As she clutched the magazines tighter, with a deer in the headlights look in her eyes, she felt frightened that these publications could send Kit into even more of an emotional tailspin and that’s the last thing she wanted.
“Lila!” Kit’s voice snapped her out of her spinning mind.
Lila swallowed hard, still-wide eyed. “Hmm?”
She held out her hand patiently. “The pubs, please.”
Lila shook her head. “Kit, respectively, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to see them. You’re going through enough right now and…”
She interjected. “They’re that good, huh? Ok, Lila. I’m grateful you’re concerned about my welfare. Got it. That’s top notch of you, however I assure you I can handle it.”
She met Lila’s eyes with determination. “It’s either you let me see those or I hop on a call with Giselle.”
Lila sighed. Kit was wearing her down. “It’s not just about GT. It’s about Diamond too.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh really? Even better. Ok, then in that case, I’d have a few phone calls to make. If you’re not going to give me the pubs to read, I’ll go to the source. Phone please. I’m calling Jonathan.”
Lila rolled her eyes and shoved the publications to Kit. “I’m not calling 9-1-1 if you start having heart palpitations. And no coffee for you. Drink your damned tea!” Annoyed, she turned on her heel to leave the room.
Kit giggled and called after her. “I love you, Lila. Thank you. I do appreciate this. I know you’re trying to protect me and that’s very admirable. It’ll be fine. I’ll take my coffee with extra cream today.”
As Lila ignored her final comment and left the room, Kit ventured into the entertainment room. She turned on MTV in hopes of catching the latest news at the top of the hour. She quickly assessed there was nothing of interest. She grabbed the first publication and started scanning.
One hour later, she had read all of them cover to cover. She sat on the couch and stared in a daze. Lila was right, there was as shit storm brewing of gargantuan portions. Seemed it wasn’t only taking root in her personal life, the foundation was being rocked in her professional life too.
Four weeks ago, she had been in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest. Now she was scheduled to fly out in two days and wasn’t looking forward to telling Sully the final decisions she had come to about their marriage.
Regardless of what the publications reported, she knew full well the band was in a massive downward spiral, an enormous sinkhole, and it seemed that no one wanted to help them control the damage or attempt to pull them out. They were going down in flames. The intuitive nudges that she had wanted to bury before were now impossible to ignore. She knew it was time to make big changes, yet she felt paralyzed with fear.
Billboard Magazine was brutal in their write up of Gypsy Tango’s recent show in Indianapolis, particularly regarding Sully. His voice wasn’t holding up well, he was struggling. The band was at each other’s throats and rumors had begun to circulate that this tour would be their last. Tensions were high.
Kit sat back and contemplated how the team had kept her so isolated about all of this. She marveled at it. Part of her was doubly concerned that if the pubs had this knowledge and were spewing it out to the general public, then the label was seeing it too.
Her fledgling label Flat 5, an imprint of Diamond, was entering the red zone as it was. This wouldn’t help as GT was their bread and butter. There were problems she had been trying to iron out with corporate long before the shooting.
Now with Gypsy Tango taking a nosedive, she knew instinctively the imprint might not be able to recover. She started to realize why Lila was keeping this from her and an overwhelming feeling of dread encompassed her.
Understanding that Lew and Jonathan most likely wouldn’t clue her in right now, she mined her intel from the publications in front of her. From what she read, there was a shakedown going on at Diamond in a very big way. She knew the pubs could only penetrate so far and were receiving limited information, which startled her, because the reports she read had lots of dirt that was very specific.
Rumors of Jonathan moving back over to Diamond Pictures as the CEO, rumors of Lew stepping down from office entirely to serve as chairman, and Chris Diamond taking a more active role on the board to increase profits at Diamond Records sent shivers up her spine. With Jonathan out, a new CEO would have to be installed and the fact that it may be Chris frightened her to no end.
Chris Diamond—Lew’s eldest son, was hardnosed, with not one creative bone in his body. He was a numbers guy, the product of a Harvard and Wharton education, which Kit respected. But when it boiled down, he was all business and very much a big player in the boy’s club.
Chris was the asshole that publicly called her sweetie or honey in front of her colleagues and still asked her to get him coffee when they’d occasionally be in the same room together for an executive meeting or an occasional board meeting. All this, even after she had been generating millions upon millions for the company for years.
Kit didn’t have that much interaction with him most of the time and she preferred that. Up until recently, he had resided in New York and operated the board meetings out of Diamond Entertainment’s New York compound where both Diamond Records and Diamond Media were housed.
Not many were big fans of Chris, including his own brother. Jonathan and Chris didn’t speak much, unless they
