And me? I was just enjoying the plot twist.
The air in the room didn't smell like conflict anymore. It smelled like a closed circuit. Peppermint, cedar, parchment, and... me. We were bleeding into each other.
"Incoming," Rowan said. Her voice wasn't an alarm; it was a notification. She didn't look up from her laptop.
"Threat level?" Mateo asked, stopping his patrol instantly.
"Mid level," she replied, her fingers flying across the keys. "Benny just forwarded me a screenshot from a private WhatsApp group for junior publicists. Vance is briefing the tabloids."
I set my mug down. "What’s the angle? Is he going with the 'greedy manager' narrative or the 'unstable woman' classic?"
"He’s escalating," Rowan said, spinning the laptop around so we could see. "He’s pivoting to 'Radical Extremist.' He’s leaking stories that I have ties to underground anti-designation terror groups. He’s going to frame the Tate confrontation as an assault on an industry elder by a radicalized Beta."
Stephen scoffed, a dry, sharp sound. "He’s flailing. It’s libelous."
"It’s effective," I corrected, walking over to the table to study the screen. "Radicalization implies danger. It implies that she isn't just difficult to work with, but unsafe to have in the building. He’s trying to unperson her by making her a security risk."
"He’s trying to scare the venues," Rowan added, her hazel eyes hard. "If they think I’m a liability, they won't just fire me. They’ll blacklist any artist who talks to me."
Mateo growled low in his chest. "We stop the leak. I can pay a visit to the editors."
"You can't punch a rumor, Mateo," I said softly. "And Stephen can't sue a whisper network. By the time this hits the papers tomorrow morning, the narrative will be set. Rowan Quill, the anarchist who attacks beloved producers at charity galas."
Rowan looked at me. For a second, I saw the flicker of fear behind her eyes, the terrifying realization that the truth didn'tmatter as much as the story. But underneath the fear, the steel remained.
"So we change the story," she said.
God, I loved that brain.
"We don't just change it," I said, a plan crystallizing in my mind like sugar spinning into glass. "We blow the scale out. Vance wants to paint you as a radical? Fine. We lean in."
"I am not a radical," Rowan protested. "I am a compliance stickler."
"To a system built on exploitation, complianceisradicalism," I countered. I tapped the table, feeling the electric hum of the idea taking hold. "We don't defend against the accusation. We validate it, but on our terms. We release the Anchor Protocol."
Stephen looked up, his grey eyes narrowing behind his glasses. "It’s a legal draft, Juno. It’s dry. It’s dense. The public won’t read a forty-page contract addendum."
"They won't read a contract," I agreed. "But they’ll read a manifesto."
I paced the length of the table, letting the vision expand.
"We strip the legalese from the preamble," I explained, gesturing with my hands. "We frame it not as a rider, but as a Declaration of Rights for the gig economy. We release the data Rowan found, the correlation between Vance’s monitoring clauses and the 'burnout' rate of Omegas. We show the receipts."
"You want to publish the financial link to Warson Global Media?" Stephen asked, sitting up straighter.
"No," I said. "Not yet. That’s the kill shot. This is the warning shot. We publish thewhy. We tell them that Rowan Quill isn't hiding; she’s building. We frame the Anchor Protocol as the new industry standard, and we dare them to reject it."
"Let them call us radical," I whispered, looking at Rowan. "Then we show them the data."
Rowan stared at me. She chewed on her lower lip, processing the shift. She wasn't hiding in a dumpster anymore. She wasn't even fighting for her own survival. I was asking her to declare war on behalf of everyone who had ever been crushed by the machine.
"Radical transparency," she murmured. "If we release the Protocol open-source... if we give it to every manager, every artist, every union rep..."
"Then Vance isn't fighting you," I finished. "He’s fighting the entire workforce."
Rowan sat back. The hesitation vanished, replaced by the terrifying competence that had drawn all three of us into her orbit.
"Okay," she said. She pulled the laptop back. "Stephen, I need the language stripped down. Keep the teeth, lose the jargon. I want every nineteen-year-old on TikTok to understand exactly how their bodily autonomy is being monetized."
