Save Me, Sinners

I glance over my shoulder, at the staff inside busy vacuuming and dusting and scrubbing tables and chairs. No one’s looking at me just now, so I take the moment while I have it.

Through the doors, down the sidewalk and then around the side of the building to a little nook in the wall that’s hidden by tall bushes. There’s a pile of cigarette butts in one corner. Guess I’m not the only one who knows about this little spot. I’ll have to talk to someone about that, maybe put an ashtray here.

It’s out of the way, and that’s all I need right now.

I get as far as letting my eyes burn with almost-tears. My throat tightens and aches, and I can feel so much more underneath—but this is as far as it gets. Leaning against my building, I hang suspended in the near release of what I know would be a cathartic crying session if I could only get it started. It’s supposed to be therapeutic, they say.

My rational mind steps in, though, and short-circuits my emotional one like it always does. I’m overreacting. I’m above this. Janie Hall doesn’t cry; she gets to work.

The pipe will get fixed, and I’ll be back in business. Already texts and emails are coming in with messages of support, my higher-profile clientele all talking about having a back-in-business soirée. Hell, maybe it would be a good night to roll out the hot sauce samples and make it a big event.

And that thought is the one that sends me back up, out of the depression and the doubt for a little bit. That’s what I’ll do. Get the place open, announce the event when I do… it might take a little longer to get the samples produced, but I can spin the back-in-business event to market the big reveal, and maybe even roll out some of the chef’s new dishes in advance. It would take a few extra catering staff. Maybe Chester could come up with some shots or cocktails using the milder hot sauces.

Then again, that assumes I’ll make it that far. I want to be confident; I want to believe that I can do this no matter what I have to overcome. I’ve already gotten so far and believe me, I had a hell of a lot of hurdles to leap and hoops to dive through.

But none of those hurdles was ever a petty billionaire with a vicious streak and a bone to pick with me.

Chapter 52

Jake

As if busting a pipe in the kitchen wasn’t enough, Reginald smirks at me as he reveals the two in the one-two punch he plans to deliver against Janie Hall and her establishment.

“Nothing hurts public image worse for a woman like Miss Hall than finding out she slept her way to the top,” he says, laughing like he’s made some kind of joke.

My stomach clenches briefly. Janie Hall? I never would have guessed it. “Where are you getting this information? Are you connected to one of her investors?”

My father looks at me like I’m too stupid to live. “What investors? No, Jake... Christ, you never pay attention, do you? Nobody cares if she actually slept with anyone; they care about the story. The suggestion that she might have. She’s a woman! Once word gets out, it’ll catch fire.”

“You’re just going to put out a story saying she slept with an investor?” I ask, incredulous. It’s not exactly a new low—Reginald has done this kind of thing before—but it seems like overkill. He could just wait to see how she handles the lost business.

But it isn’t enough for him to destroy Red Hall. No. He wants to destroy the woman behind it, wants to make sure she doesn’t just move shop and open up another joint in a year when she’s recovered from the loss of her current business.

“A silent investor,” he says. “No one specific, of course. Unless I can find out if she did. She doesn’t strike me as the type, though.” He pops a grape into his mouth, thoughtful for a moment.

“Better, we’ll say the silent investor was married,” he says after a while, nodding slowly to himself. “Nothing worse than a slut who can’t get her own man and has to take someone else’s, am I right?”

I refrain from pointing out that this demographic encompasses literally all of my father’s ex-wives and extramarital “friends.” It would be lost on him anyway.

“Sounds like a plan,” I tell him, standing from the uncomfortable chair. “Let me know how it goes.”

He laughs. “Just look for the ‘closed for business’ sign on the front of that shitty excuse for a lounge she threw together.”

My laugh is forced, but my father doesn’t notice. When you don’t have to care what anyone thinks, you don’t have to be aware of whether they’re being sincere or not. Reginald doesn’t rely on things like that. He relies on leverage.

What I plan on the walk to the garage is probably the sort of thing that would get me cut out of the will, my credit cards canceled, and my trust fund pulled. But there’s something inside me that can’t, or won’t, just let him ruin Janie like that. Undercutting her business with whatever seedy underworld tactics he typically uses is one thing. Previous competitors Reginald has crushed were able to leave town, set up shop somewhere else. In the case of one tech startup, they left the country.

This was different. This wasn’t just cruel, it was criminal. Although that word means something different to people like Reginald. And, I suppose, to me.

Once out of the house and on the road, I pull over and make a call. My heart pounds in my chest just dialing the number, much less handing down the edict. Social media management is the main function I serve for my father’s many businesses, so my network of bloggers and amateur journalists is wider than his, though Reginald’s network extends to places like the Washington Post and the New York Times.

When it’s time to smear a presidential candidate or a congressperson who isn’t voting his way, Reginald has me beat. No doubt about that. When it comes to the hottest bloggers, people with millions of readers, on the other hand... that’s the arena where I win, and it’s the arena where this feud is going to play out.

“You sure about this?” my contact, Jeffrey Shipton, asks me nervously. “I… don’t want to get into trouble with your dad, man. He’s bad news for a guy like me.”

“Don’t mention his name,” I say. “And when he has his people call you to pull the story, do it—just make sure it’s been shared and spread around first. He gets a briefing about whatever he’s working on, so he’ll find out, but Reginald doesn’t understand how the internet works. It just needs to be out there in people’s feeds. That’s all. You can do that?”

“Yeah man,” Jeffrey assures me, “I can get about five or six thousand shares by people who can get… maybe two o