Chapter 946

She had known for a while that Melody was coming after her. That wasn’t a well-kept secret. But seeing it plastered online and climbing the trending charts? That was a whole new level of absurdity.

“Let me see,” Marion emerged from the bathroom, drying his hair. He leaned over, glanced at the phone, and nodded approvingly. “That’s catchy.”

“I’m going to find out which genius published this,” Debra’s fingers flew over her phone, tracing the story back to its source. When the name of New Age popped up on her screen, she froze.

“New Age?” she murmured, remembering that it was Garland’s news agency.

“Something wrong?” Marion asked.

Debra blinked. “I spent fifty million dollars to buy that newspaper. So…”

Her own company had just broken a report on her. That was the next level.

In the study room, Garland was livid, yelling into his phone, “What were you thinking? Are you people brain-dead? Who let you publish that story? And then you dumped ad money into it too? Did you want to let everyone in the whole country know?”

On the other end of the line, the editor’s voice was sheepish but unapologetic. “Boss, it’s a good story. The headline was strong, and the engagement was through the roof. We’re just trying to make money. Why are you mad?”

“Mad? You didn’t even run it by me first. Did I say you could post it?”

“Uh, you once said if we ever came across a hot story, we had to publish it immediately, so we wouldn’t miss out. We were just following your instructions.”

Garland nearly had a stroke, lamenting that he had hired such a bunch of idiots. He glanced over at Juan, whose face was darker than the night sky.

“I don’t care what methods you use. Take down the news immediately.”

“Uh, about that…”

“What now?”

“Well, it’s not a huge deal, but we’ve printed 100,000 copies of the paper edition. They’re being distributed as we speak, so…”

“You did what? It’s only been half an hour.”

“Boss, you told us speed is key. And honestly, we made a ton of money off this one.”

Garland cursed under his breath and hung up the phone.

As he turned to Juan, his tone changed to a pitiful whine. “Unbelievable! I swear, when I get back to Seamar City, I’m going to give those idiots a piece of my mind. Journalism has its rules, and this is too much.”

Juan arched an eyebrow. “And you think you can go back to Seamar City?”

Garland was stunned.

“Never mind. Someone will take care of it.”

“Who?”

“The most powerful person in Seamar City.”

“Are you praising yourself right now?”

“I wish I were talking about me.” Juan got up and made himself a cup of coffee. “You will not touch your phone for the next few days, and given today’s disaster, I think we’ll need to speed up your education.”

“Is it really necessary?”

“It is. I’ll need you to handle some matters for me in a couple of days.”