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Chapter one
Ronald Razor's POV
“Gofuckyourself!”heyelled at me, banging my office door so hard it rattled. “You’ll regret this, asshole! What do you have if not for me?!”
“Byyyyyye,” I sang, smirking as he left. Despite my outward look, I was annoyed. Frank Dover, despite being a complete douchebag, had incredible talent. How were we going to replace the psycho now? Being a very popular, albeit polarizing, figure, the limelight always shone on him. That usually meant more money for Ronald Razor Records due to increased exposure. However, there comes a time when the press is so bad that the term ‘All press is good press’ no longer becomes applicable.
I noticed Drew exchanging words with him on his way out with a smirk on his face. Even my COO hated Frank–everyone did. The guy was an entitled prick, and he’d put us in this situation. We had to fire him, and the announcement had to be made without informing him. Drew walked into my office and sat down opposite me. By then, I’d sat down and thought about our next step. We needed a new face now that he’d been fired, and all eyes would be on him, not us. We needed to bring someone quick before the light on us dimmed. People care about talent more than record labels. I could bet most people didn’t know the different labels famous artists were signed to.
“So, what’s the plan?” Drew asked. I finally looked at him after coming to terms with my thoughts.
“We have to act fast. This was always the plan when he decided to fire him. Have you found any promising leads from the shortlist I gave you?”
“That’s a pretty long list,” Drew replied.
“Yeah, but you might have found one by now.”
I’d given him a list of potential replacements for Frank based on talent and personality. I’d gone from large artists like Cybelle and Korentin who were not signed to any label at the moment to YouTube artists that have good fan bases. I didn’t care about their popularity, honestly, because right now, RRR stood at the top. The news just came out of our parting ways with Frank, and I surely expected backlash from him and his camp saying we didn’t handle things in good faith by blindsiding him. We didn’t care, though. He’d done enough.
From beating up a teenager in the middle of the street to making disparaging remarks about women, Frank had done enough to get us to remove him. Some members of the board wanted him gone much earlier, but I knew Frank could twist that to mean another thing. That’s why I waited for something so big that it would be obvious we had to let him go. This issue with him sending a woman and her 7-year-old daughter to the hospital by drinking and driving served as the final straw. To make matters worse, his comments afterward sounded so callous. Disregarding the economic benefit of us letting him go, I still couldn’t have him in my company on a moral level either.
“I found a few. Since we’re in a time crunch to get ahead of the story and turn it into a positive for our fresh face, should I just send the ones I see as promising to you while steamrolling through the rest?” Drew suggested.
I’d rather he perused them judiciously, but I understood that there were over a hundred artists there. It would take at least a week before we can fully scan each one even if he gives the work to the HR department. To me, Drew doing it would be best since this determined the future of the company for the foreseeable future. While I respected all that worked in RRR, I didn’t trust anyone as much as I did Drew.
“Argh… fine. We’ll go with that.” I got a ping on my phone and saw the picture of Maddy as my screen saver. That was enough to get me in a bad mood. Drew must have noticed it because he quickly spoke.
“I don’t know why you still have that wallpaper when you know what it does to you.”
“She’s my daughter, dude.”
“Yes, but considering how things are between you guys and how sad you always get when you see her face, have you considered maybe changing it, so you don’t get sad every time?” He made a good point, and I’d told myself that many times, but for some reason, I could not. “How’s her health?” he added.
“Good. I speak to the school doctor twice a week. She must be sick of me now.” We both chuckle.
“Have you tried talking to her recently?”
“Oh, we talk every week, but we might as well not talk at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“We barely say anything. Our talks don’t even reach 10 seconds. It’s either me calling for an ‘Are you alive’ check or she's calling for money.”
“Damn. I’m sorry, man.”
“She is trying, though. I can tell. Trust me, it was way worse before. Sometimes, I wouldn’t hear directly from her in a month.”
“What the hell?”
“I knew she was okay from others at the campus, so I didn’t panic, but it still felt pretty shitty. Made me want to make less of an effort, so I stopped sending money as punishment…” I realized I had started based on a different topic.
“Enough of that,” I didn’t like dwelling on melancholic thoughts when I had work. “Get me the list of the ones you have so far, so I can run through them throughout today.”
My phone pinged again, and I realized that I hadn’t checked the first ping because I got distracted by Maddy’s picture. Before I could even check that one, two more hits. Then Drew’s phone vibrated – I guess it was on silent – causing us to stare at each other.
“Frank,” I said.
“He’s made his move.” Drew finished my thoughts. People said we had a hive mind, and regardless of how I felt about that statement, I had to admit that it sometimes rang through; this case, in point.
