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“Sit down, Mr. Harmon. Now! I haven’t finished and I don’t appreciate your shitty attitude.”
“And I don’t appreciate being threatened by your heavies, Ethan. I will not give you what you want because you wave an armed thug in front of me.”
“I’m not threatening you, Jaxx. He’s just here to protect us, because we’re about to blow your world apart and who knows how you’ll react.”
I lifted an envelope from the pile and pushed it across the table towards the three men sitting opposite. Jaxx opened it, pulling out the papers inside, flicking through them before handing them to the man on his left.
“What the hell are these, Ethan?”
“These are eleven affidavits from staff or security who heard the way Hazel threatened and insulted my husband during her time with the band. We’ve included detailed information about the things they heard and the words she used. We have recordings to back some of these up, that we’re willing to share as well. Also outlined in those papers is their agreement to speak to the press after this meeting.”
Jaxx slammed his hand on the desk. “You could have faked it, bribed them to make up lies, you could have fabricated the recordings. We won’t fall for your crap, Ethan.”
I sucked in a breath, calming the rage that danced in my belly as I pushed a second envelope across the table. “These are statements from six other bands that you manage who are unhappy with the way they’ve been treated. Working ridiculous schedules, not having time off for months, even years, your threats if they complain or make a fuss. They'll also speak to the press straight after this meeting unless we ask them not to.”
Jaxx didn’t even open this envelope. He just slammed it against the chest of the lawyer, his eyes never leaving mine.
I threw the last envelope across the table. “You’re going to want to open that one. It’s a list of things our lawyer suggests we can go after you for and the amount of money you will have to pay out to Gray and Tanner, because of what’s happened to them over the last few years, and then the band as a whole. Plus, if you choose this option, we will file criminal charges against the record company and Hazel.”
He pushed up from his seat with such violence that his chair fell backward, stalking around the table to face me. I stood too, waiting for the backlash. “Do you think you can walk in here and threaten me, Ethan? Do you think you scare me? You’re no one. Addi, you’re fucking fired. How dare you be a part of this!”
Addi stood, too. “I quit, you power hungry twat. I've been protecting that band on my own for years, and I didn’t realize until Hazel arrived, that the biggest threat to them was you.”
As Jaxx’s eyes glared at me in a silent threat, his lawyer and PR man opened the envelopes, scanning through the paperwork, their eyes widening with each thing they read.
“Jaxx, he has a case. A really good one. It could cost you millions if all these bands come after you. I would listen to what he wants and say yes.”
“Fuck you, you’re fired too. Both of you,” he screamed.
“Fine, to be fair, I don’t want any part of this, and Ethan, you can add me to your list of your people to give evidence or speak to the press because I have so many stories about this man’s messed up behavior I could write a book,” his PR man announced. I nodded with a smile as the two men that walked in with Jaxx left.
Hazel stood and turned to me. “You’re going to hell. You know that, don’t you?”
“I hope so. If the people I love are there too, then we get to have an eternity buried in each other, fucking like crazy.” I winked, and she gasped, before turning and scuttling from the room.
“And then there was one,” I offered with a smile. “All of this can go away. You release the Cosmic Gods from their contract. You release these other six bands from theirs. You improve the conditions for the other bands you manage, so they don’t live on tour and are allowed a life. Oh, and you give them back the rights to all their back catalog and any future songs they write. You don’t get to keep a single one. That’s the same for every band in that envelope. Otherwise, we have a press conference arranged after this, where we will play Hazel’s tape with Gray, the other bands and security staff speak out and then we go to court.”
Jaxx pinched the bridge of his nose. “I could lose everything. The whole label.”
“You’re going to lose everything anyway. This way you get to leave with your reputation slightly intact. My way and I will drag you through the mud so there's nothing left of you.”
There was a silent pause as he stared at me, assessing just how serious I was. “Fine, but I want all this evidence destroyed now, while I watch.”
I laughed loudly. “What do you take me for? I might bejusta graphic designer with a kink for threesomes, as you so kindly described me, but I’m not stupid. I want all this in writing. I want to run it past our lawyer. I want confirmation that all the other bands have the same and I want their music signed back to them. Then, and only then, will I destroy this. Plus, I want it done by the end of the day. I will not have you putting this off and pissing us all about—5 pm or else we will be on the 6 pm news.”
“That’s impossible. I need a few weeks.”
“You have until 5 pm today.”
Jaxx let out an exacerbated sigh before his eyes left mine and found his secretary. “Fine. Mary, get onto it now.”
“Sir,” she whispered before scurrying from the room.
I held out my hand. “Pleasure doing business with you, Jaxx. I look forward to hearing from you later. My contact details are in the envelope, so you can email everything over.”
Ignoring my hand, he spoke. “And how do I know you won’t leak everything to the press anyway?”
“Because I’m a man of my word, Jaxx, and when I tell you I will do something, I follow through. So just like you can trust I won’t leak this, you can also trust that if I don’t hear from you or you try to piss me about, I will go to the press at 6 pm.”
