Page 16 of Release
For the first time in—well, since her talk with Dad—it occurred to Alexandra that she did not have to do this.
Yeah. I don’t have to do any of this.
This Rita chick has crossed the damned line.
Thanks to her father’s guidance and her head for finances, she could get his help to figure this out and walk away from this contract. Dad, her accountant, and Dad’s corporate lawyer, Hirsch, were the only people who knew her real net worth.
Suddenly she remembered her dream about being a puppet with Rita pulling the strings, before Alexandra ran away and became the one with Rita under her control.
I could buy Blaze.
I could run this hellhole.
Hell, I think I’m going to do this!
Running a corporation was not something she had considered taking on, but this was one way of running the ship and taking back control. She entered the music industry out of a love for making music. What she enjoyed was connecting with the people who truly loved her songs, singing to people who found their inspiration in her lyrics, or just related to what she had been through.
It was never supposed to be like this, and it was clear she had lost sight of her passion at some point. Like most good things, that passion was corrupted by other people’s greed. Maybe her own greed too, in the past. She also profited from letting them control her up to now, but this was a new day, and she was ready to grab it by the balls to have her say.
Getting to her feet, she faced off with Rita and her team of Yes Women and Yes Men, including Wilkes. “Let’s get something straight, Rita, everyone. I. Am. Not. Doing. This. And here’s something else. I’ll preface it by saying, this is not an ultimatum. This is a promise.”
“You’ll do what I tell you to do,” Rita countered.
Alexandra smiled. She was going to enjoy this part. “Here’s the thing, Rita. There are ways around and ways out of contracts. If you think you can wave my contract over my head as leverage, you’ve seriously got me mixed up with someone else. I never wanted to have to play hardball with the label, but you’re leaving me no choice now. I don’t know if you have some kind of personal problem with me or what your issue it, but where do you get off coming in here and trying to dictate what I do with my personal life? From now on, Lexxi Rock makes her own decisions. This label needs me, not the other way around.”
Rita looked amused. “That was a cute speech. Now, back to what we were discussing.”
Angry now, Alexandra walked back to her seat and picked up her oversized bag. Fishing out her purse, she glared at Rita. The woman crossed her arms, and her eyebrows quirked as the call Alexandra made connected to the other end over her speakerphone.
“Hirsch Mason and Associates,” the person on the other end answered.
“Hi. Alexandra here. Is Hirsch around?”
“One moment please.”
The receptionist put her on hold for less than ten seconds. Hirsch had always told her she was an important client, and today it showed. When he answered, she told him, “Hirsch. I want to go ahead and make a move on acquiring Blaze Records.”
Hirsch had no idea what she was talking about, but he was a professional. He replied with, “It’s a publicly traded company, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll get the ball rolling and report back in three hours.”
“Thanks. The faster the better, Hirsch,” she said in closing.
Stunned silence filled the room. After Alexandra hung up, she studied Rita, who looked like the rug was pulled out from right under her.
Not so self-assured now, huh?
Rita gathered herself in a quick beat, and made a silly stammered suggestion that Lexxi Rock couldn’t possibly afford to buy Blaze Records. Is she was blind enough to wonder if Alexandra could do it, she was setting herself up for a bigger surprise when Hirsch moved on it. The man and his team of over seventy-five Mergers and Acquisition practitioners made things happen—fast. He even had a small group who understood how to work within the Williams Act and dealt with the SEC with ease. She could rely on him to navigate everything from making the public offer, to negotiating with major shareholders, to targeting brokers who would buy up any available shares if it came down to making a dawn raid to pick up the majority stake. Alexandra had the collateral to make it happen.
She chuckled, but not in humor.
Rita has no idea.
Her head will spin when this deal happens in days, not weeks or months.
Leaning over the conference table, she looked each person in the eye one by one, pausing for an extra beat on Wilkes. “There are about to be some changes around here. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. I’d hate to make this seem like a hostile takeover, but I have no problem making it exactly that, if it has to be.”
