“I was gonna say… distracting.”
“Each to her own,” I said, and she laughed a little as I hung up.
I flopped back in my chair, staring at the image on the wall in front of me. At my best friend’s face, laughing with joy. At the walls of this room I knew so well. And everything felt weirdly different.
Did I just get good news?
Didhejust give it to me?
I wasn’t even sure how I felt about that.
In my mind, if the devil came around handing out accolades… or, you know, tongue… it was never a good idea to enjoy it too much. Because the devil wasn’t a nice guy. If he was being nice… he always had a reason.
And I had no interest whatsoever in finding out what his reasons were.
I just wanted him gone.
Chapter Six
Devi
Half an hour later, I was still staring blankly at my computer screen, trying to compose an email to the rest of the staff. Chaz had texted me, Lizzie had called, and after that I just put the phone aside to try to think.
I didn’t know quite what to tell them all.
I was still kinda seething from my unpleasant chat with my new employer, but gradually overcoming the general shock to my system.
I clicked over to the online article in Forbes magazine that I’d stumbled upon a few minutes ago, because yes, I was still researching his ass. And once you got past the sex tape scandal headlines, which admittedly took a while, there was much to read.
This particular article was about Dane Davenport’s standout success as a corporate “fixer.” I didn’t even know what the fuck that was, but apparently, it was his specialty.
According to the article, Dane’s role as a fixer involved him inspecting companies—either before they were acquired by Valhalla, before Valhalla invested in upgrades or expansions within companies they already owned… or just any damn time he felt like it. Reputedly, he was exceptionally gifted in sussing out the sources of issues, stepping in, and turning things around. His mother, Valhalla’s President, was quoted as crediting him with “making, and just as importantly,savinghundreds of millions of dollars” for the company. With his bloodhound-like ability to sniff out hidden weaknesses, she said, he was able to get troubled companies and projects back on track, doing whatever was necessary to get them there.
For this reason, his employees called him Grim Reaper behind his back. One of the ways he commonly “fixed” issues? He “scythed” jobs. That, I did not get from the Forbes article, but from a review posted by a former employee on Glassdoor.
Shit.This was bad.
I knew the agency was struggling this year. But I didn’t know we were in serious trouble. Obviously we were, if the Grim Reaper was personally stepping in to clean up a mess.
What mess?I wanted to shake the words out of him, but I could hardly make him tell me anything he didn’t want to. And losing my cool in there?
Not good.
I had to tread carefully here. This man had real power—the power to scythe my job. Or even this entire agency.
And the coldheartedness to do it, if he chose to.
I needed to make sure he was satisfied with whatever he was looking into, so he could move the fuck along.
But how could I do that when I didn’t even know what he was lookingat?
I kept telling myself we had nothing to hide. In recent years, the agency had been struggling to make the kind of profits we used to. But that wasn’t surprising given our struggles to expand into digital markets while dealing with changes in ownership, management, and more recently, recovering from having our entire acting division stripped away.
Would he see past the numbers and see our potential? The way that, presumably, Superior had done when they acquired us?
Or did Superior and Valhalla simply want to corner the market? Would they shut us down if they didn’t like our numbers, as easily as they snapped us up?
I checked my phone. Janelle still hadn’t called me back. I wondered if she would.
