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My dad grabs him but the shirt. “And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Both of you stop!” I let out, pulling Jax’s face into my chest. “Dad. It’s over.”
“You bet your sorry ass it is.”
“No I mean for YOU! We wrote an article.”
“Izzy, stop.” Ethan tries to intervene but I cut him off.
“No. He’s going to find out anyway. Why not drop the bomb?”
“The fuck you talking about? What bomb?” My dad asks.
“I wrote an article. About you. To discredit everything you have done to everyone else in NBT. That’s not even what your magazine is about and yet you’ve made a brand out of screwing other people over. Good people. Honest people. Talented people. You’ve destroyed people’s lives all because you felt threatened by their success.”
“That’s the industry, baby.” He holds out his hands with a smirk.
“No. This industry is one of passion and art. We lift each other up, not tear them down.”
“That’s cute,” he cuts in. “But if you think that’s how it works, you’re even more naive than I thought.”
“No, what’s cute is the article she wrote, a damn good article, by the way, and it’s going to print tomorrow,” Ethan says. And for the first time, my dad’s cocky grin falters.
“The fuck you talking about? Print where?”
“In NBT.” Ethan’s smirk lands on him.
“You can’t–”
“I did. We did.” Ethan motions between us.
“I will fucking kill you,” my dad seethes, taking a step closer. But I step between them again.
“We’ll pull it,” I blurt out.
“What?” They both ask in unison.
“If you agree to leave Ethan alone, part ways with nothing but good things to say about his resume, and leave Jax and I alone forever, we will destroy it. But you have to promise no more tearing other people down. No more ruining lives. And whoever you hired to come after us, they have to stay away too.”
“Izzy,” Ethan shakes his head. But my dad looks completely baffled.
“What are you talking about?” He asks. “I didn’t hire anyone.”
I roll my eyes before narrowing them in on him. “Oh please. Then where did the photos come from? And what about the broken window? The threats? The late night knocks on my door. I have a child for God’s sake!”
“I literally have no fucking idea what you are even talking about, Izzy.” My dad shakes his head and I study him. Honestly, as much as I don’t trust a single thing he says, it actually seems like he’s telling the truth.
“Well then if you didn’t take the blackmail photographs, who did?”
“Hello…” A woman’s voice comes from the hallway and we all turn. My mouth hits the floor, along with my heart.
“Rosilyn?” I ask. “What are you doing here?”
My dad still looks puzzled. “Rosilyn?”
“Oh shit…” Ethan seems to have connected a couple of dots. And I look between all three of them trying to catch up.
“This is Rose,” my dad says.