by Alexis Angel
And if Magnus loses the Equinox deal… Well, I don’t even want to think about it. If the city manages to crush that deal, then logic follows that every deal Magnus’ company has with the city is at risk. If the Equinox deal goes up in flames, Magnus’ company is going to turn into a large pile of ashes.
I can’t let that happen. I have no idea what a journalist just out of college (and out of a job at that) can do to help a business tycoon currently fighting a vicious mayor, but there has to be something. Right? Please, please, give me some encouragement, because this picture is a pretty bleak one.
I’ve talked with Magnus and Joyce about holding a press conference and denying the Daily Journal's’ article, but Joyce advised me against it. The scandal is still fresh on people’s mind, and having me talk to the public would be like pouring gasoline on top of a raging fire. Besides, Magnus forbade me from doing it; he told me it was because a press conference like the one I had in mind would do nothing for his company, but I know that it was because he doesn’t want to see me being ripped to shreds by the press.
This is chaos. Absolute chaos. And it all happened because I was a naive girl who believed I could serve justice to a man I didn’t even know. Look where that got me, huh? The man I love is facing financial ruin, and… and then there’s the child I’m carrying inside my belly.
I lay one hand on top of my belly, absent-mindedly caressing my still unnoticeable lump, and that’s when I notice a shadow falling over me.
“How many weeks are you?” I hear a feminine voice say, and I turn my head around to see a woman I’ve never met before. She isn’t much older than me, not yet in her thirties, and there’s an easy-going aura around her, almost as if she had reached the pinnacle of happiness. She’s wearing an expensive dress, one that compliments the curves of her body, and she looks like she stepped out from a cover magazine. Which, of course, makes a lot of sense; I’ve already seen her face in the cover of a magazine.
“Natalie Trask…!” I whisper in disbelief, my jaw hanging open, and she just smiles and sits across the table.
“How many weeks?” she asks me again, gently smiling and waving at my belly.
“How did you…?”
“I’ve been where you are. Penny, isn’t it? And you have that ‘distressed mother’ look, you know?”
I look at her, having no idea what to say, and let my hand fall from my belly. This is Natalie Trask, and I don’t really have nice things to say about anyone with the Trask name. Did Laurel send her? And how did she even find me here?
“Don’t worry, Penny, I have nothing to do with Laurel. She might be my husband’s sister, but that doesn’t mean I get along with her. In fact, you might say we butt heads more often than not,” she says, and I can’t help but trust her. She was involved in a pretty big scandal of her own two years ago, where she got involved with Parker Trask, the mayor at the time. They plunged the city into chaos, but she stood by the man she loved right until the very end.
“I’m sorry, I… I don’t understand,” I finally manage to say, remembering not to let my mouth hang open.
“Well, don’t hate me, but I asked Parker for some help and he pulled a few strings so that I could find you here,” she says, and my mouth hangs open once more. Why would Natalie Trask be looking for me? “Look, I know my sister-in-law, and I’ve been in your shoes before. I can’t simply stand aside and let Laurel have her way. Besides, you remind me of myself, Penny.”
“Me?” I ask her, pointing at myself stupidly. Natalie Trask is one of those women who seems to have been born to rule the world, a take-no-shit-from-anyone attitude etched deep in their DNA, and I can’t help but be surprised by the fact that she’s comparing herself to me. Hell, we’re talking about the woman who founded a sex toy company in her apartment and turned it into a million-dollar operation, and all that while dating the New York City mayor… which, turns out, was her own stepfather. Rings a bell?
It’s kinda weird to think about, in a way. I mean, this is the woman who developed the vibrator bullet I used with Magnus on our little ride through Manhattan.
“You,” she whispers, reaching across the table and grabbing my hand. “You remind me of myself, and I really wish I could help you. But I can’t pull Parker into this without plunging the city into chaos again, and no one wants that. But I can give you some advice.”
“Please do.” I sit up straight in my chair, looking into her eyes as I make sure I listen attentively to whatever she’s going to tell me.
“Have you ever used any of my toys?” she asks me slyly, and I feel warm blood rushing to my face. “I see you did, good,” she continues, my embarrassment the only answer she needs. “Maybe you don’t know it, but my vibrator bullets do more than just vibrate.”
“What do they do?”
“Well, they do something that might help you out. You see, Penny, sometimes the truth is like a rotten tooth… It just lies there, uselessly, and you have to pull it out and bring it into the light, even if sometimes you have to use unsavory methods.” Then, grinning wickedly at me, she pauses for a few seconds for dramatic effect. “My bullet can help with that.”
I look at her and her eyes sparkle.
“It can record conversations,” Natalie says with a smile.
I lean forward in my chair, suddenly feeling as if I’m conspiring with a woman I’ve known forever.
“Tell me what to do.”
29
The New York Daily Journal
Reap What You Sow
Gossip Central on Page Eight. From the Desk of Vicky Durner - All the gossip you never even knew you needed to know!
Good morning Gotham.
One week.
That's what my spies are telling me is the length of time that the city's #1 Douchebag Magnus Davion has until his Board of Directors holds a session to evaluate whether he's fit to lead his company.
I know it sounds like a big step and our hearts may go out to Magnus, but it's important to realize that we should only feel compassion for someone who deserves it.
We really should not feel any sort of empathy for Mr. Davion—a serial breaker of hearts who has left a trail of women broken and battered in his wake. While there are no claims that he has ever raised a hand against them, I'm sure the emotional turmoil that he has caused women is plenty. We all know that the pen name Vicky Durner is used for the gossip columnist for Page Eight of the New York Daily Journal, but there are other reporters who write these articles. But one thing is for certain. Every single person involved with Gossip Central on Page Eight is unified in their complete and utter disdain for Magnus Davion.
In fact, the whole scandal involving his stepdaughter, once the initial loathing wears off, isn't surprising.
Leave it to Magnus Davion to only look at women as sex objects. Nothing more.
Rather than cherish and celebrate his stepdaughter, what does he do instead?
He treats her like he's treated every single woman in his life.
A vehicle for satisfying his sexual desires.
There's a lot to be said for the woman, Penny Wright, herself in these matters. I mean, we at the Gossip Desk understand that she used to work for us and that she's the daughter of the Editor-In-Chief, but who really sleeps with their stepfather? Who even tries to tempt someone into doing that?
Was there two-directional flirting? Because if so, her feet deserve to be held closely to the fire as well.
There's a word for people like her. Before it was not accepted to use it to describe women, we would use the following words.
Slut.
Harlot.
Trollop.
Tramp.
Those are all adequate descriptions for a woman with the character and temperament to not only receive and welcome advances from her stepfather, but to actively seduce him as well.
It is our sincere hope that the Equinox Tower project be pulled from Davion Development, and that Magnus Davion be exiled from the company he founded. Such a large and
powerful company does not belong in the hands of that man.
And who exactly is that man?
An uncouth and barbaric man-child on his best of days.
And a dangerous and scheming sexual predator who has the forked tongue to seduce an entire city on his worst of days.
New York City is much better off without Magnus Davion.
It's time the rest of us woke up to that reality. This man is nothing but the Devil himself.
30
Penny
I never thought I'd be here. Standing outside the Editor-In-Chief's office. After I'd been let go so unceremoniously.
But there's no other option. There's no other choice in the matter.
Magnus doesn't know that I'm here. I haven't told him. It's what I need to do. For Magnus.
For our baby.
The door opens and an Assistant Editor that I don't recognize walks out. Mom's been replacing a lot of the people in the top spots lately. But now it makes sense.
What she's doing is pure and simple character assassination. And a lot of old hands at the Daily Journal wouldn't have stood for it. They'd have either refused to do what she was asking and been fired, or resigned.
They certainly wouldn't be crawling back here for a desperate attempt at mercy.
At least that's what it seems like to me—a desperate attempt—as I walk into Mom's office.
No, she wasn't expecting me, okay. That's why she looks surprised. I didn't call ahead or do anything.
"I need to talk to you, Mother," I tell her.
She's silent. She wasn't expecting this.
Good. Maybe I have the element of surprise. Maybe I can penetrate through that shell.
"I need to tell you something," I say trying to draw strength from the silence.
But it's like Mom reads my thoughts, you know?
Because she breaks that silence with a simple, "What is it?"
I take a sigh. And I say the words that I'd never thought I'd have to utter.
"I'm sorry, mother," I say. Now she really is surprised and her eyes go wide. "I should've never crossed you in the first place."
Mom looks at me in silence.
"I should've done what you said when you said to do it, but I didn't," I tell her. "I should've realized the kind of monster that Magnus was."
"That Magnus is," my mother says, bringing me back to the present tense. "He hasn't changed."
I wince. This feels like a betrayal. Maybe if I say nothing then Mother will take my silence as consent.
"But I don't know why you say such a thing, baby girl," Mom says in a sing-song voice as she stands up from her desk and walks around it. "Magnus is by all definitions, a perfect man."
My eyes flash and I look to her. How can she say such things?
I watch her as she walks to the door to her office and closes it.
"He's handsome. He's kind. Gentle. With a generous and compassionate soul. He's fun. Distracting. Engaging. Lively. Irreverent, but when he falls in love with you, well, you better be holding onto something," she says, looking straight at me. "Am I right?"
She's expecting an answer. But I can't answer. I came to beg for forgiveness and save Magnus. He would be enraged if he knew I was here.
But I can't let that stop me.
"I'm waiting for an answer, girl," Mom asks, harshly. "He's very easy to fall in love with, yes?"
I sigh.
I can't lie about this.
I nod my head. "Yes," I say. "He is very easy to fall in love with."
Mom smiles.
"I know," she says. "That was the plan all along."
I look to her. She has more surprises for me than I did for her.
"Oh, Magnus was the perfect man for any woman," Mom says out loud, walking to the window to her office overlooking the hustle and bustle of Times Square. "But I never liked men. I never liked the man who was your father. I only married Magnus for his wealth and connections. I honestly don't know why he stayed with me."
And then the part that shocks me the most.
"We never even consummated the marriage. He never once stuck that fabulous cock that he must be pleasing you with inside of me. I never let him," Mom says.
That can't be.
Mom looks at me and I notice something for the first time.
A complete lack of emotion. A lack of morals. Or compassion.
It’s like staring into a soulless pit of darkness.
“Yes, girl, I lied to you the entire time. Magnus never once cheated on me. But you can figure that out by now that something didn’t add up, I’m betting,” she says to me with a cruel smile. “He was a fool to stay with me as long as he did once we married.”
"But why did he marry me?" Mom asks, turning around. "Magnus, for all his good qualities is a simple soul. He fell in love with me."
My heart catches.
"Well at least he thought it was love. It was unrequited lust. He was young and I was scheming. I got him to marry me and I kept him at bay. We were only married for a very short time, as you remember, but he was kind and patient. He didn't want to rush me into the first time we had sex. What he didn't realize was that I was sleeping with Laurel every day and every night," Mom says, telling me with a smile. "He'd leave for the day and Laurel would come over at lunch and we would fuck in our bed. Maybe I wouldn't have done that if I liked men, but I was always about the women."
I sigh deeply. It's frustrating and sad.
But also very, very scared.
This person who is in front of me is finally the true nature of my mother.
There was always flashes of her cold, calculating visage that’s on display for me now. Times that it came out only to be shrouded again as she put on her facade.
But this is the most dangerous form of psychopath. She knows exactly what she’s doing. She has no compunction against right or wrong. She knows on a rational level that she’s in the wrong - but it doesn’t affect her at all.
Perhaps the most dangerous form of evil ever. I need to get the hell out of here.
"At first, Magnus tried to work through it,” Mom recollects to herself as well as me. “He tried to save what he didn't realize was a sham of a marriage," Mom continues. "I think he liked the idea of a family, Penny."
Who wouldn't?
Right, don't answer that.
"But eventually he saw the light and realized he had to get rid of me. Laurel and I always knew it was a gamble and that we couldn't ensnare Magnus forever, but we were surprised by how cleanly and without emotion he was able to move past me," Mom replies. "And how neatly he removed me from the money that Laurel and I were expecting from the divorce settlement."
So that was it. Could this whole thing come down to something so tawdry and evil as trying to siphon money through a divorce?
"I mean, Laurel was supposed to run for Governor with that money," Mom explains matter-of-factly, as if this justifies her behavior.
"But Magnus didn't want to play ball, so we have to destroy him instead," Mom finishes. Then she adds as an aside, "It's too bad, really. But that's the way the world works."
How can one woman be so fucking evil?
Don't answer that. You won't be able to, hun. This is literally the most bored I've ever seen my mother, you know?
Like she doesn't care that she's about to destroy this man's life.
That she's about to destroy the life of my baby by taking away his father;
I can't let that happen.
I can't let this slide.
"You won't get away with this," I say quietly.
Mom looks at me and her eyes flash with an evil glint. "Not so sad that you crossed me now, are you, Penny dear?" she asks me.
"You think you're going to stop me?" she asks taking a step closer.
"I can't let you destroy an innocent man's life just because he had the misfortune to get duped by you, Mom," I say with gritted teeth. "I'll tell everyone what you just told me."
"And who do you think will belie
ve you?" Mom asks. "Who do you think will believe an out of work journalist who is also a petulant child over her mother who is an Editor-In-Chief of the largest newspaper in the country and the mayor of New York City?"
But she forgets.
I have the bullet that Natalie invented.
The one with the recorder. I'm wearing it.
I smile.
I mean, you didn't expect such deviousness from me, did you? Well, when you're playing the stakes that I'm playing for, you gotta up your game. Or something like that.
Mom's eyes travel down my body and she takes a step closer.
"Or do you think I don't know that you're wearing a little bullet in your cooch?" she asks me.
What.
The.
Fuck.
I can't move. Mom flashes a smile.
"You think you're recording this?" she asks me. "You don't know that my computer flashed the moment you walked in a picture that showed where you had a recording device? That I turned on a white noise machine. That all you recorded is garbage noise?"
I'm shaking.
I don't know what to say.
I feel an utter sense of defeat. My last card.
“I knew you'd try something like this ever since you met that bitch Natalie,” Mom continues on.
Oh my God. What is going on here?
Is she following me?
"Ever since you left work here I've had you followed, in case you were wondering," Mom confirms for me. "You think you're clever, girl, you have no idea how out of your league you are."
I'm shaking. She's defeated me. Completely.
"Now go, and get out of my sight before I decide to destroy you as well."
I want to leave, but my knees don't move.
"Go and get the fuck out of my office, daughter," she says with the grating and harsh voice of a monster.
