Page 69 of The Southern Submission

I created the problems they’re now facing, and I plan to help make it right.

I’m deeply humbled, at my lowest, and realizing where I went wrong. It’s with the sincerest heart that I apologize for what I and the Haute List have caused. Not only that, but I apologize to each person I’ve made into entertainment by reporting on their personal, as well as their public, lives. The wordsI’m sorrywill never be enough to express my extreme mortification at what I’ve created and brought to others who never deserved to be thrust into the spotlight the way I allowed. While realizing the errors of my ways is just the first step in righting the wrongs I’ve made, there’s a lot more ahead that I must do to seek forgiveness and begin to redeem myself.

My hope is that you’ll learn from my mistakes and treat each person you encounter as a human, not a story or for your personal entertainment. We’re all just doing our best and trying to get by. If my failings and how I’m seeking to fix them can provide context and guidance, then they weren’t made in vain, despite how painful it is to acknowledge that I was in the wrong and was misguided in my vigilante reporting.

I’ll be leaving this last post up and removing every other in my final act as The Atlanta Haute List. It’s appropriate that my public apology be the only post to grace this site going forward, givenhow loud it must be to even be heard by those who deserve it the most.

No need to click Like or Subscribe now. The Haute gossip is finished for this reticent reporter.

Next, I open my email and start querying my feature on Payton and his work at Olympus to the biggest-name newspapers I’ve collected that may be interested in this story. It’s time I shared who he really is and how his influence has shaped the business world quietly. Hopefully, this will work toward clearing his name and raising Olympus International back to the venerable business it should be seen as. I’ve done enough with my writing to bring them down. They deserve to have my words finally build them up.

Forty-one

Payton

Istraighten the cuffs of my hand-cut suit as I enter Ambrosia and Nectar in Manhattan. My purposeful strides take me past the host, who nods at me in greeting, and toward a private room I’ve reserved for the evening. A special guest is waiting for me, thanks to a few calls to connected associates here in New York. I pull the door closed behind me and know we won’t be interrupted. There’s no beverage service needed at this high-class cocktail lounge tonight.

“About time you arrived,” Octavius Rex, Hayes’s former best friend and our begrudging business partner, greets me from his spot leaning against the arm of a cognac-colored club chair.

“I had to make a few arrangements. Forgivemy tardiness, Rex.” I look over his shoulder at the man gagged and tied to the chair. “Seems you managed to secure our guest without issue.”

Rex is just as huge as Hayes and equally scary. They went to college together before Olympus bought out Rex’s family business and drove a wedge between them. Now Rex is our inside man to a group of businessmen who’ve had it out for Olympus, thanks to a fortuitous partnership in which he helped save our company from ruin and asked for our help getting away from the group of shitty humans in return.

“This idiot narcissist actually believed he was invited here to celebrate histechnological accomplishments. He strutted in preening like a fucking peacock and wasn’t prepared for an uppercut to the stomach and to be choked out in record time. I’m actually kind of mad he didn’t put up a better fight. I was itching for something physically demanding to take my mind off a few things. Now I’ll have to hit the ring when I leave.”

I walk over to Archer Donovan while he tracks me with narrowed eyes. He’s scared out of his mind but pissed all the same. I squat in front of his chair and he squirms like a worm under the brutal sun. I pull the gag down from his mouth, chuckling as strings of drool drop down his chin and he takes a ragged breath.

“Hello, you piece of human garbage. Miss me?”

“Your fucking life is over, Olsen. You can’t get away with kidnapping and holding me like this. My lawyer—”

I forcefully stuff the gag back in his mouth and punch him for good measure. Try talking shit around a gag with a swollen lip, motherfucker. I promised to punch him in the mouth the next time I saw him for what he wrote about Ainsley, anyway. I’m not normally the one doling out beatdowns—that falls within Hayes’s realm of expertise—but this called for a personal touch, given the trouble Archer has caused both mycompany and my woman.

“Shut the fuck up, you Brooks-Brothers-looking microdick motherfucker. I’m not here to listen to you run your mouth. You’ve had plenty of time to do that. You’re here to listen to me now. Nod if you understand.”

Archer glares at me, blood dripping from his nose and soaking into the gag. He refuses to comply. I sigh as I stand, pull my leg up, and kick one of his hands hard enough I feel a sickening crunch under my leather brogues. Finger bones are quite fragile. I probably broke a few. He won’t be writing code or hacking into websites anytime soon. He screams behind his gag and makes a pathetic whimpering as his eyes fill with tears. This is quite cathartic, actually. Maybe if I’d fought some of my bullies in high school, I wouldn’t have needed to hack into their digital lives to fuck with them that way.

Nah, who am I kidding? I’m a lover, not a fighter, but I’m willing to defend my love when necessary, and he’s put his hands on Ainsley more than once while fucking with her life.

“I told you not to come near Ainsley again,” I say, my voice low and threatening. “Coming for her virtually was included, you delinquent coward. Remember what I said I’d do to you if you targeted her again?”

Archer blubbers, bloody snot bubbling from his nose as he breathes heavily, fear in his eyes.

“Looks like you do, but apparently, you didn’t think I was serious. Let’s refresh your memory.” I take one of the fingers of his non-broken hand that is tied to the chair and pull it up as he fights against my grip. “I told you if you harassed my girl, I’d make your life a living nightmare.” I crank his finger back quickly, dislocating it, and he wails. I take another finger. “If you came for her, I’d end it.” I yank this finger in a different direction until it pops. “You’re not so smart. Notonly have you harassed her, you’ve come for her livelihood, her integrity, and her dignity.” Archer screams behind his gag as I bring my fist down on the dislocated fingers. I’m not worried about anyone hearing him. The music in the cocktail lounge outside is loud enough to cover anything in here.

“He’s a dumb motherfucker,” Rex says from where he’s leaning against the wall, observing my lethal calm and the punishment I’m dishing out. “But I have to know just how far you’re taking this, so if we need a cleaner, I can get them on the phone and here when we need them.” This is why I brought Rex in. He’s connected to all the right people and wouldn’t bat an eye at what I had planned.

I nod and look back at Archer, his eyes bloodshot and wide as he takes me in, his chest pumping as he hyperventilates. I’ve seen adrenaline spikes brought on by pain and fear plenty of times in my play with subs, and this pathetic little boy is experiencing the rougher side instead of the fun of it. He won’t be getting any pleasure from this torment. While I’m not a sadist, I’m enjoying this a bit too much after the hell he’s put Ainsley through.

“I think one more finger will do it. He won’t be able to code or break into websites for a very long time after this. He should learn his lesson about not messing with my woman, my family, my business, or me. Right, asswipe?” I ask, turning back to him and taking his thumb. It trembles in my grip.

He nods violently and whines, the sound so unbecoming and sad, I almost stop. But then I remember his hand around Ainsley’s neck, shaking her outside the Gazette office, and red masks my vision. I don’t even remember breaking that finger, but his cries tell me it was successful.

“See how good you feel about yourself when you need someone else to wipe your ass for the next few months,” Itell him, ruffling his sweaty, limp blond hair. I pull the gag out of his mouth and he breathes in gulping breaths while I fish my phone out of my pocket. “Now I’ve fucked with your livelihood by breaking your hands and fingers, so we’re even when it comes to you messing with Ainsley’s work. You’re not going to say shit about how it happened or this little chat we’re having because I have you cornered.”

I turn my phone around so he can see the video of him shaking Ainsley that I pulled from a stoplight camera. I swipe through to another video that has his eyes widening even more. The Trident security program I installed on The Atlanta Haute List site allows me to access the computer of anyone who tries to break into the site. Archer made several attempts to get the site back, failing at each. It allowed me a chance to look around his computer, take screen recordings, and use his own camera to find out what he’s been up to. He’s been busy. Blackmail photos and videos, financial extortion, emails from the who’s who of the criminal underworld securing his hacking services and brokering deals for the work he’d do to get them what they wanted. Even an accounting of his monetary exchanges made through the dark web. Nothing’s too difficult for me to find when I set my mind to it, and damn if Archer didn’t give me plenty of motivation.

“How’d you get that?” Archer asks, his voice thick with pain and the swelling in his nose. “There’s no way you should have any of that.”

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