An odd thing happened when Sora arrived to pick Tommy up from Sam's that afternoon.

Sora hung up from her status call with Cristina and got out of the car. She ambled up to Sam's front door at a leisurely pace. Her life was one rush after another. She made it a point of appreciating the rare chance she had to go slow.

Sora had just come up the front steps when she heard a commotion from above.

...Is that neighing? Anthony! Sora was torn. Run away or run upstairs? Did she really want to know if it was Hana making him sound like that?

She thought of Ravi and the night they'd just shared and decided that no she didn't. What she did want was her baby and a glass of red.

Another object shattered whilst Anthony and someone's moans grew in intensity.

The odds that he'd hear her knocking was miniscule at best.

"What the hell is happening?"

"Sora? Oh, thank god." It was Sam who'd come jogging up from the nearby stretch of beach, Tommy on his hip. "I heard it, too. That's...I went upstairs. I thought he was dying."

There was a mighty crash as something in the house broke. The braying echoed onto the porch.

"Are you sure he isn't?"

"Not that kind of death. I checked." Sam whimpered and rubbed his eyes. "I shouldn't have checked. I thought he was sick. Who makes that sound when they're okay? Answer me that!"

Sora was at a loss. Anthony's virility had been a turn-on when she'd loved him. From the outside looking in, she was beginning to see how it could be alarming. She feared for Tommy's psyche if he'd been present for this. Her son favored her with an enormous grin. She relieved her former stepson of his least troublesome brother.

"Let me buy you coffee. I'll drop you off at Himura afterward."

So much for Sam's birthday.

"I'm gonna need something stronger than Café Americano to get those images out my head."

Sora patted him on the back. "I'll make sure the childcare center is open. This might take a while."

...

...

Sora stopped in front of the newsstand. "Take Tommy. I want to get one of these."

Sam stared at the news rack. "Am I seeing things or is that..."

"Yeah." Sora paid the cashier and took the tabloid off the rack. That's me and Ravi.

On the cover of the magazine was a grainy image of two people entwined on the forward deck of a 100-foot yacht. She didn't recognize herself, but the scar on Ravi's right hip she'd recognize anywhere.

"How did they get this?"

"I don't know. What the hell is going on?"

Sora led her son and stepson into the Himura lobby. "I'm being sabotaged, but I'll be damned if whoever it is gets away with it."

"This is so not how I wanted to spend my birthday," Sam groaned.

...

...

After seeing Tommy to the company daycare, Sam and Sora retired to the second-best conference room they'd reserved for their counterstrike.

Sam poked at the Enquirer Sora had bought. "Do you me to...add this to the wall?"

"I doubt either of us will forget it. Let's keep it off the bulletin board."

"I'm really okay with that."

Sora brooded over her view of the skyline. In a town chockfull of superficiality, it was the most meaningful parts of her life that someone found fault with. Typical.

"Does Ravi know about this?"

"Ravi knows some of it, I haven't bored him with the details."

"I don't think he'd get bored, he'd want to know. I'd want to know if my relationship was under fire, whether I could do anything or not. Let him be there for you."

Once Sam had left Sora to deal with the higher level aspects of managing the company, Sora gave into her need to hear a friendly voice and called Justine in New York. Why did I agree to let her transfer? She'd be a godsend to me right now.

"Yours is a voice for sour ears."

Justine chuckled. "Am I being summoned?"

"I wish! But no, I can't ask you to come all the way down here."

"My daughter's down there. You'd have to chain me to the nearest light pole to stop me from hopping the first direct flight."

"Tracy could stop you."

"Right in my tracks," she regressed, sounding dreamy. Sora let herself feel a moment's envy. "You think it would wear off, but it never does."

"I pray it never does. The two of you are good together."

"We passed good when Imogen learned to color inside the lines. Now, tell me what's got madame CEO on tenterhooks."

"I'm drowning. I'm going under and taking this company with me. How do I stop?"

"Find the extra weight, throw it off. Whatever the problem is, solve it. You're crafty. That's what Tracy and I like about you. You bounce back, you get mad, you get even, and you get over things. That's being alive, you're good at it."

"Has Tracy mentioned the media melee in L.A.?"

"It's crossed the kitchen table once or twice."

"What do I do about this? I don't know where to start fixing this problem or plugging the leak. It's getting worse. Each day, I'm afraid to open my emails for fear of what new way the press will have found to cast doubt on my competence, and on my personal life."

"Accept that you are never going to be a popular choice for CEO for a multitude of reasons. The media has a historically rocky relationship with working mothers and you're the present poster child, therefore you're taking the brunt of their hostility."

"You're saying their mommies didn't love them enough."

"That's what I'm saying."

Sora laughed. "I've missed you and Tracy."

"We've missed you. Nobody pours a glass of wine with the quite the aplomb that you do."

"How multifarious my talents. I'm without equal." Sora slid down in her chair, sobering. "I'm doing badly."

"The numbers say otherwise."

"Those aren't the numbers anybody's seeing."

"So show them, and show them as many times as it takes for them to believe the truth. You said that was the plan, didn't you? You have very little reason to doubt yourself right now; don't let anybody change your mind, least of all a masked vigilante. You're better than that."

Justine lapsed into silence. "You've been giving interviews to everyone except for Himura Media. You should make use of Himura's most abundant resource: soapboxes. It just so happens that I'm free to do the job."

"Have I mentioned how wonderful you are today?"

"No, but that's okay, because I already knew. Now, before we put our heads together to plan our next offensive, I have a name for you."

"What name?"

"Editor-in-chief of the L.A. Times."

Sora drew a blank. "Should I be talking to him?"

"I'd say gentle interrogation is the name of the game. Sources close to Henry Huston, editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times say that he knows just where Himura Media Group has sprung a leak. Now may be the time to ask."

"Someone is actually going to these publications personally to distribute their findings?"

"That's how it sounds to me."

"That's not a conspiracy. That doesn't strike me as the schematic of high-level corporate espionage."

"Vendettas occur at every echelon. What we need to figure out is who has one with you."

"Anybody who disapproved of my taking over daily operations from Anthony might, or who disapproved of how I reorg'd SP."

"I still have my contacts about town. I'll turn over a few rocks to see what—or who—comes scurrying out. Deal with Huston, I'll copy Sam on my findings."

"Thank you, and thank Tracy for me. I'd be lost without both of you."

"You're no less our family than you were a year ago, and family takes care of each other. I'll talk to you soon."

"Bye."

Sora took in this information. Okay, now we have a plan.

She tapped the intercom. "Cristina, please have Sam met me in conference room #2 in five minutes."

"Will do."

...

...

"What is the deal with the L.A. Times?" Sora flipped through the pile of clippings Cristina had put together of local press coverage for the company, organized by date. Each new round of caterwauling began with the L.A. Times before spinning out into a further-reaching publications throughout the nation. How did I miss that?

"I don't follow."

She showed Sam what she'd seen.

He gave his beard a scratch. "I don't know how I didn't see that. I can get the editor-in-chief in here in an hour."

Sora dropped her pile of damning evidence. She was feeling daring and not a little vengeful.

"I'll do you one better. Let's make a house call."

Sam's jaw dropped. "You wanna show up in their offices at this time of day."

"It's a Friday. Trash day. Who's in and who's paying attention?"

On a Friday afternoon, nobody with a social life to speak of or a workload to avoid was in the office, Sora would bet good money on it.

"If you have any objections, Sam, speak now or don't speak at all."

"I'm with it. Point of order, this is a very aggressive move that could backfire."

"I'm counting on you to make sure it doesn't."

"Good cop, bad cop."

"How good are you at faking sympathy?"

"I can be very good at it."

"I'll call the driver."

"I'll get my notes." Sam dropped back at the door. "You know this is insane, right?"

"All the sane options are off the table. Henry Huston is going to have to think twice about who he cites as a credible source of information."

...

...

Sora commandeered Editor-in-Chief Huston's desk chair because it was more accomodating than the ten-dollar folding chairs he'd allotted for visitors. Sam had opted to stand near the door and be imposing.

Henry Huston was fifty-six and aging well, yet wore every news-catching year in lines that said he'd stayed up nights instead of dreamed. Sora sympathized.

"You of all people should understand the importance of protecting a source, Ms. Himura."

"I understand it just fine, and if your 'source' weren't dead set on invading my private life as well as my professional domain, I'd be happy to let you maintain your journalistic integrity. Your source went too far. Unless you'd like to pay the toll on their behalf, I suggest you name names."

His elegantly craggy visage yielded an inch when he realized that Sora and Sam had all day and that Il Baccio delivered everywhere. "There was an intermediary. We never met face to face."

Sora leant back and listened as the whole sordid tale poured out. By the end, Sora had a list of aliases and meeting places and even byline bait for future stories the intermediary had planned to leak. Thank you, Justine. Sora would have to shop very carefully for her favorite sister-in-law this Christmas.

She and Sam departed with all the information they needed to put the final pieces together. Sora was already sick of fighting this battle.