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He has stolen my heart clean out of my chest, and I never want it back.
26
Gage
“She fucking what?” I ask Jason, my fixer. The guy who handles shit for me before it ever reaches my desk.
“She’s mentioned LA a few times now in those Instagram lives she does, but that’s all I have so far. I’ll do some digging to see what else I can find, but I wanted to keep you up to date on this in case she’s given you any reason to suspect it. And Amelia’s fine. We dropped some more distraction content, and the team’s been working the comment threads hard. Social’s leaned back in her favor. We’ve tied shit up with Sofia Raye. She’s dropped the case, and Amelia will never hear from her again. I’ll still keep an eye on this situation, but it feels done now.”
Thank fuck.
Watching Amelia get dragged through shit the last few months has burned me raw. Sofia negotiated a ridiculous settlement, but the truth is I would’ve paid ten times that to make it stop.
To take the weight off Amelia.
To let her breath again.
To see her smile without bracing for the next hit.
Whatever it cost, I’d have paid it.
Jason and I go over a few work things and before we wrap, his tone shifts. “There’s one more thing I want to circle back to. Your bad press.”
The whispers about me online that started after the post about my clubs. The slow, steady drip of posts that don’t say anything outright, but still make me look like a man with something to hide. One who operates in shadows. Fixes things behind the scenes. The kind of man people suspect of crossing lines I don’t fucking touch.
We’ve been tracking it for weeks but there’s nothing there. No name attached. No clear agenda. Just smoke. And I don’t waste time on smoke.
“What about it?”
“The noise has gotten louder this week. It’s not just fringe threads or gossip posts anymore. There’s a pattern forming.”
I stay quiet, waiting.
“We’re across it all, but whoever’s behind it is smart. They’re feeding it slow. Anonymous leaks, comment swarms, burner phones. Clean hands, dirty trail. They’re building suspicion not scandal. But don’t be surprised if this escalates.”
“Keep digging. Find me something.”
We wrap up, and I immediately call Shayla. When she doesn’t answer, I leave her a voicemail. “Call me back as soon as you get this.”
Fuck.
I clench my jaw and drag a hand down my face.
I’ve had a gut feeling since Shayla got engaged to Michael that she’d try to relocate to Los Angeles and take Luna with her. The kind of gut feeling I’ve learned not to ignore.
Shayla never loved LA. Now? She’s there multiple times a month. And Michael? He’s one of those self-proclaimed New York purists who talks a good game about “protecting the craft” and not selling out to LA. But for all his speeches about integrity, his last three movies were big-budget action flicks funded by the LA studios he claims he’d never sell out to.
I asked Jason to keep an eye on things after they were engaged. Nothing’s pinged as a red flag until now. And my gut’s telling me not to wait.
I call Blair. She picks up straight away.
“Gage. What’s up?”
Her snark’s dialed down these days. Just barely. But when it counts, she knows how to flip the switch and be professional. She’s done good work for me with Luna. And I’ve adjusted my opinion of her because of it.
I give her a rundown on my concerns and the reasons for them.
“There’s nothing concrete yet,” I finish. “But my gut’s kicking up, and I’d rather be ahead of this than reacting too late.”