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“Yep. Twelve-hour days holed up in his office or out tracking down information for one of those long think pieces he loves so much. I swear, that heart attack changed nothing for him. He still eats crap and drinks way too much coffee.”
She shakes her head. “He should retire. You could take over the paper.”
I want nothing more. But even though I’m my father’s longest-running employee, he won’t treat me like a business partner. In his mind, I’m still his little girl, and he wants to protect me from the trials of running a failing business. Even if I grew up loving the feel of crisp paper between my fingers. Even if I helped him format articles at age eight and helped him write them at age twelve. Even if my idea to start our paparazzi side hustle saved us five years ago. My father is too blind to see I have ideas that could catapult us into the future.
I sigh. “One day. You know he’s stubborn.”
She smiles sympathetically. “You’ll win him over. I’m sure of it.”
* * *
I spend at least an hour starting and restarting articles that night. The paper runs Friday and we need something beyond our usual fare. We need to be better than ever if we’re going to make eighteen grand. My pulse skips at the thought of all that money, and I shove down the anxiety and refocus on the screen.
We’re a weekly paper, but I try to put fresh gossip up daily. It drives the most traffic to our site. More traffic means more ad dollars. And I like to stay top of mind for the editors heading up New York’s biggest gossip columns—Page Six and Green Media. I’ve established myself at this point.
I click through the photos I’ve taken in the last week. We’ve already run most of them. Before yesterday’s photos of Jonah, I have some great photos of the rat infestation in Riverside Park. We haven’t run those, but I don’t have it in me to write the article required right now. The photos of Jonah and the unknown woman appear on the screen. Who is she? I told myself I wouldn’t print the photos until I figured out who she was, but part of me felt slimy even considering it. Their meeting seemed clandestine. Jonah kept looking around as if he were worried about being spotted, and she wore her sunglasses even though it was raining.
I chew my lip uncertainly. She’s probably an actress, or maybe a politician. Jonah’s not known for being a playboy, but when he does go out with women, they’re always stunning. She fits the bill. And yet, something in me doesn’t want to print the photos, even if it’s a harmless date. If I expose his secrets, will I be able to look myself in the eye tomorrow? And why do I feel such stupid loyalty to a man who threatened me? I set the camera down and rub my temples. A stress headache is starting behind my eyes. I click to the next photo. It’s one of Jonah’s sister, Christine, before she went into the restaurant with him. She looks trendy and rich, stepping out of a vintage yellow Mustang. Good enough. I do some googling and jot down what I can find about her before putting a fluff piece together about her outfit and her mysterious wife, who I know is named Mia. I’ve become an expert at figuring out brands. The women who read us love a celebrity style piece.
I pull together the little background I have and then go digging for more. I just need to put a little more in about Jonah and his family. I click around until the articles about the embezzlement come up. I forgot about these. Jonah was involved in some sort of embezzlement scandal years ago. There aren’t many articles about it. The websites I click on lead to nothing. He must have shut it all down, by bribery, or maybe by force, if his reactions this morning are anything to go by.
I’ve been down this road before, and I can recite the facts I know about him from memory. He was twenty-four when he started Kings Lane, right after the embezzlement charges became public knowledge. He was never arrested and the charges were dropped just as quickly as they arose. Not a month later, there were nude photos of him leaked to the press. Hot nudes. Photos I definitely haven’t lingered on when researching him. They’re hard to find now, but not if you know where to look, and I always do.
I add some background about Jonah to the fluff, hit publish, and move to the comments sections of our latest articles.
Our comments section is pretty lively, and I check it a few times a day. We get the occasional troll who wants to rile people up about city politics, or a neighborhood denizen who thinks the local deli really needs to stock better coffee and takes things too far. I’ve had to ban a few people, but it’s usually pretty tame. But today, we have fifty-three new comments on an article from a few days ago about Miles Becker, Jonah’s business partner, and his new girlfriend. This is the type of gossip I enjoy printing. It’s a cute piece—just a photo of them outside his office building. He has her up against a sleek black sedan and he’s kissing her like he’s drowning and she’s air. I thought it was sweet, and the accompanying article includes a few tidbits about Miles, Jonah and their company.
I scroll to the bottom and see a thread started by someone with the name “Prince of Darkness.” Jonah? It can’t be. That would be a crazy coincidence—the name I used just today to describe him, though it’s one step from what I typically call him—the Crown Prince, Satan, Lucifer.
Prince of Darkness
Can this gossip rag even get its facts straight?
Then he proceeds to correct all the minor errors concerning Kings Lane Capital, Jonah and Miles’s company. Apparently, there’s a third owner, which I didn’t realize. My face heats as he continues. Each line is punctuated with a disparaging comment. He ends the tirade by saying, “I’m not sure why I even click on this crap anymore. You’re better off reading the Post.”
My fists are clenched so tight that the bones stand out against my skin. It’s Jonah. It has to be. He told me to stay away, and now he’s making it clear what happens if I continue.
A loyal reader of ours gets into the mix, noting that we were the first to break the news about the broken benches in Riverside Park and the city’s plan to fix them. Thanks, Marsha. This is my turf, Jonah. Back off. Go back to making billions and leave me alone.
Hope soars for a brief moment, and then a new comment pops up. Oh no, someone is agreeing with him. “Quality has gone down in recent years.” Since I took over.
The Prince of Darkness immediately responds, “Was it ever there to begin with?”
Asshole.
A new comment pops up on the article about Christine. The Prince of Darkness has commented again.
Prince of Darkness
Was my message not clear earlier?
With shaking hands, I turn off commenting on the article, and then pull up a new page. I can draft this article in just a few minutes. I drag and drop photos of Jonah and the lovely woman at lunch. I pick the ones where he looks particularly furtive, and then stab out a title. “The King of Hell: Looking for His Queen?” It’s not much of a takedown, because I know nothing about the woman, and I refuse to make up facts, but I add some idle speculation that Jonah is lonely and jealous that his business partner is happily settled and he isn’t. The speculation is real. Mrs. Winters down the hall asked me just the other day if he was single. Close enough.
I add the most salacious background I can find. I can’t bear to publish leaked nude photos, but the embezzling goes into the first sentence. It’s worse than anything I’ve ever said about Jonah before, but none of it is untrue.
I check for typos and hit publish with sick satisfaction. Take that. The Prince of Darkness comments one minute later. He tags me, under my pen name.
“You’ll regret this.” The comment is meant for my eyes alone, because it’s deleted not two minutes later.
