Intemperance X - the Life We Choose
Copyright© 2026 by Al Steiner
Chapter 11: Money for Nothin’
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 11: Money for Nothin’ - INTEMPERANCE X is the tenth and final novel in the main Intemperance series. As the band headlines its biggest moment yet, decades of music, loyalty, and hard-earned love converge on one unforgettable night—where everything they’ve built is tested in front of the world.
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa Consensual BiSexual Fiction
Los Angeles, California
January 24, 2005
It was Monday morning, and the American Watcher offices had the air of a funeral parlor—no flowers, no tears, just the bitter stench of anger.
Stanley Veneer stormed into the fifteenth-floor conference room at eight sharp, still running on two hours of sleep and the taste of Scotch. Every head turned, then dropped again to laptops and printouts. Nobody wanted to meet his eye.
Valerie Sharp sat at the far end, posture immaculate, a legal pad open in front of her. Beside her was Richard Molloy, the Watcher’s in-house counsel, rimless glasses perched on his nose, expression unreadable. Two department heads—news features and celebrity coverage—occupied the middle seats, looking like schoolboys outside the principal’s office.
Paul Peterson wasn’t there. He was scheduled for eight-thirty, which meant nine if they were lucky. Veneer had already made a mental note to flay him alive when he arrived.
“Every fucking paper,” he barked, slamming a copy of the Los Angeles Times down on the table. “Every one. Not just the goddamn Chronicle. The Times, the Post, the Globe, even the Wall Street Journal. You know what that means? The mainstream press—” he spat the word like poison—”the self-righteous bastards who pretend they’re better than us. They smell blood in the water. They hate us almost as much as they hate the Enquirer, and now they’ve got the excuse to drag us behind the boat.”
He shoved the paper toward Valerie. “Read the goddamn headline.”
She read it, lips tight. Kingsley Scandal Collapses: Tabloid Faces Questions of Libel.
“It’s like this everywhere,” Veneer snapped. “Every feed, every channel. And the comments sections? Don’t even start me. Three-to-one in favor of the Kingsleys, and the ones who still think Jake is gay can’t even spell. Some shithead on the Chronicle site kept calling them the Kinsleys. Another genius accused him of ‘indigent exposure.’ And my personal favorite? Some dumb bitch who misspelled the word sex.”
He leaned forward, eyes blazing. “You have to be brain-dead to misspell sex.”
“How did she spell it?” Valerie asked, interested.
“S-E-K-S.” He stabbed each letter in the air with his finger. “Can you fuckin’ believe it? How does someone like that even know how to click into the comments section and type?”
A nervous chuckle escaped from one end of the table. Veneer’s head whipped toward the sound until it died in the throat.
“And don’t think I missed the backlash,” he went on, voice rising. “Two women kissing on the front page? Fucking villagers in Utah are ready to storm the Chronicle building with torches and battering rams. Half the country’s frothing at the mouth about ‘degeneracy in the media,’ and ‘advancing the gay agenda.’ But does any of it stick to the Kingsleys? No. It sticks to us. We’re the liars. We’re the slime. We’re the ones who ‘suppressed the truth’ because we didn’t print the picture of those two bimbos kissing.”
Valerie’s lips thinned. She straightened her legal pad, her pen tapping once against the margin. “Public perception we can’t control,” she said evenly. “The damage is done there. What matters now is liability. The Chronicle’s story puts us squarely in the crosshairs of a libel and defamation suit. And with this many outlets echoing it, we’re looking at a jury pool that’s already contaminated.”
“We didn’t libel anyone,” one of the department heads blurted, too quickly. His voice cracked halfway through the sentence. “We just—uh—we just presented the evidence we had in hand.”
Veneer skewered him with a look. “You call that evidence?”
The man flushed crimson, his mouth working soundlessly.
Molloy came in smoothly, his tone calm, his hands folded like a priest’s. “What he means, Stanley, is that we did not deliberately fabricate anything. We didn’t invent scenes or create images. We framed the narrative according to the materials available at the time.”
Everyone in the room knew it was bullshit. They could smell it rolling off him. But Molloy’s job wasn’t to tell the truth; it was to make the lie sound like truth until they could believe it themselves.
“Here’s the real issue,” Molloy continued. “Those photos. If they get admitted as evidence, we’re dead in the water. Kingsley’s lawyers will parade them in front of a jury, seventy-eight frames of hugs and kisses and family bliss. They’re proof we ignored the reality. That’s reckless disregard, that’s malice. It checks every box. If they’re admitted, we lose.”
Valerie’s pen tapped again. “But if we can prove Conners leaked them—prove he retained copies in violation of his contract—then they’re tainted. Ownership remains with the Watcher. He had no right to distribute them. We argue chain of custody, violation of copyright, breach of contract. Any judge worth her robes will disallow them.”
“Disallow them?” one of the department heads echoed, eyes wide with sudden hope.
“Correct,” Molloy said. “They’ll be excluded from the record. Everyone’s already seen them, yes, but in a courtroom those images become inadmissible. Without them, the Chronicle’s case rests almost entirely on testimony. Drew’s testimony, which cannot be verified as long as you, Valerie, and Peterson both keep your traps shut about what he claims he heard you say. Without those pictures, we stand a decent chance.”
Veneer leaned forward, his knuckles whitening on the table. “And without proof he leaked them?”
“Then every single one gets admitted,” Molloy said softly. “And we’re finished.”
The silence stretched. Veneer’s pen thumped once, twice, against the wood. “Our tech dweebs already told me the trail went cold at the library,” he said. “Public terminal, wiped clean, no backtrace.” He snapped his gaze up, eyes hard. “So we dig. We dig under every rock. We find where that little fuck was, who he talked to, how those images walked out of our vault. And if we can’t prove it cleanly, then we discredit him.”
Valerie looked up. “Discredit?”
“A big part of next Friday’s edition,” Veneer growled. “An exposé on Conners. Make him look like the immoral scumbag he is. Show the readers what kind of man we’re dealing with—someone who’d sell his own mother if the price was right. Someone who’d climb cliffs to photograph children in their pajamas. A parasite. A leech. Make him stink so bad even the Chronicle can’t put him on the stand without choking.”
Valerie’s expression didn’t change, but Molloy frowned. “We need caution there. An overt hit piece might play badly with the jury.”
“It won’t be overt,” Veneer snapped. “It’ll be journalism. His history, his methods, his ‘career.’ God knows there’s enough slime in his record to fill two pages.”
One of the department heads cleared his throat timidly. “But to write it, we’d need ... details. Where he’s been. Why he was at the Campus. If he’s still there. Without that, it’s just speculation.”
“Then find them,” Veneer barked. “I don’t care how. I don’t care if we have to shake down his landlord or tail him through the goddamn grocery store. I want a timeline. I want to know when he breathed, where he slept, who he talked to. Pin him down. Make him squirm.”
Molloy adjusted his glasses, his tone mild again. “If we can prove he leaked, we win legally. If we can discredit him, we win strategically. Either way, we need to move now. Because if the Kingsleys file a lawsuit against us, discovery begins immediately. And then the burden shifts to us.”
“Then let’s not shift it,” Veneer snapped. “Let’s bury it.” He turned to Valerie, his eyes like knives. “You coordinate with Molloy on the legal side. I’ll put the tech boys back on it. Maybe the library terminal wasn’t as clean as they think. And as for Conners—” he swept the table with his gaze, daring any of them to look away—”find him. I want him on a goddamn spit before this week is out.”
The door opened at 8:40. Paul Peterson strolled in as if nothing in the world was wrong. He wore jeans and an Intemperance Never Say Never tour sweatshirt, a cardboard Starbucks cup in his hand. A plastic visitor badge was clipped to his chest—he wasn’t family here and only came when invited.
“Morning, everyone,” he said cheerfully, and punctuated it with a burp before sitting down near the door.
Veneer’s eyes locked on him like a rifle scope. “That,” he said, voice hard, “is exactly the problem with you, Peterson. You come waltzing in late, wearing fanboy merch, sipping your latte, while the rest of us are staring down the barrel of a multi-million-dollar lawsuit. And why? Because you recruited a goddamn traitor.”
Peterson blinked at the sudden assault. “Stanley—”
“Don’t Stanley me.” Veneer leaned forward, jabbing a finger in his direction. “Conners was your guy. You vouched for him. You told us he was hungry, dependable. And what does he do? He takes the checks, eats the meals, and pisses in the well. No honor. No gratitude. A Judas with a camera, selling us out while we’re still feeding him.”
Peterson bristled. “I didn’t know he’d do this. I haven’t heard from him in weeks. He’s not answering calls, not replying to texts. The manager at his apartment says he hasn’t been around in at least a week, maybe longer. I don’t know where the hell he is.”
Veneer’s lip curled. “So not only do you bring a cockroach into my house, you can’t even find where it scurried off to.”
Peterson spread his hands. “The photos were his. Every single one. Valerie didn’t shoot them, I didn’t shoot them, nobody else did. Just Drew. If they leaked, he’s the one who leaked them. But he doesn’t have the skill to strip them that clean. No way. He must’ve had help. Some tech-savvy buddy. Someone did the scrub for him.”
Molloy finally spoke, his voice calm, controlled. “Which, if proven, strengthens our position. Unauthorized possession of material. Breach of contract. Copyright violation. And a broken chain of custody. Those photos become inadmissible.”
Peterson leaned back, seizing the lifeline. “Exactly. Without proof he had help, though, it doesn’t stick. But I’m telling you, it wasn’t me and it wasn’t Valerie. It was him.”
Valerie looked up from her pad, her face unreadable. “If the photos are excluded, Kingsley’s case rests on testimony. Testimony can be attacked. Photographs cannot.”
“That’s the point,” Molloy agreed. “Without the images, we stand a fighting chance.”
Veneer’s hand slammed flat against the table, the sound cracking like a whip. “Then find it. I don’t care how. Every rock, every shadow, I want it overturned. I want evidence Conners kept those files. If he so much as burned them to a CD or copied them to a thumb drive, we nail him with it. Otherwise, every goddamn frame walks into court.”
The room went quiet, all eyes on Veneer as he leaned back, seething. “And while legal digs, editorial sharpens the knives. Friday’s issue is a full-blown hit. Two pages on Drew Conners. Show the readers what he really is—an immoral little scumbag who’d sell out his own mother for a buck. A parasite who hides in bushes to photograph children in their pajamas. You want the jury to doubt his credibility? Make him stink.”
Peterson looked down into his cup. “I never thought he’d burn his bridges like this. He was ambitious, yeah, but I didn’t think he’d torch his whole career. I didn’t see it coming.”
Veneer’s eyes bored into him. “Don’t flatter yourself. You weren’t blindsided. You were duped. And now we’re the ones paying for it. Conners thinks he’s clever? Fine. Let’s see how clever he looks when we’ve gutted him in print and tossed the carcass to a jury.”
No one spoke after that. Valerie’s pen moved, Molloy’s glasses caught the light, the department heads looked at their notes. Veneer had the final word.
“We are not going down for this. Conners is. Get to work.”
Meanwhile, at The Campus, Jake pushed through the doors of the rehearsal building just after nine, the morning sun angling off the dormant vineyards outside. The familiar thud of drums and hum of amplifiers. Inside, Nerdly was tuning up, Charlie fiddling with a pedal board, and GM—Owen, forever branded Gash Master—was sitting at the soundboard. Matt stood at center stage with his rehearsal Strat strapped on, already plugged in, already annoyed.
“Well, look who decided to grace us with his fuckin’ presence,” Matt called, picking a harsh chord that echoed off the cinderblock walls. “King Jake, finally crawling in after his morning of ... whatever the fuck it is you do.”
Jake set his coffee cup down and met Matt’s glare evenly. “Morning to you too, Matt.”
Matt shook his head. “Don’t ‘morning’ me. You been ducking out so much lately we’re rehearsing half the time with a fuckin’ karaoke track standing in for you. It’s fuckin’ lame, brother. Just as we’re finding our groove, poof—you’re gone.”
“I hear you,” Jake said, grabbing his white Les Paul off the rack. “But I’m gonna have to duck out again. Ten o’clock.”
Matt’s jaw flexed. “Christ, man. Every time we get rolling, you bail. You know what that does? Every time we’re up here playing along to a recorded vocal and backing guitar because you’re off dealing with some shit about where you get your dick wet, it sets us back. Rehearsing without you isn’t really rehearsing—on more than one fuckin’ level.”
Jake glanced up, his tone even, sympathetic. “I get it. Believe me, I do. But this isn’t about where I get my dick wet. We’re in open combat with the Watcher. A shooting war. And I’m one of the fuckin’ generals.”
Matt gave a short laugh, no humor in it. “That’s some noble shit, sure. But we’ve got four months, Jake. Four months to put together our set and nail the motherfucker down so hard it screams. Every day you’re gone is a day lost.”
“I know,” he said. “I really do. Hopefully I’ll be back by lunch.”
Matt jabbed the air with his pick. “So what is it today, huh? Flying up to fuckin’ San Francisco again?”
Jake shook his head. “Nope. Today’s about confronting the leaker on the security staff.”
That stopped Matt cold. His eyes widened. “Wait. You found the leaker?”
“We did,” Jake said.
“And you didn’t tell me?” Matt’s mouth hung open in mock outrage. “Fuck, man. I woulda done a pocket knife tracheostomy on him myself and then throat-fucked the hole with one of Kim’s strap-ons. The ribbed one. Ribbed for her fuckin’ pleasure.”
Coop groaned and put his face in his hands. “Jesus, Matt.”
Charlie shook his head. “You need therapy, man.”
GM just chuckled like it was the funniest thing he’d heard all week.
Jake sighed, but the corner of his mouth twitched despite himself. “Yeah. That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.”
Matt pointed his pick at him like a knife. “Who is it? Who is the motherfucker? Who’s the ass-sucking mole that smiles to our faces while he’s sticking his dick up our asses in secret—and the only reason we can’t feel it is because his dick is so fuckin’ small?”
Jake gave him a steady look. “If I tell you who it is, do you promise to avoid throat-fucking him until after the dust settles?”
Matt arched an eyebrow. “Depends. Are we firing him?”
Jake nodded. “We are. He’ll be escorted out after the conversation.”
Matt considered it, then gave a curt nod. “If I don’t have to look at his face every day, then yeah, I can promise. I’ll keep my strap-on in the holster until he’s out the door.”
Jake allowed himself a small smile. “Fair enough. It’s Seth.”
That stopped Matt short. He blinked, then let out a low whistle. “No shit? Seth? Man, I didn’t have much dealings with him, but he always seemed cool enough for a rent-a-cop. Didn’t ding my fuckin’ asshole radar at all.”
Jake set his guitar strap across his shoulder. “That’s exactly the problem. He smiled, kept his head down, did his job. Meanwhile, he was feeding the Watcher. Perfect example of why you keep information locked inside the inner circle. The less anyone knows, the less they can leak.”
Nerdly’s sound check dragged them all the way to 9:45. Jake managed to get his Les Paul tuned and its sound dialed in, got his microphone adjusted, but there was no point in trying to lay anything down before the meeting. He set the guitar back in its stand.
“I’ll try hard to be here after lunch,” he told them.
Matt gave him a toothy grin. “Give me a call if any skull-fucking needs to be done.”
Jake chuckled. “Promise I will.”
He left the rehearsal building and strolled across the open ground toward the main complex. The morning was crisp, the vineyard rows dormant and gray. He had just enough time to meet with the players involved before Seth arrived.
Inside the conference room, Steve Masterson was already waiting with Serena. At the far end of the table sat a red-faced, heavyset man in a dark suit that pulled tight across his gut. His name was Dennis Crowder, regional operations manager for Guardian Protective Services. Crowder prided himself on being a kingpin in the private security world—forty-eight years old, ex-police, twenty years in the business. He had built a reputation on running airtight details for clients with deep pockets. The idea that one of his guards had compromised an account of this caliber left him appalled.
When he rose to shake Jake’s hand, the man’s jowls quivered with indignation. “Mr. Kingsley,” he said, voice deep and deliberate. “Let me start by saying how embarrassed I am that this happened under my watch. I’ve been in this game a long time. We protect state senators, local CEOs, the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, and half of the hospitals in central California. I’ve never had a breach of trust like this. Ever. The very idea that one of my guards would betray client confidence—” he broke off, shaking his head, his face darkening.
Jake could read the man’s sincerity. He was pissed. He probably wouldn’t mind throat fucking Seth with a strap on himself.
Jake’s brows lifted slightly, but Steve cut in smoothly. “Mr. Crowder has already been briefed. He has the authority to dismiss Seth on the spot, and that’s exactly what he intends to do.”
Serena nodded. “The setup is ready. Seth’s due here at ten sharp. He thinks it’s a routine supervisors’ meeting. They happen every two months, always at ten, so he won’t be suspicious. The only wrinkle is that we told him this one would involve the account holder, which explains why it’s in the main building.”
Jake pulled out a chair and sat, glancing at the clock. 9:52. “This is going to be quite the talk.”
Steve and Serena both slipped out of their jackets and draped them neatly over the backs of their chairs. The gesture revealed the matte-black grips of their handguns riding in holsters at their hips.
Jake raised his brows. “You’re carrying?”
Serena gave a faint smile. “Both of us have CCW licenses from Heritage County. We don’t generally carry on this kind of assignment, but it helps intimidate the subject during an interview.” She adjusted the drape of her blouse, deliberately leaving the pistol in view. “Besides, we already know how this ends. He’s gone. And I’m not about to rely on his friends in the guard shack to escort him out. We’ll do it ourselves.”
Jake considered that for a beat, then nodded. “That makes sense.”
They all settled around the table—Crowder at the head, Steve and Serena flanking, Jake opposite. The air carried that quiet hum of a room about to turn serious.
At precisely 10:00, there was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Crowder said.
The door opened. Seth stepped inside, a clipboard tucked under one arm. He paused as his eyes took in the gathering: not just Steve and Serena, but Crowder in a suit, and Jake Kingsley himself at the far end of the table. His brow creased, a flicker of unease slipping across his face. This was not how supervisor meetings usually looked.
“Mr. Kingsley,” he blurted, genuinely surprised. “I didn’t realize you’d be part of this.”
Jake inclined his head politely. “Morning, Seth.”
Seth glanced between the faces, then shut the door behind him. The clipboard trembled just slightly in his hand.
Crowder gestured toward an empty chair at the end of the table. “Have a seat, Seth.”
Seth hesitated, frowning. “None of the other shift leaders are here.”
Serena’s voice was calm but firm. “This meeting only pertains to you for the time being. Please sit down.”
After a beat, Seth crossed the room and lowered himself into the chair, setting his clipboard on the table. His posture was stiff, his eyes moving warily from face to face.
Serena folded her hands on the tabletop. “Let me start with introductions. My name is Serena Daley, this is Steve Masterson. We’re security consultants brought in to audit operations at the KVA Audio Recording and Engineering Primary Campus—what everyone calls The Campus. We need to ask you a few questions.”
Seth’s shoulders tightened, his Adam’s apple working. Still, he nodded. “All right.”
Serena went on, her tone steady. “You already know Mr. Kingsley, one of the owners of KVA Records, who is the account holder for this operation. And of course you know Mr. Crowder, your regional operations manager. You’ve met both of them before, correct?”
Seth gave a quick nod, his eyes darting between Jake and Crowder. “That’s right.”
The room held a silence that seemed to grow heavier by the second.
Serena leaned forward slightly, her hands folded neatly on the table. “Let me explain why we’re here, Seth. The story we passed down to the guard staff was that Steve and I were conducting a routine computer security overhaul. That was for cover. The truth is a little different.”
Seth frowned faintly, but kept his eyes on her.
“As you know, the Campus is more than just a pretty property that sits in a vineyard and has a nice fence around it. It’s the primary recording studio and rehearsal venue for all KVA acts. And not just KVA acts. Sometimes outside artists come through—Bigg G, for example. Lots of high profile people come and go here. Jake Kingsley—”
“That’s me,” Jake offered mildly from across the table.
Serena inclined her head, then continued without missing a beat. “The Nerdlys. Matt Tisdale. Celia Valdez-Kingsley. We’ve had Brainwash working here. V-tach. Artists with platinum records, national tours, recognizable faces. This building is their workspace, their office, the place where they make the product that keeps this company alive.”
She paused, letting the words hang. “And just like anyone else, they expect their workplace to be secure. The same way you like to remain secure in your own office when you’re on shift.”
Seth bobbed his head quickly. “Of course. Absolutely. That’s why we’re here. That’s the job.”
Serena’s tone didn’t change, but her eyes fixed on him more firmly. “And yet, it became apparent over time that confidential information—particularly regarding the Kingsley family—was leaking to the media. Details about what happens inside these gates, details no outsider should have known. That isn’t just inconvenient, Seth. It’s a breach of trust. It undermines the confidence the artists place in both the Campus and in Guardian Protective Services.”
Seth shifted in his chair. He swallowed, then forced a nervous little laugh. “That’s terrible. I mean, that really is. If there’s a leak, that’s bad for all of us. I’ll do anything I can to help find whoever’s doing it.”
Serena’s expression didn’t change. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”
Crowder leaned back in his chair, his heavy arms crossed. “Because the people sitting at this table, the people who pay us a whole lot of money to keep them secure, cannot let this go as the cost of doing business.”
The silence in the room deepened, thick enough to make Seth’s eyes flick nervously toward the door before he pulled them back.
Seth gave a quick nod. “That makes total sense.” He hesitated, wetting his lips. “So ... do you have any idea ... you know ... who it is?”
Serena’s eyes stayed fixed on him. “Yes, we do. We have a pretty good idea. In fact, we have a multitude of evidence that strongly suggests you are the leaker.”
Seth jerked back in his chair, feigning shock so poorly it almost looked like parody. “Me? Why would I leak things? I’m the supervisor.”
Jake spoke for the first time since his greeting, his voice calm. “That’s one of the things we’d like to know.”
Seth shook his head rapidly. “You’re mistaken. I don’t know what people told you, but I would never do that.”
Serena didn’t move, her tone still level. “No one told us you leaked anything. You were careful. You kept yourself below the radar until we got involved. Would you like to hear what made us focus on you?”
Seth’s throat bobbed. “Whatever it is, it’s not true.”
“All right,” Serena said evenly. “Here’s the first piece. For the past two years, someone has been accessing the security computer with your credentials. Once a week, without fail, they downloaded the gate access logs to an external drive. That pattern is consistent, documented, and points directly to your login.”
Seth sat up straighter, his voice rising. “Then someone else was using my name. That has to be it. Somebody else logged in as me.”
Serena tilted her head slightly. “We considered that possibility. Which is why we set up additional monitoring. Hidden cameras in the security office.” She let the silence drag for a beat before continuing. “Those cameras recorded you accessing the logs. Recorded you copying them to a thumb drive. Recorded you slipping that drive into your gear bag before you went off shift.”
Her eyes narrowed, though her tone never rose. “Did one of your colleagues fake that too?”
Seth’s mouth opened, then closed again. The silence stretched, broken only by the faint buzz of the overhead lights.
Crowder finally leaned forward, his bulk casting a shadow over the table. “This isn’t a question of maybe, Seth. We know it was you.”
“It wasn’t,” Seth insisted, his voice breaking slightly.
“It was,” Serena returned, flat as a gavel strike. “We have you on video doing it. We have one hundred and twelve separate instances where you logged in from the security office computer and uploaded gate access logs to an external drive.”
“There’s an explanation,” Seth blurted, panic edging his tone.
Serena tilted her head. “Then please explain.”
Seth opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His eyes darted across the table, searching for an angle that wasn’t there. Finally, he shut it again, his lips pressed into a thin line.
Jake had been waiting for this moment. It was the cue they’d established before Seth ever walked into the room. He leaned forward slightly, his voice calm but edged with steel.
“Your attempts to explain the unexplainable are not what concerns us right now, Seth. This is not a court of law, and it is not a police interrogation. This is a meeting between a client—that’s me—and a business—”
“That’s me,” Crowder added, his voice heavy.
“—and the security team.”
“That would be us,” Steve put in quietly, speaking for the first time.
Jake went on. “You have a jury of two here. There is no judge, no defense attorney. I am already convinced of your guilt. I was before you arrived. I was willing to hear an explanation, in case this was some massive misunderstanding, but I don’t believe it was. You leaked information about what happens here. You did it. You’re guilty. And if Mr. Crowder agrees with that assessment...” He let the pause hang heavy. “ ... my understanding is that’s your ass.”
Crowder’s expression didn’t change as he spoke, his voice like a hammer falling. “And I do agree. You are, as of this moment, suspended without pay, pending termination.”
Serena leaned in slightly, her tone crisp. “And you need to understand, Seth, that termination for cause in a position of trust doesn’t just mean you’re out of a job. It means you’re blackballed from the industry. You will never again work in a field where secrecy or access to anything sensitive is part of the job. That’s permanent.”
Her eyes stayed on him. “Mind you, these are things that are going to happen. That’s not what we’re here to discuss.”
Seth licked his lips. “Can I just ... resign right now? Walk away?”
Crowder shook his head slowly. “You can if you want. But it won’t change anything. We will still open an internal investigation. We will still document the reasons you’re being terminated. And we will still list you as terminated for cause. That’s what goes on your record.”
“So, no,” Jake said flatly. “Resigning in lieu of termination is not the answer here. We’re just telling you what you’re facing right here and right now. You’re fired. You’ll never work in this field again. But that’s not all.” He leaned forward, voice low. “I can and will make life very hard for you if you do not cooperate in full with the questions I want to ask you.”