Page 47 of Something to Believe In
He took her hand in his. Mostly for his own support, because she seemed to handle this better than he was at the moment. But seeing the bruise, the visible reminder of what they'd gone through yesterday at the hands of someone he didn't know, didn't want to know, and had no intention of ever knowing, made his stomach twist. She was taking the brunt of a fan obsessed with him.
They strode down the hall toward the kitchen. Mitch sat at the table, staring out the sliding doors to the backyard. He stood when they entered the room. "Good morning, Maddyn."
"Morning." She smiled. "Can I get you coffee or water?"
"No, thank you. But please help yourselves before you sit down."
Maddyn glanced up at him. "I'm good."
She sat across from Mitch. "Me too."
He sat next to Mads and laid his arms on the table.
Mitch pulled out his phone. "Have either of you been on social media this morning?"
He shook his head and then turned to Mads. She shook her head and pulled her phone out of her back pocket.
Mitch held his hand up to stop her. "Hang on, Maddyn. Let me explain."
She stopped looking at her phone but set it on the table to her right. He turned to stare at Mitch, his gut tightened, and his mind was actually running rampant with thoughts of what could have happened now.
Mitch started, “This morning, my team did a social search of both your profiles and the band's. What we found was disturbing. Maddyn, someone hacked into all your accounts overnight. Someone changed your profile picture to an image of you, with the word slut painted across the front of it.”
"Oh, God," she whispered.
"There are pictures of the two of you playing, singing, walking together, and the most disturbing was of the two of you the other night walking on a beach. It's recent. She was watching you."
Anger, red fiery anger, raged through his body. His jaw tightened to the point he could barely speak. "Lacey did this?"
"I believe it's her. We're tracing the IP address from the back end of the band's account. She changed those pictures, too. She's manipulated them to look as though the two of you have been together for a long time. Lying about it. Lying to the band. She's talented in this aspect. She manipulated photos and edited former posts. You've each put up with derogatory insults and vulgar language. What I'd like from both of you is to let me manage your social accounts until this PR firm is in place. I will go in and see if we can grab her email address and change the photos back and pull the derogatory ones down. We're also working with the social companies to get her removed from your accounts. But we need access to do that."
His heart beat so fast it hurt in his chest. Slowly pulling his phone from his back pocket, he swiped the screen and entered his password. Pulling up his social account, he saw the nastiness Mitch had mentioned. He swallowed the rage in his throat and kept scrolling. After a minute, he handed his phone to Mitch. Do what you need to get access to my account."
He looked at Mads. She stared at her phone, still sitting to her right, as if it would explode at any moment. She lifted her eyes to Mitch. "Did you tell Jami?"
"Yes. I called him and Tony this morning. They're aware of this aspect. I didn't tell them about your car accident yesterday, though."
Axel nodded and sat back in his chair. "How do we stop something like this from happening again?"
Mitch shook his head. "As for the socials, we'll monitor them. As I understand it, Tony and Jami have hired Carlene Matthews to be your PR firm. She's under a bit of a test right now, getting people to your gig tonight. But after that, she and her team will monitor your public socials and take care of stuff like this. We don't have front-row access to these social accounts. All we can do is connect with their staff and hope they'll help us. Sadly, this happens a lot, which is why Lacey could hack in so easily."
Maddyn's shaking fingers slid her phone forward toward Mitch. Axel put his arm around her shoulders. He needed to connect with her. They were being publicly persecuted for doing nothing wrong. And Mads was taking the brunt of it. She didn't deserve any of this, and it was basically because of him. Guilt slithered through his body like a snake on the open plain.
Mitch gained access to both of their accounts. "Thanks. I'm heading back to the office to get someone working on this right away. Please call Jami and tell him what happened. Lacey will probably blow it up to be something other than what it is."
Axel stood and walked Mitch to the front door. When he entered the kitchen again, Mads sat staring out the patio doors. She was frightfully calm. No crying.
"Are you ready to call Jami?"
She turned her face up to his. "Yeah."
He sat at the table with her and dialed Jami's number. "Hey. How are you two?"
Axel stared at Mads. "We're processing."
Jami cleared his throat. "I'm sorry this is happening. It's the ugly side of being in the public eye."
Axel squirmed in his chair to get more comfortable. "Jami, there's more than this."
