Picking up my coffee, I walked over to my windows to watch the sun fall over the city.
In the distance, the lone rooftop light on The Holden flickered on, and my chest ached at the memory of spending a few nights sleeping near its glow.
I made a mental note to send the mayor another suck-up fruit basket, and then an image of Chloe’s tempting mouth crossed my mind.
Unable to resist thinking about her, I pulled out my phone.
How are your plans for me going?
Chloe Sterling
I’m doing them well, Mr. Hudson.
On a scale of 1–10?
2
How the hell is that “very well”?
It was autocorrect.
I meant “I’m in Hell.”
You should be out of it by tomorrow evening.
And if I’m not?
I would hate for you to fuck around and find out…
THE AGENT
CHLOE
Two a.m.
There was no point in attempting to get a single wink of sleep with an impossible deadline hanging over my head.
I’d asked my new team to pull every headline, magazine article, and mainstream press piece that had been printed about Mr. Hudson over the past two years, and we were still drowning in hopelessness.
When I did this same task for my hometown mayor, the negatives were washed out by his endless good deeds, and I was able to find a passage to success from there.
For Dante Hudson? The river was flooded with miles of tales about his ruthlessness, and the only positives were scraps of sarcasm.
Groaning, I pasted “Billionaire Dante Hudson Blocks View of Pier with New Yacht” to the negative wall and headed to the break room.
Above the coffee machine hung a picture of Mr. Hudson shaking hands with another executive on a stage.
In small print, the words read: “Soulless Billionaire Shuts Down Another Apartment to Build a Complex for the Mega-Rich.”
I should just quit this job now…
As I stirred a shot of espresso into my cup, my new phone rang.
“This is Chloe Sterling speaking,” I answered. “If this is about the headlines, don’t tell me.”
“I don’t appreciate all the lies thatThe New York Postpublished about me at midnight.” Mr. Hudson’s deep voice caught me off guard. “This is unacceptable.”
“Okay…” I glanced at my screen, seeing a different number for him. “What does the new article say?”