“I am. I know my father, and you know your mother. Will either one of them believe us, or care, if we just tell them privately?”
“No. Besides, I want to destroy his dream. I could have gone to fucking Harvard. Instead I worked at a grocery store for minimum wage wondering how I was going to pay my rent. All because that fucker couldn’t keep it in his pants.”
Angry didn’t even begin to describe how I was starting to feel about Kiegan’s uncle. I knew we had him, and I wanted him to pay. Maybe destroying a man’s dream and livelihood is a bit too much, but whatever, I was pissed. And I knew Kiegan wasn’t going to stop me. Hell, he was the bad boy out of the two of us. This had been his plan, he was the one who tricked his uncle, and he was definitely on board with ruining his uncle’s chances to become President.
“Do you have any direct contacts in the news desks at any of the major networks?” Kiegan asked. I shook my head. “No, everyone I know is in entertainment. But Leanne will have all of the news people’s names and numbers.”
“Good thinking,” Kiegan replied. “I’ll ask her to email them to me now.”
Five minutes later we had a huge list with names, phone numbers (both cell and office landline) and email addresses for what looked like every single anchor and producer for every news show in America.
“Wow, Leanne is nothing if not efficient,” I muttered as I looked at the list.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t be where I am today without her. Don’t tell her that though, she’ll ask for a huge raise,” he continued, and I laughed.
We uploaded the audio file onto the computer and sent out an email to all the major news anchors.
“And now, we turn on the TV and wait,” Kiegan told me, grabbing the box of cupcakes and offering me one. I took it and sat down next to him, his arm wrapped around me, as we turned on CNN and waited to see how long it would take for Kiegan’s file to make national headlines.
It turned out the answer was ‘just under eight minutes’.
I was just finishing off the last bite of one of the tiramisu cupcakes when a “Breaking News” banner flashed across the screen, and the anchor was obviously getting some new information through her earpiece, but maintaining a professional composure while multitasking that I always imagined I would never, ever be able to pull off.
“I’m sorry for the interruption, but we’re going to have to come back to the story about the Measles outbreak in California. Here at CNN, we have just received some incredible news. We have audio footage of a conversation between Presidential nominee Edward Hunt and his nephew, reality TV star Kiegan Hunt, which implicates the Senator in a scandal involving Kiegan Hunt’s stepsister, Tina, whom he is reportedly dating. The recording clearly has Senator Hunt admitting to having touched Tina inappropriately when she was a teenager. We’re now going to play an excerpt of the tape.”
“Wow, they sure authenticated that one pretty quickly.” I muttered.
“Yeah, I guess they really wanted to be the first ones to go live with that story,” Kiegan replied. “Plus, news these days, they don’t care that much about whether or not something is true.”
“That’s a good point, it’s more about what gets them ratings.”
Kiegan grabbed the remote and started flipping through all the major networks’ news channels. Sure enough, they were all going nuts over the tape.
Kiegan’s phone began to ring a second later, and then mine as well. We looked at each other.
“They’re not going to stop ringing for a while, are they?” I asked, and Kiegan shook his head.
“Nope. What do you say we go out and grab some dinner, and just happen to forget our phones here?”
“Sounds good to me,” I replied, getting up off the couch.
Our plan had worked. Now we just had to see what the fallout was going to be.
Chapter Nineteen
The whole time at dinner all I could think about was what we had just done. We had literally ruined a man’s chances to be President, possibly even ruined his life completely. I mean, he deserved it, of course.
“Here’s to us,” Kiegan toasted as he held up his beer to me. I clinked with my Long Island Iced Tea. “We just brought down one of the most powerful families in America. No amount of damage control my father can do now is going to rescue the Hunt name.”
“Are you ok with it? I mean, I know my mom made me change my name to Hunt when she married your dad, but I was never really a Hunt. But still, it is your family.”
“Of course I’m ok with it. My aunt Isabella is the only person in the family I respect. Everyone else is just out for themselves, and I want nothing to do with that.”
I smiled at him. “We sure have come a long way from high school.”
“Yeah, we have,” he answered, looking at me with an intensity I hadn’t expected. “I love you, Tina.”