Smoke and Mirrors (Smoke #1)

[ 57 ]

Opening the front door of my house, I noticed Daniel, Kyle, Olivia and Bella standing outside. I sighed, staring back at them as I began to wonder if they had heard the news that I was fired from the agency. It was a fairly small organisation, so I wouldn't have been surprised if word had managed to spread around so quickly.

"Hey." I greeted the four of them solemnly as they all made their way through the door.

"We just heard about what happened and Scarlett, we are really sorry about you losing your job. You were honestly one of the best sport reporters I ever heard of, you deserve better than that agency." Olivia comforted me as I just thanked her and smiled.

"Yeah, Olivia's right. You're crazy talented, how you could fired was beyond shocking." Kyle pipped up as the three of us turned and face him as he gave me a look of uncertainty.

"Well obviously if you get fired, I'll have no one to irritate at the office you know? Duh." He said as I blinked then turned my attention onto the rest of the group.

"What happened Scarlett?" Daniel asked as I just looked back, irritated as I folded my arms.

"Well all I was doing was finishing up an article and then Derrick comes into my office, accusing me of sleeping around with footballers -"

"What?" The four of them exclaimed in shock as I sadly nodded my head and continued my story.

"- Anyway, he kept saying that was the only reason I wanted to be a sports reporter was because I was whoring it up with the athletes. I'm even disgusted by talking about it. And that wasn't the worse of it. He even said he was happy with calling up one of the boys from the under 18s championships to arrange a special appointment. When I confronted him about his offended comments he told me to pack up all my stuff and leave since I was fired because if I didn't, he was going to call the police." I added, feeling as if a hug weight was removed from me.

"That fucker." Daniel cussed as everybody looked filled with anger after I had just told them my story.

"He's got no right to talk to anybody that way, regardless if you work for him or not." Olivia said as Bella just smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

"Look on the bright side, at least she doesn't have to see that asshole ever again. Scarlett is free, she's free from Derrick and the things that have held her back." Bella said as I just sighed and wrapped my arms around my legs.

"And now that I don't have a job, I don't know what I can do anymore. There's nothing that can keep me occupied anymore -"

"Hey, what about the drug investigation Scarlett?" Kyle cut me off and asked sternly as I shook my head.

"I don't work at the agency anymore remember? I can't work on the investigation because I'm not qualified to anymore."

"Bullshit. You think the rest of us are qualified? Scarlett, I'm just an average city lawyer, Kyle's just an average political writer, Olivia is a university student and Bella works as a fucking physiotherapist. What makes us anymore disqualified than you are?"

"Uh excuse me Daniel, physiotherapists are very important part of life." Bella chimed in as he rolled his eyes.

"That's not what I'm talking about Bella. Anyway, whilst none of us are theoretically suited to this task, we can't let you go Scarlett. Not now. To make this work, all of us need to work together and I get it, our personalities are going to crash from time to time but that's life, that's what we need to deal with. We can't just back out from this investigation now. Not after coming this far, it's like we're going to throw away all the hard work we have done. We need you Scarlett, we all need each other if we are going to bring these fuckers down." Daniel said as I sighed and pressed my lips together.