Intemperance X - the Life We Choose
Copyright© 2026 by Al Steiner
Chapter 22: Caught in a Trap
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 22: Caught in a Trap - 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
Whiteman Airport, Los Angeles
March 2, 2005
“That’s what we’re flying in?” Barb asked, squinting at the sleek red-and-white airplane parked on the ramp. “It looks like somebody built it backward on purpose—like it was designed by a cartoonist who worked on The Jetsons instead of an engineer.”
Jake grinned beside her. “It’s an Avanti. Italian design. The engines face the rear on purpose—pusher props. The little wings up front are canards; they do the trimming so the tail doesn’t have to work so hard. It’s almost as fast as most business jets and burns half the fuel.”
Barb folded her arms. “Backward propellers, wings on the nose, and a tail stuck on just to make it look less stupid. Yeah, I can see how that would inspire confidence.”
“It inspires speed,” Jake said. “Four hundred knots of groundspeed in level cruise. Pressurized cabin. Whisper-quiet interior. Even a toilet.”
Barb snorted. “If it’s whisper-quiet, it’s because everyone on board’s too scared to scream.”
Jake laughed. “Relax. It’s a beauty—rock solid, redundant systems, certified for known icing. The only dangerous thing about it is the pilot’s ego.”
“That’s the part I’m worried about,” Barb said. She eyed the swept fuselage, the shining spinner cones behind the wings, and the sharp little canards jutting from the nose like cat whiskers. “I feel like it’s watching me.”
Jake motioned toward the steps. “Come on, Commander Macready. Time to board the future.”
“Commander now, huh?” she said. “Does that come with hazard pay?”
“Not yet,” Jake said. “But this mission’s worth the risk.”
Barb sighed, adjusting her purse strap. “You keep saying that like I volunteered. I could be at my desk right now threatening to put media fucksticks on the sex-offender registry. Instead, I’m playing secret agent in a flying geometry experiment.”
Jake grinned. “Phones are covered?”
“Forwarded to voicemail,” she said proudly. “My greeting says, If you’re a reporter, a lawyer, or a jackass from the American Watcher, leave your name, number, and your least favorite body part. I’ll get back to you when I’m done saving civilization.”
It was the first time since being hired that Barb Macready had not been at her desk during business hours. The front desk sat dark, the phones rerouted, the studio doors locked. Jake had called it a special assignment. Barb preferred to think of it as a crusade—an in-person contribution to the righteous downfall of The American Watcher.
The Avanti’s first leg would take her north to San Luis Obispo, where they’d pick up the rest of the crew on this most auspicious run. From there, Hayward Airport just south of San Francisco and Oakland. They had a meeting with Jen Collins of The Chronicle.
It was time to spring shut the trap that had been laid for the Watcher.
Inside, the cabin was dim and quiet—the Avanti had no APU, so the lights were out until the engines came alive. The smell of leather and cold metal filled the space. Jake tossed his flight bag into one of the rear seats and strapped it down. He then ducked through the open cockpit divider and reached for the master switch.
“Exterior preflight is done,” he said. “All it needs now are two warm turbines and a sense of purpose.”
Barb peered around the narrow cabin. “So where do I sit—the chair with all the buttons, or the one that just looks expensive?”
“Up front,” Jake said, nodding toward the right seat. “Copilot position’s all yours if you want it.”
“I won’t have to do any pilot shit, will I?”
“Only if I have a heart attack or a brain bleed in flight and become incapacitated. At that point, your job will be to either steer us into the ocean or away from populated areas so we don’t take anyone else out when we’re smashed and burned.”
Barb considered that a moment, then nodded gravely. “I can do that.”
“Good,” Jake said, grinning. “Teamwork.”
“Plug in if you want to eavesdrop on ATC. You’ll hear every clearance and instruction—but they won’t hear you.”
“Tragic,” she said. “Listening without talking back isn’t my strong suit.” She slipped it on, the earcups sealing over her earrings. “How do I look?”
“Like you should be flying Air Force One,” Jake said.
She snorted. “More like Air Farce One.”
Jake powered up the avionics. Screens flickered to life, flooding the cockpit with cool light. “Okay, before we start, we’ve got one rule in effect. It’s called the sterile cockpit. No nonessential talking until we’re above ten thousand feet.”
Barb squinted at him. “Is that just a clever scheme to shut me up?”
“I swear it’s not,” Jake said. “It’s FAA best practice that I happen to believe in with all my heart and soul.”
“I’ll need a pinky swear on this one.”
Jake hooked his little finger with hers. “I solemnly pinky swear that I’m not bullshitting you.”
“Good,” Barb said. “Wouldn’t want to violate best practice and break a sacred promise.”
Jake turned back to the panel. “Clear prop.” He hit the starter switch. The left engine whined to life, the propeller blurring into a shimmering disk. A moment later, the right one joined in, the cockpit filling with the smooth, balanced hum of twin turbines. Air began to flow from the vents.
He checked the gauges—oil pressure rising, fuel flow steady, torque within limits. “Engines stable,” he said softly. Each starter-generator showed good output, voltage steady across the bus, avionics bright and alive.
“Whiteman Ground,” he said. “Avanti Six-Two-Kilo-Juliet, taxi from the ramp for departure, VFR to San Luis Obispo.”
“Six-Two-Kilo-Juliet, taxi to Runway Three-Zero via Alpha, hold short,” came the reply.
“Taxi to Three-Zero via Alpha, hold short, Six-Two-Kilo-Juliet.”
The Avanti began to roll, gliding forward with that deceptive turbine smoothness. Barb gripped the armrest and tried not to look like she was counting seconds.
Halfway to the threshold, Jake brought it to a stop in the run-up area. “Okay,” he said, “now we make sure nothing explodes.”
Barb nodded solemnly. “Always a good plan.”
He set the parking brake and brought both throttles up to twenty-five percent torque. The props bit into the air, rocking the Avanti faintly against the brakes. His eyes moved from gauge to gauge—torque, ITT, oil pressure, fuel flow—all in the green. He pulled one prop lever back a notch, watched the RPM drop, then eased it forward again, repeating the check on the other side. Governors good, response smooth.
“Engines check good,” he said. “Props check. Flight controls—free and correct. Instruments set.”
He released the brake and rolled toward the hold-short line. As they waited for a Cessna 421 to clear the runway, he reached down to the flap lever. “Flaps fifteen. Elevator trim set for takeoff. Rudder trim neutral. Condition levers high idle.”
The tower came on frequency. “Avanti Six-Two-Kilo-Juliet, Whiteman Tower. Runway Three-Zero cleared for takeoff, north departure approved.”
“Cleared for takeoff, Three-Zero, north departure, Six-Two-Kilo-Juliet,” Jake said, pushing the throttles smoothly forward.
The engines rose to a clean, even roar, and the Avanti surged down the runway. Acceleration pressed Barb into her seat.
“Eighty knots,” Jake called. “V1 ... rotate.”
The nose lifted, the wheels left the ground, and the red-over-white Avanti leapt skyward.
Barb gripped the armrests but didn’t scream. Through the window, Los Angeles fell away—the grid of streets shrinking into a glowing mosaic as they climbed into the morning light, following the standard egress before turning northbound on course.
Jake’s hand eased the yoke forward, and the Avanti climbed clean and steady toward San Luis Obispo, banking north through a long, smooth turn that cleared Burbank’s airspace. The Los Angeles basin spread out beneath them in morning haze, sunlight bouncing off rooftops and the long silver lines of freeway.
Jake reached up, pressed one button on the glareshield, and the airplane gave a tiny nudge of pitch. “Autopilot’s on,” he said.
Barb frowned. “We’re not even straight yet. You turned it on already?”
“Yep. From here to about five hundred feet above the ground before touchdown, it’ll do the flying. I just tell it what to do.”
“You mean it lands itself?”
“Mostly. I handle the last half-minute so we don’t wind up on Inside Edition with dramatic music in the background.”
Barb blinked at the altimeter. “We’re at four thousand feet and turning and climbing and shit. You just broke your own fucking sterile cockpit rule.”
Jake didn’t look away from the panel. “Giving you a briefing on the current phase of flight doesn’t violate sterile cockpit. A long tirade about how I just violated sterile cockpit does.”
Barb opened her mouth to argue.
Jake raised one finger, then moved it slowly to his lips. “Shh.”
She glared. “I’m looking this sterile cockpit shit up when we land, and it had better be a thing.”
Jake smiled and said nothing. The hum of the twin turbines filled the silence.
Three quiet minutes later, the altimeter rolled through ten thousand. Jake glanced once at the engine gauges, then spoke. “Okay. Sterile cockpit’s off. You can talk now.”
“Good,” Barb said. “How high are we going?”
“Twelve-five,” Jake said. “Visual flight rules, flight following with ATC. High enough to clear the mountains, low enough that we don’t burn stupid amounts of fuel for a twenty-five-minute hop.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Barb allowed.
He smiled faintly. “Paying for jet fuel drives Jill insane—she’s our accountant. Every time I fill the tanks, she acts like I just set fire to a briefcase full of baby seals clutching tax-free municipals. If Jill had her way, I’d die in a two-bedroom hovel in the cheapest part of the country while my tens of millions sat safely in stocks, bonds, and certificates of deposit.”
Barb chuckled. “Common accountant thinking,” she said. “Money is to be saved, not spent. He who dies with the most unspent money in the bank wins the game.”
Jake nodded. “That’s our Jill to a fuckin’ T.”
A soft chime sounded as the aircraft leveled automatically at 12,500 feet. Jake reached forward once, spun the autothrottle lever to cruise speed, and then leaned back in his seat. The nose trimmed itself down, and the Avanti settled into its steady, effortless stride.
Barb looked around the cockpit. “So that’s it? It flies itself now?”
Jake nodded. “Pretty much. My job is to stay awake and look competent.”
Twenty-two minutes later, they touched down neatly on Runway 29, the tires kissing the pavement with a single smooth chirp. Jake brought the power back and held it straight down the centerline.
“I told you,” he said, adding a little throttle now to keep them moving, “I hardly ever crash this thing.”
Barb exhaled through her nose. “I’ll make a note in your personnel file.”
They rolled to the next exit, turned off onto the taxiway, and followed the yellow line toward general aviation parking. Jake flipped the taxi light on and worked through the shutdown flow: condition levers to low idle, flaps up, fuel pumps off, avionics standby. The props wound down to silence, leaving only the faint tick of cooling metal.
When the cabin door swung open, sunlight flooded in—bright Central Coast morning, a thin ocean breeze carrying the smell of salt and avgas.
They hadn’t even stepped to the ramp before the rest of the crew appeared from the small terminal building: Celia, Drew, Owen, and two large men in denim and leather cuts. The bikers looked like they’d been carved from different species of tree trunk.
Barb had never seen any of them in person except Celia. She’d talked to Owen and Drew over the phone—Owen polite and nervous, Drew apologetic and sweaty—but the two strangers in vests were a complete mystery.
Jake descended first and turned to offer her a hand. She ignored it, swung down on her own, and straightened her blouse against the wind.
“Everybody made it,” Jake said. “Good.”
Celia greeted Barb with a quick hug. “Welcome to SLO, Barb.”
“Nice town,” Barb said. “Doesn’t smell like corruption yet.”
Owen stepped forward, his face lighting. “Barb! Great to finally meet you.”
Barb surprised him with a real hug—tight and maternal. “You’re taller than I imagined, kid. You still using that brain for good instead of evil?”
“I try,” he said.
Then her eyes found Drew. The smile vanished.
“Well, if it isn’t the sneakiest little piece of disgusting excrement west of the Rockies,” she said. “And I don’t mean the kind flies crawl on—oh no. I mean the kind even flies flag for hazardous waste disposal. You little puke sack. You intestinal afterthought. You walking hemorrhoid. I’d really love to give you a vacuum-induced rectal prolapse and then pour non-iodized salt on it.”
Drew blinked, frozen in the sun. “Isn’t that a little ... harsh?” he managed to squeak out.
“Would it help if it was iodized salt?” she replied, almost politely.
The two bikers exchanged looks. One grinned wide enough to show a gold tooth.
“Damn,” he said softly. “She’s got the mouth of a road captain.”
“That’s some classy shit, right there,” said the other.
Barb turned to look at them, taking in the cut, the patches, the heavy boots. “Who or what exactly are you two?”
Jake stepped in before the air pressure dropped any further. “Security detail. These are the guys who showed up when Drew was being accosted the first time.” He gestured. “This is Tater. And that’s Porno.”
Barb looked Porno up and down—the biceps, the tattoos, the smirk. “I can understand that nickname,” she said dryly. Then she turned to the other one. “But what the fuck’s up with Tater, biker boy?”
Porno’s eyes widened. “You just called the President of the SLO Chapter of the Rough Riders MC ‘biker boy,’” he said, his tone half amusement, half awe. “That’s like slapping the Pope.”
Barb turned her glare on him, one eyebrow rising. “Yes, I did,” she said evenly. “You wanna make something of it, Trixie?”
The bikers burst out laughing.
Tater shook his head, still smiling. “Mama, you’re all right.”
Barb sniffed. “You don’t know me well enough to make that call.”
Jake shook his head in amusement, not bothering to hide the smile creeping up one side of his mouth. “Okay,” he said, “now that introductions are out of the way, let’s run this mission before anyone ends up in handcuffs—or married.”
“Why are you here, Celia?” Barb asked.
She shrugged. “I didn’t have anything else to do,” she said. “They’re recording Stevie’s tracks at the Campus today. My presence is not needed.”
“And she already called shotgun,” Jake said.
The seven of them climbed aboard without ceremony, finding their own places as if the seating plan had been settled by instinct. Jake and Celia took the cockpit seats. Barb and Owen sat in the row directly behind them. Drew and Porno faced aft in the opposing seats, and Tater took the bench across the rear bulkhead, arms folded, watching everything forward with that quiet, unreadable calm that seemed built into him.
Jake gave the standard call to Ground, released the brakes, and the Avanti began to roll. The twin pushers hummed rather than roared, the backward-spinning props a smooth pulse through the cabin. The taxi was short—out past the row of hangars, a brief hold at the threshold, then clearance to go.
“Cleared for takeoff,” came the tower call. “VFR departure to the north.”
Jake advanced the throttles and the Avanti surged ahead, building speed so cleanly it barely felt like acceleration. At ninety knots he eased the yoke back, and they were airborne, climbing hard and straight over the green hills that wrapped the city.
The world fell away beneath them—vineyards, the 101 snaking north, a pale shimmer of coastline beyond the ridges. The altimeter needle unwound fast. The Avanti climbed like it was chasing something.
Five minutes later they leveled at twelve thousand five hundred feet, the nose dipping slightly as Jake brought the power back to cruise. The sound softened to a steady, contented hum.
Jake reached up and pressed the cabin intercom switch. He didn’t need it; the Avanti was quiet enough for conversation. But for what he was about to say, the formality of it felt right.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said evenly, “we are en route to Hayward Airport. Estimated flight time from this point is thirty-five minutes. Today we’re going to sink the ship known as The American Watcher. Or at least, we’re going to fire the torpedo. It’ll take until Sunday for it to detonate.”
He paused a beat to let that hang, then went on. “We’re meeting Jen Collins from the San Francisco Chronicle. We’re delivering the original recording of the Delaine incident—the bribe offer, the threat. Jen’s going to authenticate it, make verified copies, and take custody of the media. Drew and Barb will both give brief interviews—Drew about the encounter itself, Barb about how the call was captured. That’s all that happens today: delivery and documentation.”
From the second row, Barb said, “And then we watch the fireworks.”
“Exactly,” Jake said. “Lynn and Pauline will handle everything else once the story breaks. By Sunday morning, the Watcher will be effectively locked into a course of action of our choosing.”
He flicked off the intercom, leaned back, and checked the engine gauges out of habit. The Avanti held its course and altitude with unbothered precision, slicing through the clear air above the California coast. Below them, the Pacific sparkled like glass and the Bay was already less than twenty minutes away.
San Francisco Chronicle Building
March 2, 2005
Jen Collins sat in her office on the fourth floor of the Chronicle’s old stone building, fog lifting off Market Street. She had cleared her afternoon for visitors from southern California—the Kingsleys again. Every time their names appeared on her calendar, the newsroom hummed a little louder.
They’d been good to the Chronicle. The Judge Olson series alone had measurably increased circulation. That story had stripped the robe off a self-righteous madman and ended with him pounding at her own front door late at night, knife in hand, demanding a retraction. She’d pepper-sprayed him through the security grate and watched him stagger into the dark. The SFPD found him less than an hour later, babbling in a neighbor’s swimming pool. He was in Napa State Hospital now, unlikely to ever feel the embrace of freedom again.
Then came the Kingsley polyamory exclusive—Jake, Laura, and Celia announcing they were a triple, not a triangle. After that, Drew Conners’s pictures and the lawsuit against the American Watcher. Every Kingsley headline had been gold.
Now something new was coming. Pauline Kingsley had called yesterday with her usual composure: an earth-shattering audio recording of the lengths the Watcher is going to in order to come off the ropes and start fighting again. No elaboration. Jen didn’t mind. Anticipation was its own narcotic.
The Chronicle hated tabloids like the Watcher—papers that hid behind the word journalism while running gossip and ruin. Jen had become the point of the spear in that fight, and she was ready for another thrust.
Her cell phone rang. The screen said Kenzie. She answered immediately.
“Hey, Tasty.”
Kenzie’s voice was trembling, upset, crying. “Lovey,” she blubbered, “it’s gone. It’s really gone. Forever!”
“What’s gone?”
“The lemon-verbena bath beads. The blue jars with the white caps. The boutique said they stopped making them last year. I called the warehouse. The distributor. Everyone. They said the line was discontinued.”
Jen straightened in her chair. A Kenzie crisis. They were common. She knew how to deal with them. “Slow down. You’re saying no one has them?”
“Nowhere. Not even eBay. I checked.” There was a catch of breath that sounded like the start of a sob. “It’s over, Lovey. They don’t exist anymore. This is just terrible! Horrible! I don’t know how I’m ever going to take a bath again!”
Jen smiled softly into the phone. “It’s bath beads, Tasty. Not the glue that holds the fabric of the universe together.”
“You don’t understand,” Kenzie said. “It’s the only thing that ever smelled right on me. Everything else is wrong. Too sweet, too floral, too fake. This was me. My signature smell! And now it’s gone. I feel like somebody reached into my bathroom and erased me.”
Jen said nothing for a moment. Then, gently: “Okay. Here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll get the Chronicle’s research desk on it. Those kids can find anything. They once tracked down a dog groomer in rural Texas who faked her own death for a fraud story—I think they can handle bath beads.”
Kenzie sniffled. “You’d really make them do that?”
“I’d make them do worse if it made you happy, Tasty. We’ll buy every last jar sitting in some forgotten storeroom. We’ll hoard them in the linen closet like wartime sugar.”
A small, shaky laugh. “You’re making fun of me.”
“I’m not,” Jen said. “I’m saying I will have my people scour the earth for those beads. The research desk, the interns, the librarians—every last one of them will be digging through warehouse inventories by tomorrow. It might take a while, but we’ll find it. Somewhere there’s a dusty box of those jars waiting for you.”
Kenzie sniffled again. “I’m not being stupid crying over bath beads?”
“You’re not stupid,” Jen said. “You’re mourning a scent. People have written poems about less. And for the record, I adore the way it smells on you too.”
There was a pause, a breath catching and then loosening. “You always know what to say.”
“That’s why you keep me around.”
Another breath, lighter now. “I’ll be freshly bathed when you get home. I still have a few of them left.”
“I can’t wait to smell you.”
Kenzie’s voice softened, wet around the edges. “You’re ridiculous. And perfect. That’s why I love you.”
“And I love you,” Jen said.
She made a few kissing noises into the phone and then hung up and let the quiet settle. It was trying dealing with Kenzie sometimes. Very high maintenance. But at least she knew she would be getting laid when she got home.
A moment later the desk phone rang. Jen picked it up.
“Collins.”
“Security desk,” said the voice. “Your visitors from Los Angeles have just arrived.”
“Cool,” Jen said. “Go ahead and bring them up.”
“Uh ... well ... the thing is ... there are a couple of rather mean looking gentlemen with them.”
“Mean looking?”
“Bikers,” he said, almost whispering the word. “Mr. Kingsley says they’re Mr. Conners’ security force.”
“Okayyy,” Jen said slowly, using a phrase she had picked up from Caydee Kingsley not so long before. “And why are we worried about that? This is the Chronicle, after all. We’ve had pre-op transexuals come in here. We’ve had members of the actual west coast mafia come in here—Italian and Ukrainian. We even had that guy who was out on bail for sexually abusing yard chickens come in to explain his side of the story. What’s scary about some biker types acting as security for someone?”
“They’re not just biker types,” the security supervisor said. “They’re Rough Riders. Patched and everything. One of them is the President of the SLO Chapter.”
“Hmmm,” Jen said cautiously. The Rough Riders MC operated all throughout California and Nevada, and even the southern parts of Oregon and the western parts of Arizona. They had quite the reputation. Gun running. Meth running. And, down in SLO, money laundering through their legal cannabis distribution business. “That is disconcerting. Still, go ahead and send them up. I’ll take responsibility.”
“Should I have a couple of my guards shadow them?”
“Do you think that your entire guard force on duty currently could handle them if it came to that?”
“No,” he said without hesitation.
“Then what would be the point?” she asked. “Send them up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, clearly unhappy about it but knowing his place. “They’ll be right up.”
Three minutes later, the door to Jen’s office opened.
Jake Kingsley entered first—tall, calm, carrying the same unbothered authority he always did. Celia followed, perfectly composed. Drew Conners came next. Jen knew him well; she’d interviewed him for hours when his unpublished New Zealand photos broke the Watcher’s “Jake is gay” allegation wide open.
Two more followed: a young man she didn’t know but recognized from research briefs as Owen Olson, and two large men in denim and leather who looked like they’d taken a wrong turn somewhere south of Bakersfield. Behind them came an older woman Jen had never seen before, her eyes sharp and appraising.
“Ms. Collins,” Jake said, extending his hand. “Thanks for making time for us.”
“Always happy to host my most reliable headline machine,” Jen said, shaking it. “Come in before somebody from Metro recognizes you and tries to claim you for a sidebar.”
They laughed and found seats. Jen waited until everyone had settled before saying, “Let’s start with introductions before I start guessing which of you are the moral support and which are the security detail.”
Jake took the cue, naming each in turn. “You know Celia, and you’ve already met Drew. This is Owen Olson—our studio runner—and these two are Tater and Porno, from the Rough Riders MC. And this”—he gestured toward the older woman—”is Barb Macready, our receptionist at KVA’s main office in Santa Clarita.”
Jen nodded to each in turn, her gaze finally resting on the biker who’d been introduced as Tater. “So you’re the gentleman everyone keeps whispering about down in San Luis Obispo. Any interest in going on record about your little weed warehouse—and the rumors that it’s a money-laundering front?”
A pause, just long enough for tension to ripple across the room, then Tater laughed. “We’re just a bunch of motorcycle enthusiasts, ma’am. The warehouse is a legal dispensary. We make a living like everybody else—barely squeaking by.”
Jen’s eyes flicked to the Rolex gleaming on his wrist, the diamond-studded rings on four fingers, the two-carat stud in his ear, and the custom belt buckle encrusted enough to qualify as a light source.
“It’s nice to see California commerce helping you squeak out a living,” she said.
He grinned. “God bless this fucked up state.”
Their eyes held for a beat, the kind of look shared by people who recognize the game and respect the other player’s skill.
Jake leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “Tater, Porno, and Owen are here as physical security for Drew. That actually relates to why we’re here.”
Jen looked at the three of them, then back at Jake. “I understand Tater and Porno being security. But Owen?” She lifted an eyebrow. “Not bagging on him, but he doesn’t exactly scream intimidation.”
Tater grinned. “Don’t let the baby face and the skinny body fool you, mama. GM’s got a set a balls on him that clang like the fuckin’ Bells of St. Mary. He’s the breaker if the shit goes down.”
“The what?” Jen asked.
“The breaker,” Tater repeated. “His job’s to throat punch and incapacitate the leader of any assault group, then circulate and use kidney punches, rabbit punches, and—if the situation calls for it—ball punches to break an enemy combatant who might have one of his brothers in a dominant position.”
Jen nodded thoughtfully. “And is he good at it?”
Owen cleared his throat. “I’ve never actually broken anyone yet.”
Tater shrugged. “Ain’t his fault the pussies backed down both times before any breaking could be done.”
“I see,” Jen said evenly.
Jake smiled faintly. “On that note, is there someplace Owen, Tater, and Porno can hang out while we conduct business? My daughter Caydee calls your break room ‘the best fuckin’ snack shack on Earth.’”
Jen glanced at the Chronicle security officer still standing near the door. “Take these three to the executive break room. Tell anyone inside they’re there on my authority.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said quickly, grateful for the order.
Tater stood first, flashing Jen a respectful nod. “Pleasure meetin’ you, mama.”
“Likewise,” Jen said. “Try not to break anyone on the way.”
That got a grin from all three as they followed the guard out, boots heavy on the tile. When the door closed behind them, Jen turned back to the remaining four—Jake, Celia, Drew, and the woman who’d been introduced as Barb Macready.
“Good,” she said. “Now that the cavalry’s off duty, let’s get to why you’re here.”
Jake leaned back slightly in his chair. “First, a little background.”
Jen nodded. “Go ahead.”
“You know about my lawsuit against The Watcher and what’s at stake.”
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