Chapter 6 - Shadows of Doubt
The expulsion of Ethan Parker should have ended the threat, but in the cutthroat world of international finance, enemies never truly sleep.
Two days after the incident in the kitchen, Pedro was sitting in his downtown Manhattan corporate headquarters high above Wall Street, reviewing a dense merger dossier when Marcus Vance stepped into his private office without knocking.
Marcus didn't look smug this time. He looked genuinely rattled.
“What is it, Marcus?” Pedro asked without looking up from his tablet.
“You have a visitor downstairs, Pedro,” Marcus said cautiously, placing a folded newspaper clipping on the corner of the desk. “Or rather... an inquiry from a journalist at the Boston Globe.”
Pedro stopped reading. He looked up slowly. “A journalist?”
“They’re running a background profile on Abigail Hill,” Marcus said, pulling a tablet from his briefcase and sliding it across the mahogany desk. “It seems her ex-fiancé—that loser we threw off the estate on Tuesday—didn't go quietly. He went straight to a tabloid reporter and spun a completely fabricated story.”
Pedro’s blood ran cold. He snatched the tablet off the desk.
The headline blazed in bold, yellow-journalism letters: BILLIONAIRE’S NEW NANNY LINKED TO FINANCIAL FRAUD SCANDAL.
The article claimed that Abigail had fled Boston after being implicated in an embezzlement scheme run by her former fiancé, insinuating that she had wormed her way into Breakers Mansion to access the Jacobs family accounts. It was a vicious, calculated hit piece designed to ruin her reputation and bring negative PR down on Jacobs Global Finance.
“They’re publishing the full piece tomorrow morning,” Marcus warned. “Unless we issue an immediate statement distancing ourselves from her, firing her publicly, and letting our legal team handle the fallout, your stock will take a hit by the opening bell.”
Pedro stared at the tablet screen, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the device.
For a fraction of a second, the old instincts flared—the ruthless pragmatism of a billionaire who protected his empire above all else, cutting away liabilities before they could infect the bottom line.
Then he thought of Abigail. He thought of the way she looked when she stood up to Marcus in the dining room. He thought of the way she held his sons, teaching them how to heal after two years of silent grief. He thought of the fierce, unyielding integrity in her dark eyes.
“Draft a press release, Marcus,” Pedro said quietly.
Marcus smiled, thinking his boss had made the logical, corporate choice. “Excellent. I’ll have PR state that she was an independent contractor who has been relieved of her duties effective immediately.”
“No,” Pedro said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, glacial hum that made Marcus freeze mid-smile.
“P-pardon?” Marcus stammered.
“Draft a press release stating that Jacobs Global Finance is acquiring exclusive legal representation for Miss Abigail Hill, and that we are filing a multi-million-dollar defamation lawsuit against the Boston Globe, Ethan Parker, and every other tabloid outlet that prints a single syllable of that garbage,” Pedro commanded, standing up so fast his leather chair crashed backward onto the floor.
Marcus’s jaw dropped so low it nearly hit his chest. “Pedro, you’ve lost your mind! You’re going to wage a public legal war over a nanny?”
“She is not just a nanny, Marcus,” Pedro roared, rounding the desk and towering over his chief legal counsel. “She is the heart of my home. If anyone touches her, they go to war with me. Now get out of my office and call the legal team before I fire you for real.”
Marcus didn't argue. He grabbed his tablet, turned pale, and bolted out of the office like a man fleeing a burning building.
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Pedro stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out over the New York skyline. He knew the media storm was going to be brutal. He knew the board of directors would question his judgment.
And for the first time in his life, Pedro Jacobs didn't care about any of it.
