Page 195 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

“You shouldn’t have taken that turn, Cassian,” Liam announced, dropping an armful of takeout containers on the table in front of the sofa. “Now look—we’re late. Because of you.”

“You’re the one who said to take the turn, saying it was a shortcut.” Cassian followed him in, a tray of drinks balanced in his hands. He placed a drink in my hand without looking away from Liam. “You literally said, ‘Trust me, I know this area.’”

Rohan entered last, shutting the door behind him. “I want everyone in this room to know that I was absolutely against taking the turn. I voiced my opinion. Clearly. Multiple times.”

“You said not to take the turn after I had already turned the car.” Cassian handed Naija a bottle of water. She took it with a small nod of acknowledgment. “There was a car behind me. I couldn’t just reverse.”

Rohan didn’t even look up from the food. “I just want it on the record. Where I stood on the turn situation.”

Liam passed a box to Felicity, already nodding. “I agree with Rohan. We shouldn’t let Cassian drive anymore.”

Cassian threw his hands up. “You were the one navigating!”

I took a sip of my drink—perfect, exactly how I liked it—and looked at Naija over the rim. “So. Quiet and peace, huh?”

She shook her head slowly, watching Liam nearly knock over a vase while gesturing about traffic patterns.

“It’s overrated anyway.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Linda slipped into her office, closing the door behind her.

I spun in my chair to face her. “No problem.”

She settled behind her desk, and for a moment, I felt the familiar weight of this room. Aldric had spent my entire childhood drilling into me that this seat belonged to family. That it was my burden to carry, my duty to protect.

Linda looked good in it.

Better than he ever had.

“Thanks again for Ivy,” she said, leaning back. “She’s fitting in well with the team. Sharp. Doesn’t need her hand held.”

I waved it off. “I just sent her your way. She’s the one doing the work.”

Linda smiled knowingly but didn’t push. Instead, her expression softened into something more careful. “How are you holding up?”

I crossed one leg over the other. “Damage control mode. The usual.”

“We’re in damage control mode.”

I had a three-phase plan.

Phase one was containment. We couldn’t undo what happened, but we could control how it was framed. My team pulled every post from the influencers who’d been at the event—the glowing reviews of the food, the space, the Garcia legacy—and pushed them back into the feed. Flooded the morning scroll with anything that wasn’t the fire. By the time the first outlets published their headlines, there was already a second layer of content sitting underneath them. The narrative had competition before it even settled.

Phase two was transparency. We drafted a joint statement with Cassian and Liam’s team. No spin. No deflection. Just facts: the fire, the injuries, the confirmation that both Naija and the other guest were recovering and expected to be released. We released it before any of the outlets could piece together their own version of events.

Phase three was the long game. Every outlet that ran the fire story would also get the follow-up. The recovery. The reopening. The comeback. I made the calls to journalists who owed me favors, the ones who knew better than to bury the second act beneath the first headline. The story wasn’t going to end with smoke.

I wouldn’t let it.

She thinned her lips, a familiar expression of barely restrained fury. “Fucking Michael.”

She exhaled, visibly putting the anger aside, and slid a thick file across the desk. “Anyway. This is everything I have on his company. Everything I could find that’s useful, anyway.”

I took the file. “Thank you.” I set it on my lap, already planning to read it cover to cover the second I was back at work. But something else was nagging at me. “I wanted to ask you—how did you find the information about Michael’s past? It looked like he made sure no one would talk about it. How did you track it down?”

Linda’s expression shifted, something almost sheepish surfacing. “That’s actually part of why I wanted to meet you in person.”

She folded her hands on the desk, choosing her words carefully.