Page 43 of Breaking the Ice Queen
She heard him shift in his chair, the familiar creak of leather.
“Because you spent last week rebuilding your defenses and telling yourself that what happened with Sienna was a distraction. You weren’t in a position to act on this information. You would have incorporated it into the narrative you were constructing about professional distance and used it to justify more distance.” His voice was gentle but honest. “I needed you to arrive at the right place first. Are you there now?”
“I’m in my kitchen at six-forty in the morning with my client’s PR hit job on my phone and the clearest head I’ve had in weeks. Yes, Andrew. I’m in that position.”
“Good.” His relief was audible through the phone. “Come to the office. I have a file. And bring the good coffee. We’re going to be here for a while.”
The file was waiting on Andrew’s desk when Adriana arrived thirty minutes later, her jaw set at the angle Andrew recognized as the precursor to significant decisions.
He handed her the folder without ceremony. It was thick, perhaps fifty pages, and tabbed with the same meticulous color-coding he used for all his research. Andrew’s folders were works of art, though most people would never appreciate them: the sections organized by threat category, the supporting evidence cross-referenced with public records, the analysis written in the clean, precise prose of someone who had trained in prosecution before choosing the more lucrative side of the law. Looking at it, Adriana understood that Andrew had not spent the weekend casually monitoring the situation. He had spent it building a case, the way he had once built cases against defendants, except that this time the defendant was their own client and the evidence was damning.
“I started compiling this on Friday after I received the Hartwell memo,” Andrew said. “It contains the full Hartwell strategy document, plus my own research into the tactics they’re planning to deploy. First, fabricated sources; I’ve identified three industry journalists who have already been approached with false information about Parallax Films. Second, planted stories; two trade publications have draft articles in their editorial queues that frame Sienna’s investigation as a personal vendetta rather than journalism. And the distribution pressure is already active. Two of the three platforms Parallax has been in talks with have gone quiet in the last several weeks.”
Adriana’s stomach tightened. “Several weeks. This has been running that long.”
“Since the gala, approximately. Burty authorized it within forty-eight hours of your first confrontation with Sienna.” Andrew set his coffee down. “The timeline suggests he knew the investigation was real the moment she approached you, and his response was not legal defense but reputation destruction.”
Adriana opened the folder and read. Page by page. The detail was staggering. Andrew had not just compiled the Hartwell strategy but had cross-referenced it with public records, journalistic contacts, and distribution industry sources to build a complete picture of the campaign’s current status and projected trajectory.
Three journalists had been fed false information about Sienna’s sourcing. Two had bitten. One was expected to publish within the week.
Two distribution platforms had received communications from Burty’s business affairs team, not from Lovett & Associates, notably, which meant Burty had deliberately kept the legal pressure separate from the PR campaign to maintain deniability.
A production company had been retained to create the counter-documentary, with a budget of one-point-two million dollars, roughly four times Parallax Films’ entire operating capital. The company had already hired a director with a reputation for corporate-friendly “investigative” pieces that looked like journalism and functioned as public relations.
And woven through all of it, invisible unless you knew where to look, was the fingerprint of a man who believed that his money and his influence made him untouchable, and who was willing to destroy an innocent woman’s career to prove it.
Adriana thought about Sienna. About the woman who worked in a converted garage with her best friend and made documentaries that changed the world. About the woman who had looked at Adriana across a conference table and saidyou’re not the villainand meant it completely. About the woman Adriana had held in the dark and then walked away from in the morning, calling it professional distance when it was cowardice.
Burty Howarth was trying to destroy that woman. And Adriana was the only person who could stop him.
The decision crystallized. Not as a strategy, not as an equation, but as an imperative so clear and so urgent that it felt less like a choice and more like the removal of every remaining excuse for not making it.
“I need to build a counter-evidence file,” Adriana said. She closed the folder and looked at Andrew. “A file that documents every element of Burty’s discreditation campaign, cross-referenced with the actual evidence from the investigation. If he publishes false information about Sienna’s sourcing, I want a comprehensive rebuttal ready to deploy within hours. If the distribution platforms drop Parallax, I want alternative distribution options identified and contracts drafted. If the counter-documentary launches, I want a legal challenge prepared that will tie it up in court before it reaches an audience.”
Andrew was already reaching for his notepad. “Timeline?”
Adriana stood and moved to the whiteboard, uncapping a marker. “Immediate. Everything we build goes into a file that Sienna can access if she needs it.”
The marker squeaked against the whiteboard as she underlined the wordPARALLAXtwice.
“Adriana.” Andrew looked at her over the notepad. His dark eyes were serious. “You understand that what you’re describing is a direct counter-operation against your own client’s authorized activities.”
“Burty Howarth stopped being my client the moment he authorized a campaign to fabricate evidence against an innocent person.” Adriana’s voice was quiet, certain, carrying the authority she usually reserved for courtroom pronouncements and that rang through the office with the finality of a gavel. “I don’t care what the retainer says. I don’t care what the partnership agreement says. What he’s doing to Sienna is not legal strategy. It’s persecution. It’s the systematic destruction of a woman whose only crime is telling the truth. And I will not participate in it. Not for money. Not for reputation. Not for anything.”
Andrew held her gaze. Then he set his pen down, leaned back in his chair, and said, “I’ve been waiting for this. Not the counter-strategy. This. You, deciding that protecting someone you care about is more important than protecting the business.”
“How long have you been waiting?”
Andrew’s pen stilled. He looked at the ceiling for a moment, then back at her.
“About two years, if I’m being generous. Longer, if I’m being honest.” He picked up his pen and began writing with quick, decisive strokes. He’d been composing these notes in his head for months. “Since the first time you brought me a settlement agreement for one of Burty’s accusers and your face told me you knew the accusation was true and were going to suppress it anyway. I could have spoken up then. I chose not to, because I convinced myself it wasn’t my place, and that was its own kind of cowardice. So when I say I’ve been waiting for this, I’m not just talking about you.”
Adriana let the words settle. Two years of silence, named at last. She received them as she received all of Andrew’s uncomfortable observations—with the private acknowledgment that he was right and the decision to keep moving.
“Start with the fabricated sources,” she said. “If we can document the false information before it publishes, we can issue cease-and-desist letters to the journalists and create a chain of evidence showing deliberate defamation.”
“I’m on it.” Andrew was already typing on his laptop before the sentence was finished. Two years of waiting for Adriana to do the right thing, and the man hadn’t lost a single keystroke of speed. “What about Sienna? Does she know about the campaign?”
