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CHAPTER ONE

Kira

Three weeks earlier…

TipToeTimmy69: Crazy or not…I’d still peel her grippy socks off with my teeth.

ArngeJooce: Are we really surprised? Her sister got knocked up at sixteen… Some people are just plain trash. Why do we continue to make them famous?

KevinxPam78: SMH. This is who our teenage girls are looking up to… She plays a character named DEMONATRIX, for goodness' sake…I remember when women had CLASS! #Proverbs31

GracieMarie: She’s not even that pretty. Augustus Wilde deserves so much better.

DellsBells: And this is why you don’t inject plastic into your body!!! Her fake tits are making her crazy!

Jaylen’s_Mama: My three-year-old has better self-regulation skills.

Pigeons-R-a-PSYOP: It’s probably just a publicity stunt. It’s not like she can rely on her acting to get our attention. Don’t worry, there’s always corn!

A mixture of hunger pangs and stress churns in my stomach as I scroll through the most-liked comments on my viral video of my public freak-out. Or, as some are calling it, my “2007 Britney Spears Level Breakdown.”

Admittedly, it wasn’t my proudest moment. But can a girl not be in her luteal phase?

The viewer count is at over eight million and steadily climbing… Even worse than I expected.

I take a sip of my room-temperature water, which only makes the nausea worse, and set the thin, plastic cup down on the shiny conference room table. No matter which way I move my head, I can’t seem to dodge this glare. Why would anyone need a table to be this shiny? Unless it’s a weapon designed to weaken unsuspecting victims by overstimulating them with the big light?

I guess it’s fucking working. I’ve been here all of five minutes, and I can already feel a migraine coming on.

I’m sure the fact that my life is falling apart and me running on fumes isn’t helping.

In the past forty-eight hours, I’ve had to triple my security guards. I’ve had two attempted break-ins at my home in Beverly Hills. Luckily, they barely made it past the gate before one of the guards chased them away. I’ve lost count of the vandalism to my property. Someone spray-painted WHORE on my antique reclaimed brick driveway. I’ve had to replace busted-out windows, and one particularly dedicated individual even scaled the balcony to my bedroom just to make eye contact with me while flipping me off. I screamed, thinking he was about to attack me, but then he proceeded to swing his leg over the railing and climb down. The asshole didn’t even have the decency to run away. He sauntered off like he was the star of an action movie.

For some reason, that one felt so much worse. Almost as if it were personal.

If I thought people hated me before, this whole scandal has only added fuel to the blaze.

“This isn’t good, Kira,” my agent, Claire, states from the other side of the conference table, as if I didn’t already know that.

She looks almost as unhappy to be here as my grumpy-looking attorney sitting across from her, even though they’re the geniuses who called me in for a 7 a.m. emergency meeting.

It takes everything in me to bite back the sarcastic retort on the tip of my tongue. Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious. And here I thought my biggest problem was being arrested for a hit-and-run. But clearly, I should be more concerned about what random strangers on the internet are saying.

I know I’m being a bitch, but there isn’t enough caffeine in the world that could prepare me for this conversation.

She’s just doing her job. I know that.

The job of cleaning up my image can’t be easy. Hell, managing me takes up so much of her time and energy that I’m her only client.

Her paycheck is solely dependent on my success in this industry, which is probably why she’s so grouchy this morning.

Somehow, that realization just pisses me off more.

Last time I checked, Claire didn’t have her arrest live-streamed while millions of viewers debated over the existence of her love handles and filled the comment section with death threats. Nor did she have to spend the night in a jail cell, wearing an orange jumpsuit that smelled like onions and sauerkraut.

If anyone has a reason to be grouchy this morning, it’s me.

With a renewed sense of vindication, I wiggle in my seat, straightening my shoulders to sit up taller.