “How about we show them?”
“We will not allow outsiders to take us down,” she gritted out.
“Exactly. And the bigger our success, the more violently we destroy them,” I said. “We’ve got to be laser focused.”
Everyone leaned in, eager to listen. And I was ready to dive in. This was my domain, strategy, pressure points, and how to work inefficient systems to my advantage.
“The priority here is getting the Maplewood Games budget amendment passed at the town meeting.”
I plucked a marker from the table and headed to the whiteboard.
“This means three things, turnout, investment, and public pressure.”
Harper cracked open another energy drink from her stash and handed it to Nina.
Sighing at them, I shook my head, this was not the day to wean them off the mango-flavored caffeine.
“Harper, digital operations,” I directed. “We’re moving up the timeline for the rollout. It’s not a proposal; it’s a conclusion. Small businesses. Farmers. Community. Hope and opportunity.”
“I’ve got some Save Maplewood graphics and a Betsy clip I’ve been holding on to for an emergency.”
Nodding, I turned to Nina. “Field intelligence. Do you know who’s planning to vote no?”
She nodded.
“Great. Change their minds,” I instructed. “Pressure them. Talk to everyone—business owners, salon clients, farmers. We need to figure out who’s movable and who can be pressured.”
With a fierce look, Nina cracked her knuckles.
“Laurie,” I said to my mom, “you are community organizing. Phone trees, rides to the meeting for seniors. Get a hold of the church ladies. We must have maximum turnout.”
She nodded. “On it.”
“What about me?” Meg’s voice crackled through the speaker.
“Your favorite.” I broke into a smile. “Oppo research.”
She cackled. “Already on it. Donor connections and investor overlaps retrieved. Now I’m using facial recognition software and a satellite feed of the parking lot to identify the attendees of the Birch Hollow meeting yesterday.
I’ll dig through their lives and find pressure points.
If we’re lucky, we’ll also stumble across embarrassing blackmail material. ”
“No crimes,” I said.
She ignored me and went back to typing furiously.
I looked around the room. My team. My friends. They cared, and they wanted to fight for this town. “Okay,” I said, willing my racing heart to calm. “Who’s ready to go save Maplewood?”