A GOLDEN EMPIRE

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

AURORA AND ADRIANNA WALK UP THE HALLWAY, heading outside to the courtyard when the former's phone rings. She pulls it out of her BIRKIN to see that Charles is calling. She grins and slides her finger across the screen to answer it.

"Hi, daddy!"

"Hi, honeybear. Good news. Are you with your friends? This news is for all of you."

Aurora's eyes widen at this. She needs to gather the empire right now. Adrianna looks at her questioningly. "I'm with Adrianna right now but I can gather them. Hold on one second."

She switches to iMessage, firing off a text to the Empire group chat.

THE EMPIRE

AURORA
stop whatever it is that y'all are doing
meet Adrianna and me outside in the courtyard
my dad has some news for us.
MOVE IT PEOPLE

After she sends it, the two girls rush outside. Aurora has been waiting for this to happen ever since she told her father what's been happening.

"Are you all there?"

Justin walks up with Autumn, Mario, Kingsley, and Avalon behind him. Brandon leans up in Blake's embrace, kissing him on the cheek, and rushes up to his friends. The elder smiles at this and walks across the courtyard to chill with some of his lacrosse teammates.

"Brandon, why do you look so disheveled?" Avalon says in a teasing manner.

The Carrington heir scowls. We are not doing this today. There's no way. "That is not important right now. There's news for us and I want to hear it. Shush." He's not in the mood to be teased today.

Avalon snickers. Aurora tunes them out in favor of putting her phone on speaker. "Okay, we're all here. What's the good news?"

Charles goes on to tell them what happened during his conversation with Harris Copeland. From the confrontation to exposing that asshole for the evil misogynistic motherfucker he is. There's an explosive expose on how that man treats his female employees- trying to manipulate them into sleeping with him, although married. I mean, it's scandalous. Not to mention that he's been having an affair with his secretary, Kendra. Most importantly- Charles terminated the partnership before this went public which means that he won't be implicated. He and Dianna anonymously put this information out there for the world to know. There's no damn way anyone is going to pursue anything with him now.

"Daddy, the group and I need to talk. I'll see you at home." They say their goodbyes and the call ends. "Is anyone saying anything about it on social media?"

Avalon scrolls through Twitter. Lo and goddamn behold. The world knows. "Oh shit. There's an article about this on the LA Times website." She turns her phone screen towards the group. In big bold letters, the headline reads: COPELAND IN TROUBLE.

Underneath that, it reads: 'Millionaire Harris Copeland is under investigation for money laundering and sexual harassment. His wife, in a word today, refutes these claims on her husband's behalf.'

"Oh, but of course she's sticking by his side. She's a dumb bitch for that. He's having an affair with his fucking secretary, plus if I recall correctly, he's cheated on her multiple times last year. With a half-assed yet fake apology and a bouquet of red roses- how cliche- she took him back." Kingsley rolls his eyes. "I don't feel sorry for anyone in that family."

"What else does it say, Av?"

"Listen to this shit."

She clicks play on a video of MARIELLE COPELAND being hounded by paparazzi on Rodeo Drive this morning.

'My husband is innocent. Those bitches are lying. They're trying to take down a brilliant hardworking man. Leave me the hell alone.'

"Brilliant? Hardworking? More like a filthy chauvinistic bastard." Aurora says sharply. "She's not any better. She's condescending and likes to talk down to people like she's the most important and everyone else is inferior to her. I know I probably sound like a hypocrite because of what we've been doing, but they deserve to be brought down several pegs. That entire family is trash. They can rot."

Justin caresses her thigh in an attempt to soothe her. It works because she leans her head back on his shoulder.

Avalon continues reading only to get an alert. Her eyes bulge widely. Why? The victims have come forward with their claims and have officially filed a $500 million sexual harassment lawsuit.

The suit, filed in the state of California, alleges 'extensive illegal harassment that went ignored by management'. The plaintiffs say that numerous women were subject to 'pervasive sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, including groping, sexual assault and sexually charged comments.'

Ashley Richardson, 24, says she was harassed by the CEO. Copeland made sexually explicit comments towards her, she alleges, saying she had a 'fat ass' and that he would 'take her on a ride'. Ms. Richardson says the comments escalated to unwanted touching. Copeland would pull her into his groin area and would 'rub his genitals on her', the suit claims.

Valerie Bennett, 28, a former employee, also allegedly faced verbal and physical harassment from Copeland. He would 'rub his groin area against her', she says, and 'touch her thighs'. On one occasion she alleges he put his phone in front of her face and showed her a picture of his genitals.

"I'm willing to bet that he's shifting the blame on someone else." That would be correct. The article says exactly that.

The bell rings. The school day is now over.

"I'll see your guys later. I need to go shopping for a suit for the auction so my mother can leave me the hell alone about it." Brandon rolls his eyes. He waves to them and heads to his Maybach. When he gets there, Blake is leaning against it. "Hello, handsome."

"Hi, you." Blake smiles leaning in to kiss him which Brandon reciprocates with a happy sigh. "Mind if I hang out with you for a while? I'm not trying to go home right now." His mother Lauren has been showing up to his penthouse unannounced every day since he flew back to Los Angeles from the Hamptons and has been irritating him more and more lately. Anything he does seems to never be good enough. He needs a break from her. Spending time with his pretty boy, which is what he refers to Brandon as sometimes, is exactly what he needs.

"Of course you can. I need to go shopping for a suit so my mother can stop bugging me about getting it." The younger male unlocks the car. Blake walks around and climbs into the passenger seat. "Do you want to watch me dress up?"

The delightful smirk on the elder's face tells the Carrington heir all he needs to know. 'He just wants to see me undressed. You know what, he's been good. So I'll give him something.'

The lot clears out. Everyone wanders off in separate ways to go do last minute shopping and such.