Page 22 of Pride

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Scam? Really?

Congratulations, Ms. Belmont.

You just achieved something truly staggering. You managed to make it to the top of my shit list, and before today, I didn’t even know you existed.

But after I’m finished with you, neither will anyone else...

P.S. I’ll let you into a little secret... that wasn’t fake blood. Nothing about me is fake. But you’ll find out soon enough.

S.K.A.M. (Can you guess what it stands for?)

I stared at my screen, the letters bouncing around in front of my eyes as my heart jackhammered in my chest.

Should I forward this to H.R.?

Or the police?

He was threatening me. He’d sought my email out, taken the time to approach me in this way and said, after he’d finished, no one would know I existed.

What the actual fuck?

Over an article that I didn’t fucking write.

When I’d seen that piece, when I’d gone home and spent the night drinking wine to numb my anger, which didn’t work in the slightest, and when I’d walked back into the office this morning, I felt like this had been so fucking unfair. Now, I felt like picking up my computer and flinging it at the wall.

Why me?

Why did shit have to always pile onto me?

“Are you okay, Em?” Dan asked with concern.

My face must’ve betrayed my feelings too strongly because that guy rarely spoke to me, even though he’d sat across from me for two years.

“I’ve had a shitty email,” I replied, clicking out of it and standing up from my desk. “Gold needs to hear about this.”

“He said he didn’t want to be disturbed,” Dan stated as I spun around.

“Tell someone who gives a shit,” I whispered and marched over to his door, knocking loudly twice before pushing the door open and stepping into his office.

Mr Gold was sitting at his desk with his mobile phone in his hand, laughing at something on there. He didn’t look busy. But as I walked forward, he whipped his head up, put his phone on his desk, turned face down so I couldn’t see it, and said, “I told you, I’m busy, Emma. This can wait.”

“No, it can’t.” I sat down in the leather chair opposite him, leaning forward so he’d know how urgent this was.

He sighed loudly, pulled his draw open and threw his phone into it before slamming it shut.

“One thing you have to learn in journalism, Emma,” he proclaimed. “You need a thick skin. So you didn’t like the edits I made? Big deal. Get over it. You got your byline, didn’t you? You have the promotion you’ve been asking for since you got here.”

I frowned back at him.

“For a start, I’ve had no paperwork. No new contract to sign.”

He flicked his wrist, flapping his hand in my direction again like I was a nobody. “It’s all in hand. H.R. will have it to you by the end of the week. But don’t expect any extra money.”

God forbid they pay me for the extra responsibilities. But I saved that nugget for another day. I had bigger issues at hand.