Avery Hayes Strikes Back Again
Avery Hayes was no stranger to the name Ronan Bowen. The intel she'd bought had flagged him as the Sterling family's go-to fixer, the man who'd handled the fallout from nearly all the "safety accidents" at their food processing plants.
"Lorraine's ex-husband," Caleb Sterling sneered on the other end of the line. "He's my uncle's attack dog."
Avery frowned. "He has that much pull? Can he really get involved all the way out here in California?"
"What do you think?" Caleb shot back. "He couldn't do my uncle's dirty work without connections everywhere. He owes his entire career to him. The guy worked up and down the coasts when he was younger, so you can bet he still has local thugs on his payroll out there."
He paused. "I did some digging. His goal is to scare you into signing a forgiveness statement."
Picking up on the undertone, Avery pressed, "Was he involved in the criminal underworld before?"
Caleb's voice deepened into a clear warning. "You could say that. Bottom line, he's not a good person. Seriously, be careful. Don't go anywhere alone. Bowen's hands are a hell of a lot dirtier than mine."
Avery was silent, the only sound on the line her steady breathing. She was processing, her mind already three steps ahead of the threat.
"Find someone to leak the information I sent you the other night," she said finally.
"I already put things in motion this afternoon," Caleb told her. "I just didn't think Bowen would make a move this fast."
Hearing that, Avery fell quiet again, her thoughts racing.
A moment later, she gave her next command.
"Do you have any financial ties to Sterling Foods?"
she asked. "If you do, I want you to cut them. Liquidate everything, get your cash ready, and wait for my call. I'm about to hand you the opportunity of a lifetime."
She hung up without waiting for a response, not caring if he understood the implications. He would soon enough.
After ending the call, Avery flipped open her laptop.
For hours, as the afternoon faded into evening, she mapped out every factory owned by Sterling Foods across the country, compiling a detailed schematic of their operations and vulnerabilities.
When she finally closed the lid, it was dark outside, and she had a clear picture of the battlefield.
Just then, her phone buzzed with a message from Caleb.
*It's live.*
The news about the safety accidents was officially online.
Avery grabbed her phone to see the damage.
Caleb had used the same playbook as before, deploying a network of paid social media accounts to spread the story.
The posts were still fresh, the impact not yet visible, but the guy knew a thing or two about manufacturing outrage.
He'd sicced his army of trolls on the posts, tagging the Emergency Management Department, the Westlake PD, and, most importantly, the official X account for Sterling Foods.
With that kind of fuel, it wouldn't be long before the story caught fire and spread across the entire internet.
Two separate electrical accidents at factories owned by the same company. There was no way the authorities could ignore that.
Avery had already burned her bridges with the Sterling family; there was no sense in holding back now. She logged into her own X account, uploaded the photos from the near-miss earlier that day, and added a simple, ominous caption: #ThisCoincidenceIsChilling
She didn't name names, but as soon as the post was up, she called Dexter Reed.
Originally, she hadn't wanted to reveal her identity as the victim from the hospital incident so soon.
But the car accident had changed the game.
It was a clear signal that Warren Sterling was done with veiled threats.
He was getting desperate, reckless. He was playing for keeps.
If she didn't use public opinion as a shield, she had no doubt Warren was capable of making her disappear for good.
She had to leverage the scandal at Sterling Foods to build a wall of public support so high that he couldn't touch her.
"A car accident? Shit, Avery, are you okay?" Dexter Reed's voice was tight with alarm. He felt a wave of cold dread. *Is the office cursed?* he thought wildly. *Why does every promising artist I sign almost get killed?*
Avery's expression was ice as she quickly recounted the incident.
"It was a targeted hit, and I'm sure the Sterlings were behind it. I just made a post on X. I need you to push it and leak that I'm the victim from the hospital assault. I'm about to send you a recording of Warren Sterling threatening me. Figure out how you want to use it."
"Send me your account login," Dexter replied instantly. "The company will handle it."
When Avery signed with Stellar Media, she'd insisted on managing her own social media, so the agency didn't have her credentials. Without hesitation, she sent them over. Dexter got to work immediately.
Stellar had signed Avery because of the powerful public narrative she already possessed.
Building a skyscraper on that foundation was what every entertainment company did best.
She had no projects out and didn't fit the mold of a typical new artist, so Dexter's strategy was simple and brutal.
Forget building her up as an artist for now.
They would pour every resource into cementing her public image: the brilliant doctor, the victim of a corporate bully, the woman who refused to be silenced.
The key was to keep the pressure relentlessly on the Sterling family.
He wasn't stupid enough to try and convict them online, of course.
He just had to plant the seed of reasonable doubt, to make everyone question if the car accident was an accident at all.
As soon as Dexter's campaign launched, the story of the hospital assault from months ago was dragged back into the light. The internet connected the dots with astonishing speed.
"HOLY SHIT. Dr. Avery Hayes is the doctor who got attacked in the hospital a while back!"
"First a hospital assault, now a car 'accident'? This woman has the worst luck."
"Luck has nothing to do with it. Go look at @LeoFoster's page. The goofball actually posted a recording of one of the Sterlings threatening her on a street in NYC."
The @LeoFoster account belonged to Leo Foster, a major influencer known for being a rich kid with a goofy, self-deprecating sense of humor.
To amplify Avery's story, Dexter hadn't just leveraged Leo's account; he'd also activated Ethan Rhodes's and Zachary Bell's, flooding the platform from all sides.
"Damn, if you look at the timeline, did she resign right after the attack?"
"Yeah, she was diagnosed with PTSD after the injury. Couldn't hold a scalpel anymore, so she quit and started studying for the bar."
Then, a comment from one of Avery's former colleagues hit the forums like a lightning strike.
"Dr. Hayes studied Clinical Medicine and was one of the most brilliant surgeons at our hospital. The surgical plan I used just two days ago came from her old case notes. That family, the Sterlings, they destroyed everything. They ruined a true talent."
The raw regret in the comment ignited a firestorm. The internet exploded. Not just the public, but Avery's former students and classmates began flooding her X account with comments, posting lists of the awards she'd won in med school and the groundbreaking research she'd been a part of.
The online mood was no longer just curious; it was furious.
Hordes of users swarmed the Sterling family's official X account to condemn them.
But as much sympathy as Avery was getting, it was nothing compared to the tidal wave of pure rage crashing down on the official Sterling Foods page.
The shocking photos of the electrical leaks, of the victims lying on the factory floor, were horrifying.
With the two scandals now inextricably linked, it took less than an hour for Sterling Foods to become the top trending topic in the country, buried under an avalanche of negative press.