"Mathew!" Mitchum bellowed. The office was a mess; books and papers and stupid knickknacks strewn about. Even his computer monitor was cracked and tossed in heap on the floor. But Mitchum couldn't see any of that. He had literal tunnel vision; his eyes pulsating with rage as everything but some red abstract painting on the wall right in front of him faded away into his periphery. "Mathew!" he screamed again when his assistant did not appear in a timely manner.

"Yeah, boss?" his voice finally squeaked. Mitchum turned to face him, his head peaking tentatively through the opening of the slightly ajar door.

"No comment! If that irrelevant, idiotic, so-called reporter calls again, I have no fucking comment. You have no fucking comment. In fact, I want everyone in this building answering their phones with 'no fucking comment.' Do you hear me?"

"Yes, boss," Mathew assented with a grimace on his face.

"And get Charlie Hancock on the phone. I want to speak to him NOW!"

"On it, boss." Mathew pulled his reticent head out of the doorway and disappeared back into the anteroom, presumably to do as he was told.

Mitchum paced irately across the section of floor behind his desk that wasn't strewn with debris from his earlier actions. He couldn't believe Charlie would do this to him. They'd played golf together just last week and he fucking knew. He knew his barely competent neophyte of an employee was planning this hit piece on him. He had to have known. And he acted like everything was fine.

Well, if he thought Mitchum was going to let him print this garbage he had another thing coming. It wasn't like his hands were free of pretty, young interns. If he wanted to take Mitchum down, Mitchum was going to take him right back down with him.

He fought the urge to punch something, or to take books off the bookshelf and start throwing them. How could he have let this happen? How could he have let things get this far? They never should have gotten this far. It was his own fault. He hadn't taken them seriously enough. He hadn't thought of them as a real threat. He figured at worst some half-assed, overtly biased joke of an op-ed would wind up in some barely read blog or some rag of a tabloid. But the Examiner? The Examiner was one of the most respected publications in New York, if not in the country. It had millions of readers. They had Pulitzer Prize winning journalists on their roster. And to add insult to injury, out of all those award-winning reporters, they had some no-name kid spearheading this thing? Charlie was a dead man. Speaking of…

He marched over to the door of his office and slammed it open. "Where the hell is Hancock? How long does it take to make a fucking phone call?" Mathew cowered slightly, telephone receiver to his ear.

"I'm working on it, Boss. First time I got disconnected as reception was transferring me. Then his assistant said he was in a meeting. I tried his private cell but he's not picking up."

"Fucking bastard is ignoring me." He noticed Mathew make a conspicuous face. Of course Charlie was avoiding him, the man wasn't stupid. "Give me your cellphone."

"What?" Mathew's brow furrowed with uncertainty.

"Your cellphone, NOW!" Mathew hesitantly reached into his back pocket, pulled out the device, and handed it over. Charlie would know not to answer calls from Mitchum's number. There was a chance he'd be screening all his call today, but then again, he'd also be on high alert for anything that could throw a wrench in his big story. An unlisted number could be coming from his reporter, or editor, or another source. There was too much at stake to ignore it.

Mitchum flipped the phone open and started punching numbers in as he turned and stormed back into his office. The phone rang once, twice, three times.

"Hello?" a nervous voice answered; probably his assistant.

"Put him on," Mitchum barked.

"Umm, may I ask who's calling?"

"You damn well know who's calling. Now put him the fuck on the phone."

"Mr. Hancock is in a meeting but if you…" The assistant's voice faded out.

"Hello, Mitchum," Charlie Hancock's resigned voice made its way through the line.

"So what? You don't even have the balls to answer my calls."

"Nice rhyme."

"Fuck you, Charlie."

"I'm a busy man, Mitchum. You know what it's like running a newspaper. You can't just stop what you're doing every time the phone rings."

"You can when I'm the one calling."

"Listen, Mitch…"

"No, you fucking listen. You know who you're messing with here. You know what I'm capable of."

"I do."

"Do you think this is funny? You stand next to a man playing golf all the while knowing you're about to blow up his fucking life, an entire fucking empire?"

"I didn't know."

"The hell you didn't," Mitchum roared. "You're the fucking editor-in-chief."

"Andrews came to Bergman with this. They decided that they had enough to make it worth pursuing. They told me what they were working on, of course, but they wouldn't tell me who it was about. Said it was a conflict of interest for me. And they were right. If I pull it now, they'll just take it somewhere else. And everyone will know I killed it for personal reasons. I'd be complicit in the cover-up. There's nothing I can do about it, even if I wanted to. And quite honestly, I don't. This is a hell of a story, Mitchum. We know you were covering up for Peterson's...perversions. And as for you personally, well, your ex has some pretty damning evidence."

"She's a lying, little shrew. She and Logan hatched this up so he could get his grimy, little hands on the company."

"And if it were just their word against yours, that argument would probably fly, especially with that picture in the Times that links them together romantically—which, by the way, is quite disturbing under this new context, but I digress. You know I wouldn't be going to print with this without corroborating sources and physical evidence. And I've got to say Mitchum, they've got it."

"They have shit because there is shit to have."

"Well then, I'd talk to Jackson and tell him your side. Because as it is, and I say this as a friend, things are not looking good for you. So, if you have a defense, now is the time to tell it."

"And I say this as a friend, Charlie. If you know what's good for you, you'll pull this story. It's not like I don't know shit about you. Like what's her name? Winny? Willy?"

"Wendy," Charlie informed him. "Her name was Wendy. And that was a consensual affair from years ago. My wife already knows. HR knows. Laura and I did marriage counseling, and the company instituted all new sexual harassment policies. So yeah, it won't look great if it gets out, but if anything, pulling the story would make it worse. It would make it seem like I had more to hide. And besides, I never laid an angry hand on Wendy, or any other woman in my life. It's not the same."

"Fuck you, Charlie."

"So you've said."

"You're going to pay for this," he growled.

"Maybe," Charlie replied nonchalantly. "Maybe not. But like I said, it's out of my hands. This story is coming out, Mitchum, whether either of us likes it or not. So I'd get ready for the shit storm if I were you. I've gotta go. I've got a paper to run."

Dead air transmitted through the abandoned phone line. "Fuck!" Mitchum growled. He threw the cell across the room, letting it slam into the wall and drop to the floor to join the rest of the debris.

God fucking damn. He was serious. He was seriously going to publish this crap. They had evidence? Legitimate evidence? What evidence could they possibly have besides they word of Rory and the other women he'd involved himself with over the years? Charlie had said something about Peterson and a cover-up. He knew Peterson had had his share of dalliances with subordinates. But so what? And besides, those women had more than benefited from it; one of them was an anchor on a prime-time news show now. Not to mention the financial benefits Mitchum had paid out for them to keep their mouths shut.

That was it…evidence of a cover-up. Fuck. That had to be what Charlie was talking about; the NDAs. His fucking bastard of a son had access to whatever documents he wanted while he was working here…including HR documents…the NDAs. It all came back to Logan. That goddamn idiot could have had everything, he could have been a fucking king in this world, not that he deserved it. But he threw it all away for some manipulative, little slut. And he was going to take his own father down with him. Well, Logan hadn't won yet. And if he was going to take Mitchum down, Mitchum was going to make sure as hell, Logan paid the price.

The clinking of silverware against porcelain cut through the silence as Honor started gathering up the plates from the table. They'd sent Carmen and Bethany home early; given them the next few days off. And Josh had made sure to get home from the office early. Today was the day. The day Mitchum found out exactly what they were up to. Which meant their best course of action right now was to hunker down until the article went to print. They didn't want to drag any more unsuspecting people into this.

Logan was worried enough as it was. Worried about Rory. Worried about Jackson. Worried about all the other women who had put themselves on the line to make sure Mitchum got what was coming to him. He had no way of predicting what Mitchum would do, but he knew whatever it was, it was bound to be volatile. Which meant it was best to keep a low profile. But that didn't stop him from worrying.

"Here, let me help you with that," he said, standing up and taking his plate over to the sink to rinse and put in the dishwasher. He'd been the cause of enough trouble for her, he didn't need to add 'doing the dishes' to things his sister needed to worry about.

"Do you think Jackson called him yet?" Honor asked. Logan looked over his shoulder at the clock on the oven. It was almost eight. Through the window he could see the last rays of sun rapidly disappearing beneath the horizon.

"He must have," Logan conceded. "He would have wanted to catch him in the office."

"So that's it then. He knows."

"He knows." Logan nodded.

"And now it's just a waiting game."

Josh pushed himself up from the table and made his way over to join them, slipping his hand into his wife's. "Do you think…do you think he'll do anything?" Logan and Josh had never been super close before this, but he had to give credit to the man for not kicking him out of the house months ago and telling him to take his vendetta against his father far away from him and his family. For that alone, Logan would always be grateful to the man; he was family and he'd stood by him despite having every reason not to.

"I know he will," Logan admitted. "I just don't know what."

"That's reassuring," Josh replied sardonically.

"I know. But Honor and I both have restraining orders out on him. And the security system here, well, you paid for it, so you know…"

"Right."

"We should do something distracting," Honor suggested. "Like watch a movie." Her voice oozed with forced enthusiasm. "Something stupid…and distracting."

"You go pick something and set it up," Logan suggested as he bent down to put a fork in the utensil rack. "I'll finish up in here."

"Are you sure?" Honor asked. "You could just leave it for now."

"No," Logan shook his head. "It's fine, I've got it." He had too much pent-up energy to just sit around and watch a movie. He needed to do something.

"Alright," Honor and Josh headed out of the kitchen towards the family room while Logan gathered up some more plates from the table and brought them over to the dishwasher. He finished loading all the plates and started the appliance.

"How about Get Smart?" Honor called from the other room.

"That's fine," he yelled back. He didn't really care what she picked. Honestly, it could have been some cheesy Brittany Murphy rom-com for all he cared. He didn't think he was going to be able to pay attention anyway. He started putting the leftovers in Tupperware and was just about to start wiping down the counters when a beeping noise sounded through the house; the motion detector by the front gate. It was probably just a deer or a raccoon or something. Still, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He made his way over to the family room to check on Honor and Josh. Josh had his laptop open and Logan knew he was checking the security camera. His brother-in-law looked up with an apprehensive look on his face.

"There's a car," he stated. "I can't tell the make in the dark." Logan moved around the sofa to get a peek at the screen. A man with the right general build to be Mitchum got out of the car. He stomped up to the gate and started shaking it angrily erasing any niggling doubt of who it could be. He hadn't sent someone, he'd come himself. That both reassured and terrified Logan. For Mitchum to do something that stupid and brazen, he had to be desperate. Which meant he was all out of reasonable defenses and options. They had him, and he knew it. That also meant that he had nothing left to lose. And when a man like Mitchum had nothing left to lose, there was no telling what he would do.

Logan watched as he screamed silently on the computer screen in front of him, then marched over to the intercom at the side of the gate. A buzzing sound came from the security panel on the wall, and then the unmistakable tenor of his father's voice. "Open these fucking gates you traitorous, fucking bastard."

All three of the adults cringed at the sound of rage personified. "I got this," Logan stated, trying not to let his fear show as the bile crawled its way up the back of his throat. "Turn off the intercom, go upstairs with Penny, lock the door, and call the cops."

"What are you going to do?" Honor asked, her voice trembling.

Mitchum's voice boomed across the room, spewing more curse words. Josh pressed a button on the computer and the intercom cut off.

"I'm going to keep him screaming with impotent rage until the cops get here and arrest him."

"Logan, no," Honor protested. "You are not going out there. It's too dangerous."

"He's outside the gate, I'll be fine."

"What if he has a gun? The gates don't stop a bullet," Josh pointed out.

"He won't have a gun," Logan assured them, and as confident as he was about that, he couldn't stop the sensation of dread that slithered over him at the thought, like a million tiny spiders swarming over every inch of his skin.

"You don't know that for sure."

"I know him," Logan promised Honor. He knew their father far better than his sister would ever have the misfortune of having to. And while he wouldn't put it past Mitchum to cause him physical harm, guns were too impersonal, and this was an intensely personal mission. It was why he was here himself and hadn't just sent some lackey to intimidate him. "I'll be fine, I promise. Now get upstairs and call the police. The sooner you do, the sooner this is over."

"Logan, please," she begged. "Don't be a hero."

"I'm not fighting with you about this, Hon." He turned his attention to Josh who gave him a nod to let him know they were on the same page.

"Come on, Babe," he said, taking Honor by the hand and starting to lead her away. "It's gonna be fine. Logan can handle it."

Honor looked helpless from her husband to her brother before relenting and following Josh up the stairs.

Logan squeezed his eyes shut, helping himself to a deep gulp of oxygen before making his way out the front door and down the driveway to the gate.

Mitchum was pacing irately back and forth in front of the intercom, intermittently jabbing his finger into the button to scream expletives.

"Well gee, Dad," Logan interrupted his ranting, "If I'd have known about the family reunion, I would have brought my Scrabble. You don't happen to know of any seven letter words I can make with the tiles…" he held up his hand and started ticking fingers off as he spoke, "C, O, N, V, I, C, and T, do you?"

Mitchum looked up at him, his face contorted in fury. "Those were private fucking files you asshole. You think you can just hand proprietary information over to a journalist and get away with it? I'll sue you for every last dollar you have left and every penny you're ever going to make."

"Have fun spending it behind bars. Maybe you can use it to buy smokes from the commissary and trade it for moonshine made in someone's urinal."

"You think you're fucking clever, do you?"

"Well, more clever than you at least, seeing as you're the one who's about to lose everything and go to jail."

"Please, you think I'm worried about your stupid fucking restraining order? Call the cops, I'll be out on bail tomorrow."

Logan shrugged. "Sure, for a while, at least.

"What's that supposed to mean? You think your moronic hit piece is going to be taken seriously? They don't arrest people for screwing their slutty, little, gold-digging employees."

Logan bristled at the crass way Mitchum was speaking about Rory, but he resisted the urge to defend her. It was what Mitchum wanted…to get him riled up. "No, but they do arrest people for domestic abuse."

Mitchum scoffed. "Her word against mine."

"Actually, it's your word against yours. And you were very convincing."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Dearest Pooh," Logan pushed down the bile he felt in his throat every time he heard that disturbing nickname. He continued on, his voice filled with mocking saccharinity. "I know you have no reason to forgive me. What I did was unforgivable…" He watched as the whites of Mitchum's eyes grew more prominent against the darkened backdrop of the moonless night sky. "Thanks for the written confession, by the way. It came in super handy. Rory gave it to the cops when she was filing her restraining order against you, so I'd be prepared to retain a really good lawyer." He felt a jolt of pride as he said the words. He wasn't bluffing; Rory had filed a full report with the police. She was going to move ahead with pressing charges.

The bleep of an approaching police car cut through the air. "And speaking of the cops…" Two Village of Brookville police cars pulled up, blocking in the Mercedes C class Mitchum had driven there. One officer got out of his vehicle the while the other started talking into his radio.

"Is there a problem, sir?" The officer asked Logan.

"I was just leaving," Mitchum muttered, beginning to move towards his car.

"Leaving in the back of that cruiser, sure," Logan informed him. He turned his attention to the cop. "He's in violation of his restraining order, Officer," Logan informed the uniformed man. "Two restraining orders, actually. My sister inside has one too."

"Is that true, sir?" he asked Mitchum.

"A simple misunderstanding," he smarmed. The officer glanced at Logan once more, and Logan have him an expression that clearly indicated it was no misunderstanding.

"I'm sorry, sir," the officer said, pulling out a set of handcuffs from his belt. "But you're going to need to come with me."

"That's ridiculous," Mitchum roared, his temporarily peaceful voice quickly returning to its previous state of fury. "Do you have any idea who I am?" If the cop didn't know now, he surely would come Thursday morning, Logan thought smugly.

"We'll get all that information on intake," the officer replied, turning Mitchum around to place the cuffs. "In the meantime, you have the right to remain silent…"

AN: Oh how sweet it is. This chapter was going to have more but this was just too good of an ending. That means that even though is aid there was only going to be one more chapter after this one and an epilogue, you're actually going to get at least 2, maybe 3 more chapters and an epilogue. I have to do some reconfiguring of my outline and see. Anyway, I hope you enjoy getting to see Mitchum getting his comeuppance. It sure has been a long time coming. Please leave me a review and let me know what you thought.