Bring Him Home Chapter 23

The following day started badly and looked as though it was going to get worse. We had another smaller client call and ask what the hell was going on with our ‘new PR campaign' and wanted to know if he needed to find another company to represent him because he was male. When I explained that we were being targeted by someone, he was incredibly rude asking "how could we promote him properly, when we couldn't even stop ourselves being attacked?" part of me couldn't help but follow his stupid logical thinking. It took all of my charm and persuasion to get him calmed down and I assured him thing would be back to normal shortly, but in the meantime his campaign was perfectly safe with us.

I put the phone down and called a staff meeting, it was time. When everyone was finally seated I explained what the client had just asked me over the phone.

"We have been incredibly naïve about this. We need to fight this a lot more publically than we have been doing because whilst we may have been speaking to the owners of the businesses, we have not taken in to consideration how the people we deal everyday might feel. We need to double our efforts and everyone needs to get out there, go and visit your contacts because you know them, take fruit baskets, muffins, 10 year old scotch whatever you need to. You need to make sure they are happy."

As we were all sitting in the office Alice's cell phone rang, she answered it as she usually did, gushing with love and kisses when Jasper called but stopped talking instantly,

"Oh fuck, give me the address" she said as she started typing away on her laptop.

"Yes I have it, find out what you can and call me back, love you "she said after making kissing noises down the phone.

"Er Boss can I speak to you in private please?"

This was highly unusual for Alice, she was prone to oversharing on most things so after sending every one off to talk to their contacts I made my way back to my office with her and her laptop following.

"So what is the emergency?" I asked but the fact she was shielding her lap top screen gave me a good indication of what she was about to show me.

"Boss where is Esme?" Alice asked looking around the office.

I quickly called Judy to check

"She has just left, gone to the spa for her monthly visit" Judy answered.

" Ok, that is probably for the best it at least gives us time to decide what we are going to tell her. Bella there is another video, this time though Jasper has managed to get the IP address from where it was uploaded" she explained

"Ok that's great we can call the police in, why were you asking about Esme?"

"This video is about her and the court case, it shows some of the photographs of her injuries and gives some of the facts of the case, and the opening scene is quite brutal"

I pulled the laptop towards me and pressed play, the screen came to life and showed a man behind prison bars, the caption across the screen read

The PR Company you employ is a man hating machine. This all women office will slowly ruin your business and reputation as they seek to eradicate men from the business world.

The following scenes were about Esme and how she had lied about her injuries to get her husband locked up so she could come and join the firm. All the time there were photo's behind the caption that was on the screen, they had probably been taken by the hospital every time Esme had managed to get in. She was shown in one photo with a very vicious set of black eyes, in another a split lip and swollen cheek and finally shots of her body where you could quite easily see where she had been kicked and punched around her rib and stomach area. Finally, at the end there was a statement explaining that the interested parties in the making of this clip had proof that Esme had actually injured herself in all of the pictures solely with the focus of jailing her husband so she could get away to join our firm.

They didn't actually go as far as blaming me, but they did hint that I'd funded her ‘escape' and they had recut the very first clip of Edward and I, just to show me screaming at him.

"Ok this is it, enough is enough, I'll get our lawyers on the phone I want this stopped and all the videos taken down. I don't care how they do it, I'll sue You-tube if I have to"

"Ok no worries, you speak to them but you can just go on and report it on YouTube" she explained.

"Alice call Jasper back and tell him I want to get the police involved, I want this stopping, it's gone far enough. Now please "she nodded and pulled out her phone and started talking quickly.

I looked at the video again and saw where I could report it, I initiated that and sat back, we had to keep this away from Esme, she had come so far and I really didn't want her scared or worried.

I called Judy into the office, she needed to be prepared in case Esme came across this before we could show her.

"Judy what should we do, do you think we should tell her?" Judy was her closest friend, if anyone would know how she would take it, she would.

"I'll tell her tonight, when we're at home and have had a glass of wine, that way if she gets upset she can do it in private. I'll call you when I've told her but be prepared she might not want to speak to you. She went through hell with her husband and his family, who turned against her when she made the allegations against him public and he was arrested. They sound like evil people and they scare her.

I called everyone back in to the office and sat back as the clip played again, as it came to an end the office was deathly quiet as they each took in what they had seen. Whilst we had not hidden Esme's history and she had never openly spoken about it, every one had a good idea what she had escaped from.

Rosalie was the one to explode first, I could have put money on that, "The dirty evil bastards, having a pop at me is fair game, but Esme, no never, boss we need to find these fuckers, I want blood"

I agreed with her" Rosalie, I'm with you this has gone too far, as of today we will be involving the police and Jasper is upping his game so we should have answers soon."

  "As harsh as it may seem we still have a business to run so you all have to double your efforts and get on with your lists from earlier, so start calling your contacts again ladies please, and explain we are being targeted also mention that we have the police and the government working on this for us. If you have any reason to believe we are going to lose them then let me know and I will schedule an appointment to go and see them after you have been in"

It was a brutal day, several of our clients had already seen the new video clip by the time we spoke to them and were uncomfortable about being associated with a domestic violence issue. I spent most of my time explaining again that we were being targeted but by the end of the day I had lost several smaller clients who had been with me for the majority of their latest campaigns, they just felt they couldn't risk the negative publicity and I couldn't really blame them. Whoever was trying to ruin our business had actually made in roads today and I needed to try and find out who and why.

This was starting to give me a very large headache and I could envisage losing everything I'd worked so hard to create. It wasn't just my livelihood anymore but everyone in this office depended on the success of the business and that was a huge responsibility.  I suddenly felt very alone and my thoughts drifted to Edward and how he must have felt when he was homeless. The thing is he did have a family to worry and care for him but for some reason he felt the need to leave them.

I shook my head, no, I couldn't think like this. I only had myself to rely on, that's just the way it was and I had to hope that Jasper could figure out who was targeting us and help me put a stop to it.