Sweet Downfall (10 page)

He exited the tent.

Pulling a cap over his head, he ducked behind tents, avoiding being spotted by the hounds.

A scandal of this magnitude was the last thing he needed attached to his name right now. He was gunning for a General Patronage rating for this movie, an action-packed, fantasy-epic designed to please the younger generation. It will have its world premiere in summer, which meant he had two months tops to wrap up all the additional fight scenes so he can go back to LA and proceed to post-production. But all of that might be shot to hell because of a freakin’ video scandal starring him, no less!

The local moviegoers might just boycott his movie because the director was a slimy perv caught in some old video humping the shit out of an insanely beautiful society princess. It was a consolation he’d finished all the major scenes involving his lead actors a month ago or he’d be the laughingstock on set for weeks.

Sex videos were like a fad nowadays and he’d seen some nasty shit by some notorious Hollywood celebrities wanting to get even more famous. He had watched them with mild curiosity and some amusement and even shared some ribald jokes with his male friends. But those celebrities were multi-media commodities and public properties who shrewdly capitalized on their infamy for more popularity. While Angie was…

God, this would destroy her. She won’t be able to handle this.

Dammit, who would do this thing?

He called Joey. She popped up again beside him like a troll. Sometimes, Joey really spooked the shit out of him.

“I need to go back to Manila to check on something. Entertain the bitches. Treat them and the entire crew at a restaurant later for dinner. I’ll be back tomorrow for the shoot, okay?”

She nodded. “Got it.”

They entered a tent. Eric was inside conferring with Wade Douglas, the fight choreographer, Calum Wells, the chief cameraman and Edmund Mead, the set designer. They stood up when they saw him.

“Let me see the shoot sched, again, Eric.”

Eric showed him a chart and gave him a pen. He put marks on the chart.

“Have those scenes set up when I get back. We’ll resume tomorrow. Call me if something comes up. Keep those hounds away at all costs, okay boys?”

They nodded, but they all looked speculative. That pissed him off some more. He was embarrassed by it all but he didn’t need to explain anything to them. This was his damn business. Not that he still needed to talk about it since the whole country was probably latching on it like flies on freshly dumped shit anyway. Still, he felt the need to apologize. His team were all professionals. “Sorry about that, guys. I’ll take care of it. See you tomorrow.”

He left the tent with Joey. They walked briskly toward his pick up truck parked at the back of the set, beside his RV.

“Don’t fuck up while I’m gone and don’t hit on the staff,” he warned her.

“Come on, cuz, not even the sexy daughter of the caterer?”

He scowled at her. “Yeah. She’s jailbait.”

“Is there a law against lesbians making out with chicks under 18?”

That made him pause.

“Gotcha!”

He snorted. “Yeah. Your prick is bigger than mine.”

“It probably is. I got a new strap-on. Wanna see?” she dissed back.

He rolled his eyes. Joey could actually pass for a handsome young man with her buzz cut, squarish jaw line, silver blings and those tattoos. She had ink all over her body and a total of ten body piercing, she’d told him. The only ones visible were her pierced eyebrow, left ear and tongue. Only the devil knew what else she’d had pricked under her clothes. No pun.

“Don’t fuck up,” he repeated and opened the pick-up’s door.

“A friend of mine just sent me a clip of that vid. Wanna see?” There was a naughty glint in her eyes.

He grabbed the lapel of her polo shirt. “Gimme your cell.”

“Aw, come on, cuz!”

He wrenched the phone from her hand and let her go. “Where?”

She winced. “Press ‘play’.”

He pressed the play button. The scene was shot in the bedroom.

Of course, everyone would focus on that particular segment. Never mind that it only occupied a very minimal space in the entire thirty-minute video. People were interested only in digging up dirt, preferably the filthiest, most shocking ones. Especially high society dirt.

Angie was elite while he was purely showbiz bred. Despite his own personal success, he was and will always be below her social class. At least in this country. Her father certainly had no compunction in calling him trash. But that video was far from trash. He had shot it with all the love in his heart, with all the reverence and passion for the woman whom he’d thought returned his love with the same breadth and depth.

The bedroom scene played before his eyes like he was taking it from his personal video camera eight years ago. It didn’t seem so long ago.

God, this was supposed to be private! Only for him and Angie. Now, the entire world was privy to their most intimate memories, even if it happened so long ago.

He deleted the video clip and handed the phone back to Joey.

“If I catch anyone watching any fucking clip of that fucking video on my set, he’s fired. Including you. Spread the word,” he said menacingly.

Joey nodded wordlessly.

He climbed into his truck and shut the door hard.

He sped off like a hundred demons were after him.

Angie approached the Yulo mansion’s imposing front entrance
on shaky legs. She hoped she could get inside before shame and fear got the better of her.

She had built a tough armor around herself over the years. But even the toughest person had an Achilles’ heel. Hers were all in this house.

The oversize and heavily carved front doors were opened by one of their maids.

Walking slowly into the grand living room, she felt like approaching a judge’s bench to receive a death sentence. They were all there, waiting for her.

She first made a quick eye contact with her brother Rad. His face was set in grim lines, his aggression barely contained. It would unleash any time soon.

Ram was composed, as usual, but the cold, cynical look in his eyes was condemnation enough.

She glanced at her only sister but Sherry’s head was bowed.

Angie bravely met her father’s eyes and she nearly staggered back. The combined anger and disappointment she saw in Manolo’s eyes violently hurled her back in time and she was that young girl again, afraid, insecure.

She slowly turned to her fiancé. Jordan was standing there, as still as a statue, his jaw, set firmly, his eyes, remote. His silence spoke a thousand words and she knew, they were not pretty.

Their combined stares was just too much to take all at once, but she had to face this. She owed it to them. “Dad…?”

“How do we get through this, Angelina?”

It was seldom his father spoke like this, his voice, gravelly, faint as a whisper. It cut through her like the sharpest knife. She knew he was beyond angry.

“Dad…I’m so sorry…” Her voice cracked.

“Sit down.” The softly uttered command barely registered in her guilt-flooded mind.

She sat on a vacant chair. She would take all the blame. Her reckless, indiscriminate behavior had no justification. The passion of youth ran hot in her veins in those times. She was madly in love, totally oblivious to the possible consequences of her actions.

“We will fix this mess together,” her father declared in a tone he normally used when presiding as a CEO of their company. “How bad is the damage, Rad?”

“Very bad, Dad. Google Empress now and dozens of websites carrying that video will turn up.”

“Angie can have a press conference and deny that she’s the woman in the video,” Sherry suggested.

Ram turned to Sherry. “Have you seen the video? There’s no way Angie can deny it. Because it’s really her. That will make us blatant liars. We’ll lose credibility even more. It’s better if Angie would just admit it and apologize for being stupid and reckless. The public will forgive and forget about it for the next hot gossip.”

“If you don’t have anything sound to say, shut up,” Manolo said to Ram.

Ram shrugged. “Whatever,” he mumbled sullenly.

“We’ll sue that whoreson,” Manolo declared.

Angie felt even more disgraced. She was an outsider listening to them, worthless, all her hard work reduced to a mere sex video. Eight years of doing good, striving to be the best, wiped out by a single mistake. But she can’t blame them. That video dragged the Yulo name to the gutters.

“Yeah. He’s using that video as a publicity stunt for his new film.” Rad agreed.

“But won’t it aggravate the situation? It will attract more media attention,” Sherry disagreed.

“And what would you like to happen? Allow that bastard to walk away from this scot free? He’s laughing at us right now. He’s scored a big one. That bastard will pay for this!”

“Rad is right,” Manolo said.

“Or we can just axe the motherfuck–”

Sherry gasped. “
Kuya
Rad! We don’t have to resort to violence!”

Rad dropped himself onto an armchair. “So, who has a better idea? Huh?” he challenged.

“Hey, bad publicity is still publicity, you know,” Ram stated matter-of-factly.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Rad asked.

Ram uncoiled his frame from the sofa and stood up, addressing them like a military tactician assessing a battle position, clinical and impersonal.

“What’s done is done. Right now, the Yulo name is swimming with the plague-infected rats. It will contaminate and destroy us all if we don’t play our cards right with the media. It’s all about public perception, so I suggest we look at it from a different angle. Let’s turn this mess to our advantage. It’s a simple cause and effect situation. There’s a sex video of Montero and Angie. People are going, whoaa, Montero and a Yulo? Really? How did that happen? There’s gonna be a hoopla as is happening now. Social media, TV, tabloid, radio are all abuzz. It’s a very hot talking point that’s actually generating huge traffic. Now, transfer that same momentum to our business. Angie works at Empress. Montero is a famous piece of Hollywood shit. They’d wanna check in at any Empress in the hopes of seeing Angie. Shit sells, the shitest, the best. End of story.”

Angie didn’t know if her brother was insulting or defending her but she was thankful for his sensible mind under the circumstances. Ram was the epitome of ‘cool under pressure’. If she was not at the center of this unholy mess, she would have suggested the same thing like any cutthroat PR executive would. If only the rest of the people in the room had Ram’s disposition.

Rad was not convinced. “This is not a bloody ad campaign we paid for! We cannot possibly profit from shit. We’re running a freakin’ hospitality business, not a TV network!”

“But I am,” Jordan finally cut in.

Angie glanced at her fiancé. He had been silent the whole time, but now he got everyone’s attention. Jordan’s demeanor was shuttered but imperious. This must be how he presided over his board of directors, she thought. “Ram’s right. We have no choice. We’ll turn this around. We’ll not be on the defensive. We’ll be aggressive.”

Ram looked at his twin smugly. Rad glared back.

“Go on, Jordan,” Manolo said.

“A media blackout is no longer possible at this point. The video has gone viral. A street kid can download it anytime from his phone. Even if we track down the main source, a lot have already downloaded from the website.”

“Yeah, true,” Ram said. “I had my cracker friend shut down several websites hosting the vid, but whoever leaked it used several IP decoys so we can’t really trace the exact location of the bastard. The internet is a no man’s land. Literally, it’s like coughing a deadly virus into the air and wham, everyone catches it.”

Rad cussed. “You mean we can do nothing to stop it? Nothing at all? We can sue.”

“Who are you gonna sue? Yahoo? Google? Those websites and tabloids? Get real. That would be a waste of money at this point. The damage has been done. It’s irreversible. But like I said, it’s all about perception. What we can do is convince the public it’s not damaging to us, at all.”

Before Rad could cut it, Ram continued. “The video’s been chopped into small parts. At full length, it’s like a mini-movie, edited and complete with sounds. Smaller vids are faster and easier to upload and download, especially in cell phones. In fact, I have a copy here in my phone. It’s the full-length version. Why don’t we just all watch it?”

Angie made a distressed sound.

“Shut up!” Rad snarled at his twin.

“It’s not as bad as everyone thinks, certainly not as graphic as that old Paris Hilton vid. There’s a lot of kissing and cuddling. No frontals, but it’s obvious they’re both naked and having sex in one scene. If there was no clear sound, no one would believe it’s Angie. She was not popular in those days but Montero was and he is easily recognizable in this one. He mentions her name all throughout the video, a dead giveaway. The voices are actually more revealing than what you see on the screen.”