Page 35 of Brutal Secrets

If the Night Governor figures out who they are, he’ll use them against me. Keeping everyone safe seems nearly impossible, but I have no choice. If Sasha won’t help, I’ll take matters into my own hands, but I pray to god he’ll come through for me like he has in the past.

Chapter Twenty-Two

How much makeup is just enough? I look at my face in the mirror, painting over the shadows that ring my eyes after the last twenty-four hours, and consider the issue carefully as I wave the hairbrush at Nona.

I could have asked a stylist to come to the house before the meeting with the lawyers, but I wanted the comfort of someone familiar.

The Mary Poppins clone in the mirror looks back at me wearily. Long dark skirt. High-necked blouse, with Nona bent over my head as she pins the braids to the crown of my head. I look like a Victorian schoolmarm.

Nona presses a kiss to the braids, and I touch up my lipstick. Wear a full face of makeup, but make sure people can still imagine that you woke up like this. Be a good mother, but make sure you look like you never had sex. Oh, and don’t forget, dress like a hooker if you want to sell records.

Even if this is just an initial meeting between my lawyers and Jimmy’s, I need to play it safe and look like a good girl. But balancing those conflicting signals gets exhausting.

“I’m so tired.” I wave the makeup brush at Nona, whose smiling eyes twinkle back at me in the mirror. She pins in the last hairpin and pats my head.

“Men,” she says, and shrugs. The word stands alone, but I know what she’s getting at. Jimmy, the judge, the press, the executives at the record label, and now Vadim. Stevie is the only one in my corner, and he’s too weak to defend me.

A final swipe of blush on the apples of my cheeks, and my war paint is on. I resolve to remain numb as I pick up the briefcase and steel myself. My PA has printed out the press coverage. I flick through the printouts. The headlines could be summarized in one line: Poor Jimmy.

Poor Jimmy loved me like a little sister (pity his siblings if this is how he showed his love).

Poor Jimmy worked so hard to drag me out of the gutter, and this is the thanks he got.

Poor Jimmy didn’t have a public profile until I named him as an abuser.

I wrote those damn hits. I sang the songs. I made two of his three albums, and I made him a lot of money. Now I’m taking back my life, my words, and my power. He won’t get another cent from me, and he’ll pay for what he did so that he can’t do it to anyone else.

Breathing in deeply, I exit the apartment and head to the car waiting for me outside. After a short drive, I walk up the steps to meet Maxine Reinhart, my defense. I might be dressed like a nun, but Maxine wears towering heels and a suit the color of blood. She’s slashed her lips in the same color. She grins, showing teeth she’s never bothered to get straightened, and holds out her arm for me to take.

“Ready to do battle?” She slides her arm through mine and looks down at me, and I nod at my outfit.

“This is my armor.” I smooth a hand down the high-necked blouse and try to force a smile, but my lips won’t follow instructions. I pull my shoulders up and march in next to Maxine.

Jimmy is still the same slimy little fucker. He gives me a grin from across the room. I remember his sour breath and his hands groping my breasts and pulling off my underwear. I remember being pregnant with another man’s baby when he bent me over the sound mixer and pushed inside me. I was dry and it hurt, but I could feel my body warming up to let him in. Protecting me. Deluding him. I can still feel the edge of the table digging into my hip bones and the knobs of the mixers pushed against my swollen breasts as he slammed into me from behind.

And that voice. “You love it. Yeah, you love it.”

It took years of therapy and thousands of dollars to unspool the tight web of shame that incident left. And now they’re saying I have to make another album with him and hand him my therapist’s notes.

Fuck that. Fuck him.

I’ll sell everything and never record a note rather than give him another cent. And if I have to burn his business to the ground to be free, then I’ll do that as well.

I glare at him and shake my head. I won’t cower and I won’t give him one smile that he can use against me. I’m not a teenager anymore, and he needs to know we are enemies.

I look at Jimmy’s lawyers with a cold smile. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

My eyes drift to the taller of the two lawyers. He’s a good old frat boy. I bet he went to the same kind of college and pledged the same kind of fraternity. Alpha Asshole Gamma Douchebag. If Jimmy ever grows up, he’ll look just like the man in front of me—a football player run to fat. Why is there no one in the legal profession who graduated from the school of hard knocks with me? Figures.

Mr. Douchebag Frat Boy gives me a smile and brandishes a piece of paper. “We are here to consider the case of Jimmy Ullrich versus Kesera Mariko Smith. Mr. Ullrich is suing Miss Smith for libel and destruction of professional reputation. Before we take more of everyone’s time, I would like to give both parties an opportunity to consider mediation and remind Miss Smith that commercial life would cease to function properly if we had to renegotiate all contracts based on allegations of sexual assault.”

There’s a snort from my left, and Maxine leans forward on the attack. “Really, Marcus. We’ve had the Me Too movement, and the legal system is still standing. In fact, your client appears to be making very good use of it.”

Jimmy smirks at me like he’s holding all the cards, but he’s unaware I’m meeting with some of his other artists over the next month. I can’t be the only one.

Jabbing her pen toward Jimmy, Maxine grins, baring her slightly crooked teeth. “And I would like to remind the plaintiff that my client would be very happy to produce another album for the Yamamoto Label as long as she no longer has to work personally with Mr. Ullrich. This lawsuit is entirely frivolous.”

Douchebag frat boy’s colleague, who is a little more sharply dressed than the other man, leans back in his chair with a performative sigh. “Mr. Ullrich has brought this case against the defendant because her refusal to work with him personally, and her subsequent public allegations, have resulted in trial by the court of public opinion. We are here in court today to stand for the rule of law.” He sits down with a smug expression on his face.

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