Page 30 of Confusing Cade
“I have no idea what I am going to do,” she muttered, her voice low, raw, and thick with despair.
“Will you share the details?” I stepped closer.
I needed to understand, to piece this mess together before it swallowed her whole. She didn’t answer right away. She just sat there, head bowed, shoulders hunched. The silence stretched until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I moved to the table and slid into the chair across from her, the cold metal biting through my pants. Leaning forward, I rested my forearms on the glass, myfingers twitching with the need to hold her hand, to reassure her.Anything to make her feel better.Plus, I was in fact-finding mode now, my mind shifting gears, racing to gather intel. Every moment counted, and I wasn’t going to waste any.
“Bella,” I said, sharper this time. “What got leaked? Just the photos?”
She didn’t look up. Her hands stayed clamped over her face, muffling the words that slipped out next. “I am so screwed.”
Her voice cracked on the last syllable, a small, broken sound that hit me square in the chest. Panic radiated off her, a live wire sparking in the space between us.
“Well, yeah, but is your personal information out there too? Your address, phone number, all of it?”
“All of it.”
The words smothered against her palms. She shifted then, her hands sliding down just enough to reveal her face, which was pale and drawn, her eyes wide and glassy with a mix of exhaustion and dread.
“Every photo, every video, every damn live stream I’ve ever done on FanZone,” she added. “And yeah, my personal info too. It’s all out there, floating around for anyone to grab.”
My jaw tightened. “Did you try contacting FanZone tech support? They’ve got to have policies for this kind of thing.” I leaned in closer, my voice firm as I tried to anchor her with the question. Platforms like that lived or died by their user trust; surely, they’d jump on a breach this bad.
“I tried that.” She lifted her head fully now, her hands falling to the table with a dull thud. Her fingers curled into loose fists, nails digging into her palms as she stared past me, at some invisible point on the peeling wall behind my head. “I called their tech support line right after I found out. Waited on hold for twenty minutes listening to some godawful elevator music before I got through. The guy I talked to sounded half asleep andsaid they’d ‘look into it’ and get back to me within twenty-four hours.Twenty-fourhours.”
“Jesus.”
“They didn’t care. They didn’t even pretend to.”
“Bastards,” I muttered.
The word slipped out before I could stop it. But this wasn’t a shock, not really. The internet was woven into every corner of our lives, and yet it could still be this impenetrable, faceless void when you needed it to make sense. Companies like FanZone raked in millions from people like Bella, but when the gears broke down, they left everyone dangling, never accountable. I studied her across the table, the faint tremor in her hands, the way her breath hitched like she was holding back a scream.
Fuck, I’m going to fix this or die trying.
“What else did they say?” I asked. My mind was already spinning through the contacts I could call and favors I could pull. I wasn’t about to let her drown in this misery alone. Not if I could help it.
“Well, the terms and conditions say they are not liable and that I agreed to use the site at my own risk.”
“Probably ninety-five percent of the creators on FanZone don’t read the terms and conditions,” I replied in a low voice.
She scoffed. “Right, I forgot, you don’t think highly of people who use that site.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.” I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms as I considered what she was telling me. “I’m saying it’s not your fault. FanZone probably banks on people just zipping through the paperwork without any idea what they are signing up for.”
“The whole point of being on that site was to gain a following and have control over my images. It was for subscribers only, and there were supposed to be measures in place to make sure that content didn’t show up on other parts of the internet.” Shesounded so sad, so defeated. Her body language said the same things: slumped, heavy shoulders and eyes full of tears, ready to explode. Life had won, and reality had beaten the fight out of her.
“I have an idea,” I finally said. “I think I can help.”
She frowned. “Unless you have a time machine, I don’t think you can.”
“No, I don’t have that, but I keep a team of professionals on standby for this very issue.”
Now Bella laughed.
“A few years ago, I hired a group, RepuMang, based in Geneva, which specializes in reputation management. I pay them a ridiculous amount of money to be on standby for things like this. I bet they can erase the files.”
Bella scrunched her nose and tilted her head, her brows knitting together in a mix of skepticism and unease. “And you’re willing to have them help me?”
“Yep.” I slid my phone from my pants pocket, the weight of it familiar in my hand, and set it face down on the table with a soft clack. “It’s early morning over there, sure, but they’ve got a twenty-four/seven operator on standby. I don’t mind doing this for you. Please, let me help.”
