As soon as the phone rings, I’m wide awake, pulled out of the coma-like sleep.

“Kirkland,” I answer, heading toward the bathroom. Any time I get a call at three thirty in the morning, it means I’m going to work.

“Harrison, it’s Leland. We have an issue.”

“Who is it this time?”

“Midnight Drake. You know, the sultry actor who recently signed a multimillion-dollar contract with Alta Pictures.”

“Hmm. What happened?”

“Pack a bag, boss. We’re flying to New York. Wheels up in one hour.”

“Fuck. That bad?” I ask around my toothbrush.

“Yep. The team will be joining us. I’ll give you all the details when we’re together.”

I’m a cleanup guy. Fixing things has always been my passion. It began when I was a kid and my dog suddenly became sick and died. We came home from the vet after he couldn’t be saved, and watching my dog die at such a young age broke a piece of me. He wasn’t fixable, but that didn’t mean other things weren’t. That’s when my need to become a fixer took root and grew. Broken toys, things around the house, stuff I found on the street, you name it. I’d bring them home and do my best to restore them, and if I couldn’t do it, I’d recruit my dad to help. I’d even bring injured animals home, and Mom would take them away—to the vet, she’d say—and I’d be thankful they weren’t suffering anymore.

As I grew older, the fixer in me expanded to people. When I went to school, I’d find kids who were in trouble and needed friends. At Crestview Academy I met Prescott Beckham. He was in the worst shape of anyone I’d ever met. A kid from a dysfunctional family, he didn’t know which way to turn. So what did I do? I brought him home, just like I used to do with those injured animals. He’s still somewhat fucked up. But at least he’s back on track.

The following year at Crestview, Weston Wyndham showed up. I called Dad and told him to buy a couple of cases of superglue because that’s what this guy needed. Dad laughed. He knew I’d show up at home with Prescott and Weston in tow. Weston had a black eye because Prescott and I had beaten the shit out of him to teach him a lesson. He’d been picking fights and needed a good ass kicking. When he figured out we only wanted to help, the three of us became inseparable. He definitely needed that glue, though. I thought Prescott’s situation was bad—Weston’s brand of dysfunction made me rethink what the word meant.

I’m still fixing things and people, which is how I ended up in my current profession. Since I’m so good at it, why not make some bank doing what I do best?

In less than thirty minutes, I’m on my way to the airport from my Malibu home. At this hour, traffic poses no problem. When I arrive, I drive straight to the entrance for private jets and follow the road around after going through the designated security checkpoints. I park, and Leland is there, along with the pilot. The team is boarding the jet.

“Good morning, everyone. Pete,” I say, greeting our pilot. “Is the coffee on?”

Our flight attendant pops his head out from the back and says, “It’ll be ready in a moment, along with breakfast.”

“Oh, hi, Mike. Didn’t see you back there.”

“Morning, Mr. Kirkland.”

Everyone takes a seat and Leland begins.

“Midnight Drake woke up in a hotel room a few hours ago, naked and alone with three fresh videos on her phone. Apparently, while she was pumped full of what we assume to be heroin, a shitload of kinky fuckery went down, without her consent, and the videos shot of the evening have gone zooming across the internet. Her agent called—it’s a freak show.”

“She was raped?” I ask.

“Yes. I’m hitting you with the videos now. Be prepared. They’re pretty graphic. Let’s just say unfortunately, Midnight was on full display.”

“Fuck.”

“Exactly,” Leland says. “Alta is already claiming they’re dumping her because she violated her contract.”

“What is she saying?” I ask.

“She was drugged and raped.”

“Clearly.”

“She says she remembers nothing.”

“Did you watch the videos?” I ask.

“Yeah, and she was totally out of it. Completely unresponsive in the first one. Then in the second, she came around a little. The third, she was so fucked up, she wouldn’t have cared if someone cut off her head. I shit you not.”

“Sounds like someone roofied her drink. Has our New York team found her playmates? And have you pulled the videos?”

“The videos have been pulled and we’re working on the playmates. Everything was uploaded from a cell phone.”

“Track the fuckers. You know what to do. Where is Midnight now?”

“At The Plaza waiting for you with one of our reps. She’s totally freaked.”

“Right. Wouldn’t you be?”

Leland nods. “I’d be getting the fuck out of town.”

Those fucking asswipes taking advantage of people like that. They’re like computer hackers, out to destroy lives, and for what purpose? Because they don’t have anything better to do? “Leland, did she call the police?”

“No.”

“Hmm. Did she say why?”

“Nothing other than she’s waiting for you.”

This is odd, but I’ll get to the bottom of it when I speak to her. “Okay. What about money? Did those scumbags make any demands?”

“Not that I’m aware.”

I slam my hand down on the table in front of me. “Let’s get on this, people. I don’t care what it takes. We need to clean this shit up.”

That gets the attention of everyone sitting close. Bodies stiffen and eyes open wider. They know when I mean business, and this just hit me the wrong fucking way.

Pete’s voice comes to us over the intercom to tell us we’re ready to taxi. We should be cleared for takeoff momentarily.

“Buckle up, buttercups. We’ve got serious work ahead of us, which equates to a long day. I know I ask a lot of you and I’m sorry for the early hour, but you’ll be given a bonus if we nail these fuckers. As usual, this one stays under the radar.”

The jet taxis toward the runway and we’re soon taking off into the dark sky. It won’t be long before we fly into the sun. The team starts making calls. I have one man in particular I want to contact so I make the call myself.

“Mr. Kirkland. Are you in New York already?”

“Not yet, Rashid, but I’m on the way. I need you to do something for me.” I explain the situation and tell him exactly what I need.

“I’ve already handled the videos. But it may take a day for me to locate the phones. It’ll take some extra work, you know.”

My tension lessens somewhat. “Thanks, Rashid. I’m glad Leland got in touch with you. We’ll be staying at The Plaza if you can’t get in touch with me by phone. But I want those people found.”

“Certainly, Mr. Kirkland.”

Rashid benefited from my cleaning up a while ago. He was in deep shit with his hacking skills. I took care of things for him. Now he owes me and is at my disposal one hundred percent of the time. He stays in New York because honestly, he’s connected to everything. He probably has every bank and investment account number at his fingertips. But the dude knows I have him by the balls. All it would take is for me to make a phone call to the right people and he’d be back where he started.

As soon as Pete says we’ve cleared ten thousand feet, Mike shows up with coffee and breakfast. Emily, another team member, smiles gratefully. So do I. When she’s hungry, she’s a grouch and her brain isn’t worth a shit. I can’t have that. I need her mad skills right now.

Everyone has secrets. Even me. Granted, I’m vanilla compared to most, but when I see a broken individual, I’m a magnet for them. Emily was shattered. Her Dom threw her onto the streets, cast her aside after a few years, with no explanation. I stumbled upon her one night in a bar, drinking herself into oblivion. She told me all her dirty secrets and said she wanted to kill herself. I couldn’t sit by and do nothing. She didn’t want to involve her family, and who could blame her? What person wants to divulge that kind of lifestyle to Mom and Dad? So, I brought her to my place where she could sober up and we could create a plan.

Emily was an events planner for one of the movie studios, and had done a variety of things from handling the press to dealing with caterers. She could mobilize a team of five hundred and get them from point A to B in a snap. I needed those skills on my team. But she needed to get her shit straightened out first, and her issues were way beyond my fixing capabilities.

She checked into a facility and thirty days later was on my payroll. Filled with more confidence than most women I know, she found a new Dom who treats her better than the old one ever did, and Emily is pleasantly flogged on a nightly basis.

Leland declines the offer of breakfast. “Mike, can you come back in five with a coffee refill?” Leland used to work for one of the largest PR firms in Hollywood. That is, until he was caught fucking his boss’s wife. His boss, one of the most powerful men in the industry, promised Leland his name would be dirt. It would’ve been had I not come along. I dug around a bit and found some tidbits that would tilt his boss’s world. Leland separated from the company on “good terms” and I offered him a job on the condition he’d leave the wife alone, which he graciously accepted. He’s been with me ever since.

I ask Mike for an extra breakfast while Misha, who appears meek, nods her thanks for the breakfast and coffee he just placed on the table before her. Appearances are oftentimes deceiving because everyone in LA knows she’s one of the most vicious attorneys around. It’s the reason I wanted her on my team.

Misha found herself in a bind a couple of years ago. She was happily married, or so everyone thought, until her husband stumbled upon some videos of her getting her kink on with another woman. She didn’t want him to know she was bisexual, so she hid that side of her life from him. He wasn’t too pleased about it and threatened to post the videos on YouTube. She freaked and they got into a huge fight, during which she punched him and broke his nose. Did I mention that Misha had anger issues? The YouTube upload threat turned into a lawsuit of abuse and assault. That’s how Misha landed in my office, asking for my help.

After my intervention, Misha ended up with an amicable divorce, even though she took a hit financially. It turned out in her favor though, because she’s made up for it with the salary and bonus I pay her. However, she had to agree to anger management therapy, which she happily did. I saw a sparkling star in her and knew once her issues were resolved, Misha would be an exemplary coworker.

If this jet were to crash, the Hollywood entertainment industry would be in a serious jam because there would be no one worth a shit to rectify their fuckups.

My thoughts tumble back to Midnight Drake. Usually I don’t have such emotionally charged feelings, but the way this woman was exploited is a million kinds of wrong. Midnight Drake is an actor who landed a nice contract with Alta, and these fuckers are trying to ruin her chances of making it big. They won’t if I can help it. This team will stop whoever did this and make them pay.

My phone beeps with a text from Leland. I open it to find all the videos have loaded. I nearly choke on my coffee when I watch the first one. Holy motherfucker. These are worse than hardcore. I feel sick knowing I just witnessed my client getting raped.

“Gather round, team. Our status has just changed to DEFCON 1.” Then I press play. The women are disgusted and pissed off, even though these ladies are tough as nails. But I want them angry, and by the last video’s end, my goal has been accomplished.

Misha flies out of her seat. “Harrison, I want to personally cut their balls off. Look at her! She’s nearly unconscious there. That’s disgusting. What’s worse is I don’t know how anyone would want to watch such depraved shit.”

Emily takes over where Misha leaves off. “What she said. What slimy assholes! And how could that other woman have participated? Let me get my hands on them. I will personally rip their dicks off.”

“Okay, ladies, let’s pull it together. While I want to harness your anger, we need our best brainpower and I won’t get that if you don’t act rationally. Calm down and keep watching.”

We focus on the videos. A necessary evil, you might say, but we have to analyze them if we’re to do our jobs.

“Here’s where we may have a problem,” I say. In one part, Midnight is cooperating and even asking for more. “Harder. Yes, yes,” she says.

Emily nods in disgust. “It’s like she’s dazed but wants it.”

“It’s the drugs,” Misha says. “Look at her face.”

There’s no doubt. “Whatever they gave her must’ve been good,” Emily says.

When the videos are done, I explain what Rashid said. “You both know he’s a bloodhound when I put him on a task. I also want to find out where Midnight went so we can check any security tapes. They should show us something. It’ll help so when Rashid finds their phones, it’ll be easier to ID these guys. We can have one of the guys bring them in. We’ll ... take care of them appropriately.”

Misha’s brows shoot up. “Does that entail being on the bottom of the East River?”

“Our role is to clean things up for Midnight and get everything back on track for her. Find out what Midnight’s contract states and if Alta can drop her. She may have a morality clause or something.”

Misha’s chest still heaves with anger, but she nods.

Emily says, “Yeah, Midnight is our mission. We can’t let our anger get in the way of that. We can worry about those dickfaces later.”

Now that they’re refocused, I say, “Right. So, this is what we need. Emily, work on getting her into rehab. People are very forgiving about someone with a drug problem.”

Emily’s brow furrows. “But that’s admitting she has one when she doesn’t.”

“Let’s take a step back a minute. Remember, we have to keep our feelings and emotions out of this. It’s our job to fix this mess, to find a solution. Plan A is to get her to go to the police. If you were raped like this, wouldn’t that be the first thing you did? Since she didn’t do it on her own, we can only assume there’s a reason for that. We’ll still try to get her to go, but if she refuses, we can’t force her. We’ll need a back-up plan. So, then ask yourselves the question—what’s the best way to clean this up? What’s the best way to get her career back on track? It’s not whether we agree or disagree, it’s whether or not this will work.”

When I see them nod in agreement, I continue.

“Let’s think. We have a huge issue with the videos. Even though they were pulled, they were up long enough for people to have screenshots or GIFs of that shit. Their impressions are solid. We’re going with the worst-case scenario. We can say she doesn’t have a problem until we’re blue-faced, but people who’ve seen them won’t believe us and Midnight needs credibility. The best way to move forward is to ask forgiveness. But in the meantime, Misha, we need to find those men if we can. I want motive. When Midnight gets out in thirty days, we want the public dying to see her. They will hopefully crawl all over her and want her back just like they want icing on cake. If Alta drops her, our job is to get them down on their hands and knees, and beg her to come back. Oh, and Leland, get to work on her speech. Relate it somehow to her tragic childhood. Do we know anything about that? If not, dig up something. I don’t care if it’s about a guppy that died and she never grieved appropriately. Make it emotional as shit. We want this all in place as Plan B just in case we need to implement it.”

The team goes to work, while I do a little research on Midnight. She started out in B-rated films, like most actors do, trying to get noticed. She got noticed, all right. With long black hair and unusual lavender eyes, she isn’t a raving beauty but she has an exotic appeal. Her seductiveness makes her unforgettable. There’s something about her that screams sex. Having been cast in the types of roles that not many mainstream actors usually want, Midnight is willing to spread her wings and try anything.

Then I stumble upon something that makes me do a double take. Born in Phoenix, her birth name was Velvet Summers.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I say out loud.

“What?” All eyes are on me as they ask.

“Did you know Midnight’s birth name was Velvet Summers?”

“Oh, that,” Leland says.

“How did I not know this?”

Misha shrugs. “Don’t know. Leland sent over a photocopy of her birth certificate. I thought you saw it.”

“Who the fuck names their kid Velvet Summers?” But after I say it, I think of my best friend, Weston—his wife’s name is Special. Who names a kid that?

Emily shrugs. “Yeah, people choose weird names.”

I keep reading and find some interesting facts. Midnight’s mother was an exotic dancer, and some reports listed her as a stripper. She also was known to have a drug problem. Midnight ended up in foster care but then fell off the radar when she was seventeen. It looks like she never even finished high school. Maybe she really did have a tragic upbringing. Her mother died ten years ago, when Midnight was only fourteen—probably why she ended up in foster care. There’s no mention of a father in the picture. The plot thickens.

Emily announces she’s gotten Midnight into one of the premier rehab facilities in the country. Located in Arizona, it has a spa-like atmosphere. She’ll be secluded from the Hollywood gossip and the rest of the world for a minimum of thirty days.

“It’s pricey, but worth it, I believe. The reviews are astounding,” Emily says.

“Good. We’ll drop her off on our flight back to LA,” I say.

Misha announces our legal team in New York is ready for us if we need them.

“Good work,” I say. “Hopefully, we’ll ID these people or at least track them with Rashid’s help. They didn’t show any faces in the videos, and they also wore condoms, so that cuts into our evidence. Maybe there will still be drugs left in Midnight’s system.”

I’m going to do my best at finding those fuckers who did this and making them pay—with or without the police.