They Saved My Sister and Let Me Drown, So I Took Hollywood novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Lenox

The head of drama at Lumen was a small, gray-haired woman who ate almonds one at a time and did not smile.

I had waited two months for her office door to open.

It was September now, and Beck was sitting outside it in the lobby, reading a trade magazine upside down to look relaxed.

He had also eaten all of her assistant's cookies.

"You can go in," the assistant said, with a look at the empty plate.

Inside, a big window held the Santa Monica sky.

On the desk lay a tablet with the last frame of our twelve minutes paused on it.

We had shot it in August, in a friend's warehouse and one borrowed field.

Five actors had worked for free, and the crew was six.

Beck had lit all of it with practical lamps and a bedsheet, and it looked like a film that cost fifty times more.

"Sit," she said.

I sat.

"Your father's office called me eight times in two weeks," she said, and cracked an almond between two fingers. "His assistant, his lawyer and then him."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'll tell you what he said. If I met with you, Haverill Pictures would pull every title it licenses to us. Twelve titles."

My mouth went dry.

"That's a lot of titles," I said.

"It's four percent of our library, and every one is under contract through 2031." She shrugged. "He can't pull anything. He's threatened me eight times in ten years. He wants me to believe he can."

I let out a laugh I hadn't planned on.

She did not laugh.

"I took the meeting because Beck Mallory sent me a file at midnight and said, 'Watch it twice, then tell me I'm wrong.' I watched it five times."

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