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Which meant this was a fucking emergency.
I tucked the magazine under my arm and bolted for Trace’s office. I burst inside, finding a quiet, empty office. I sat in his chair and called him, knee bouncing wildly as the phone rang.
“Axel, is this—” Trace began.
“Did you see the article?” I swiveled manically in his chair.
“Yes.” His voice came out a hiss. It wasn’t often that Trace lost his shit, but this situation had the potential to push all of us over the edge. “Fuckingfuck. Who could be the source?”
“Probably Yagel himself.” I dragged a hand down the front of my face. Unscrupulous was one of the kinder words I could have used for Yagel. He made millions off peddling underage girls, so I didn’t give a fuck about playing nice with him. I’d considered physically castrating that asshole myself, but that shit was harder than it sounded in this day and age. His exile to Australia was small consolation. He lived with every move tracked, hacked, and monitored. He knew it. And maybe he was tired of it.
“I’ll be at the office in five.” His breaths came out labored. The swell of honks around him told me he was probably sprinting down Wall Street to get here, which meant he’d probably spent the night at a lover’s house somewhere.
The call clicked off, and I tossed the phone on his desk. The doorknob turned a moment later and Damian barged in.
“You got the memo too, I take it?” I asked.
Damian’s lips were turned downward in a glower. He propped his hands on his hips as he paced the office.
“We need damage control.”
“Francis said he’s getting PR up to speed,” I said. “But I don’t think that’s going to be enough.”
“We need legal too,” Damian said, snapping his fingers.
I nodded, picking up my phone again, this time to summon Francis. “Let’s get Francis in here to take notes.” I tapped out my message—NEED U IN TRACE’S OFFICE—and then looked at Damian wearily.
“Who the fuck is behind this?”
Damian stopped pacing, looking more distraught than I’d ever seen him. “How many enemies do you think we have right now?”
I blinked. “Not that many.”
“You sure about that?”
Frustration burbled inside of me. “I can think of a hundred idiots who might have beef with us for whatever reason. But that doesn’t mean they’d go digging around in ancient history like a fucking paleontologist looking for the bones of our past.”
Damian watched me, his jaw working. He wanted to say something but didn’t. The door opened a moment later, and Trace strode in.
“Welcome to the shit storm,” I deadpanned.
Trace dropped his briefcase in a chair, covering his face with his hands. Then he let out a gruff “FUCK!”He followed that up with an impressive string of curse words, ending withprickstain.
I almost never saw Trace lose his cool. Not about anything. But this was different.
Francis showed up a moment later, his brows drawn together in concern. “Did I just hear enough foul language to wake the dead?”
“You did.” Trace sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He leaned against the far wall, squeezing his eyes shut. “Can somebody please tell me we have a way out of this?”
“We have a way out of this,” I said, more because I felt like he needed to hear it. Not because I believed it.
“Axel told me you called PR, but what about legal?” Damian asked. “This magazine is read by millions. There’s no way this allegation is going to be swept under the rug.”
“What are they saying out there?” I asked Francis. “Does everyone really believe this bullshit?”
Francis looked between the three of us, grimacing. “We’re all confused. This is just…Wow. A surprise. You know?”
“The company we bought used to traffic underage girls.” My voice sounded strained. Almost insane. Like I’d snap if he didn’t believe me. “We took it over so that we couldstopit from happening. It’s as simple as that.”
