Chapter 30 - Investigation Myers

Marshall's POV:

— Tuesday, October 4th

It was early as hell in the ass crack of dawn when I woke up. Paul had surprisingly been able to get Jordyn, Sae's manager, here the next morning after our call ended, aka: this morning. So I did my morning workout, showered, brushed my teeth, got dressed, and ate some breakfast before heading out to this little "meeting" that we had arranged if that's what you want to call it.

I strolled into my office, waiting on Paul to arrive with Jordyn. He had picked her up from the airport, and she'd only be here for the day before departing back to her hometown later tonight. She apparently told Sae that she was out here looking at something for something. I don't know, but she was convinced and didn't question her whereabouts in Detroit. About an hour later they both came through my doors into my office, taking a seat on the couch surrounding the coffee table.

"What's up, Jordyn?" I greeted her as she took a seat.

"Good morning, Eminem. Got you a little pick me up." She greeted me back, handing me a cup of coffee that her & Paul and gotten all of us.

"Thank you. And you know you can just call me Marshall."

"Okay, Marshall. Well I hope that we can get this taken care of. I don't play about Sadé at all. She's practically my little sister so when Paul called me up about this last night I was livid." She spoke rolling her eyes.

"About that. Let's get right to it then, shall we?" Paul prompted as he took his laptop out along with some files.

Jordyn did the same, taking her laptop out her bag that was like a purse that she had brung with her.

"So were you aware of this account?" Paul asked her as he shifted through papers showing her the same things he showed me.

"Without a doubt. As soon as I found out they were the ones who leaked the address to her party I was all over it trying to do damage control. That's when I discovered it. At that time I thought it was harmless. Just assholes being assholes, but then they kept getting more and more aggressive so I started keeping an eye on it. I'm actually going to have security attend events with her from now on starting this Thursday when she appears on Jennifer Hudson's talk show. She doesn't like it, but it's for her own good." She recalled.

"I'm glad you were on top of that. This whole thing just kinda angers the fuck outta me." I gave my honest opinion.

"Yea it's definitely on the creepy side. How does Sadé feel about it?" Paul brought up.

"Good question. How does she feel? I mean, she's told me little things here and there saying how she isn't particularly fond of the account because of what they post about her and she's blocked them multiple times, but she hasn't really opened up to me about it. Just more so in the general scheme of things about hate and how she wasn't feelin' it."

"Oof," Jordyn let out, taking a long sip of coffee, "Uhm. To say she isn't fond of it is an understatement. She's come to me about it multiple times on the verge of tears, saying how much she wishes the account would just leave her alone. She doesn't really express her feelings often because of how closed off she is. You know this I'm sure, Marshall. She hasn't told me verbally per say, but you can tell it's affecting her. I've noticed her being more anxious and on edge lately when filming and trying to get work done. Speaking of which, she's also been working a lot more. The average person wouldn't think that's weird, but it's the same thing she did when she broke up with her ex. She burried herself in her work to cope with everything to distract herself. That was until she started seeing you then she eased up on it." She confessed.

Woah. I had absolutely no idea about any of this. Sadé has never once told me she's been having increased anxiety or anything of that nature because of the hate. She told me she was having some issues with it, but nothing to THIS extent. I thought she was okay this entire time. I'd asked her how her day was or how she was doing, and she'd always say it was great. That she was great, and whole time this is affecting her. I guess I was right whenever I assumed she was tired from work, but it's only because she's overworking herself. I won't lie, that kind of made me feel some type of way; The fact that she didn't feel comfortable enough with me to let me know this info and would lie to me about it instead. I know she doesn't mean any ill intent by it and only does it because of her past, however, so I won't hold it against her too much.

"Marshall?" Paul called my name, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Huh?"

"You good, man?" He asked.

"Oh yea. My bad. I was just- yea." I came back to reality.

Paul and I ran down everything we had found, what we've done so far, and where we were currently at to update Jordyn. She agreed that she wouldn't say anything to Sae but only because she didn't want to stress her out even more otherwise she would've. We all also came to the conclusion that we'd refer to this little investigation as investigation Myers, and created a group chat so that we could all share information with only the three of us.

— After The Run Down

"Based off of everything you've showed me and that I've seen myself, there's some logical guesses on who this could be." She stated.

"What?! Are you serious?" I exclaimed.

"Hold your horses. Not the exact person just the type of person. Like for example, I can tell that they're on the younger side, but not too young because of how they use social media. For starters, they post often, which tells me that they know how to use these apps like it's muscle memory. Secondly, they frequently use emojis, which is usually something the younger generation does compared to you guys. No offense..."

"None taken."

"Thirdly, the things they say and how they say it screams female. I mean look at this." She said showing us the most recent comment they made about Sadé under her Instagram post from Friday.

"No guy is going around saying corny ass pickup lines and making them twisted. And the rose emoji? That's typically used by a lot of women." She said informatively.

"So it's a woman? That's interesting." Paul wrote in his notes.

"Well that's what I want to believe, but who knows." She replied.

We continued analyzing all the Instagram comments before we moved on to Twitter. That's when things drastically took a turn. We were sitting scrolling through all the pictures they posted of her, when Jordyn went as white as a ghost.

"Jo, what's wrong?" Paul asked cautiously.

Her demeanor shifting like that was scary. This can't be good. Why the fuck was she only like this when she saw this specific photo?

"This photo. It was taken on a vacation she went on with her ex, Zach, when they were still dating. That's him right there in the corner." She said shakily.

"Okay? What's the issue with that?" Paul asked.

He's over here asking questions, meanwhile I'm getting hot headed just at the mention of that motherfuckers name. Fucking coward. Abusive bastard.

"It was never posted to the public. That's what." She told him harshly.

The room filled with uncomfortable silence. I know this fucker of her ex isn't the one whose running this shit. That's a whole new level of low.

"I don't think it's him though." Jordyn broke the silence.

"Yo, I know you're fucking lying. What you mean it's not him? Are we talking about the same piece of shit?" I raised my voice baffled.

"Yes, we are, but listen! If he wanted to antagonize her or hurt her he would have been done it a long time ago."

"BULLSHIT." I interrupt her.

"Let her finish." Paul said in a calm yet stern tone.

"I know what this looks like. That if an unsurfaced picture was posted and only those two were the only ones with the picture, then obviously he did it, but you're wrong. Now don't think I'm defending him, because I hate his guts. I'm just saying, he knows where she lives and where she works in her business suite. They dated for 2 years, and he was abusive then. He didn't care so why would he care now if he wanted to hurt her so badly? He would've been done so. She's literally gone to basketball games that he's played for and he didn't hurt her then. He didn't hurt her when they ran into each other because they live in the same city a few months ago. He could've gone to her apartment and done anything to her by now, but hasn't."

"I hear what your saying, but that still doesn't make sense. How did the picture get out on the internet then?"

"They probably hacked his iCloud where all of what you do on your iPhone is stored. Every text, every picture. Every video." She gave me a cold stare, "Just like how they keep finding ways to unblock themselves and were able to leak the address to the party. That's all hacker shit."

Silence fell upon us once again. She did make a good claim. If he really wanted to do something, he would've been done it. It's been almost six months since they broke up in May, according to Jordyn. And then her bringing up the other weird shit? All the dots were connecting to a hacker.

"Ight. Fine. So say it's a hacker. A hacker that's a female. Now what?"

"I don't know. But we need to figure something out. Because it's only a matter of time... before they leak something else. If they're bold enough to leak things no one's seen before, they might be bold enough to really leak... ya know. Other stuff he may have in his iCloud account or even hack hers too." Jordyn said.

I watched Paul shift uncomfortably as he continued to take notes quietly.

"What do you mean? The hell else did he have on his phone of her?" I ask already knowing where this is going.

"Marshall. They used to date. I'm sure he may have intimate memories of her that he may have deleted from his phone, but not his iCloud." She reminded me.

"Shit."

— Later that evening

After what felt like hours of discussion involving this, we got nowhere. I mean we know the type of person, but we can't do anything without more information. So we had to painfully wait for them to expose themselves somehow. I just prayed they didn't leak nothing too reputation-destroying about Sadé.

We were still discussing Sadé, but not in a negative light anymore. Paul and I had actually previously discussed the possibility of having her model for some of my merch since she does that type of thing for brands. So we were currently pitching the thought to Jordyn. Hopefully, she'd say yes because it would benefit the both of us, and honestly, I just wanna see her rock my shit.

" - and with her large influence and following of the younger audience we could really use her to promote the Shady brand. Specifically to the youth who may not know who he is. And I mean, this is Eminem we're talking about! She'd gain a lot of popularity from working with him too. It's a win win." Paul sold the idea.

"You don't think this could backfire?" Jordyn said critically.

She's a tough one. No wonder her & Paul get along like two peas in a pod when it comes to that managing stuff.

"There's always a possibility anything could backfire." Paul countered.

"Fair. This would get people talking though. All publicity isn't good publicity, Paul. You should know that."

"We could chop it up to it just being a coincidence that Sadé is the model because she's Hailie's friend, who is Eminem's daughter. Simply a family friend doing a favor." He shrugged.

She thought on it before replying.

"You got yourself a deal. Where's the contract?" She replied.

I hid the grin that dared to show on my face, but I kept up my poker face. He handed her the contract where she signed on the dotted line that stated that Sadé would do the photoshoot in a few weeks before the end of October.

Once our meeting was over with, it was past 5 in the afternoon so Paul drove her back to the airport to make her flight back home. I went my separate ways and returned to my dwellings as well.

— Back At The House, That Night

I decided to call Sae tonight just to see how she was feeling. Of course I wanted to hear her voice, and talk to her in general, but I mainly wanted to make sure she was in the right space mentally right now since she wasn't opening up to me according to what Jordyn had said earlier. A part of me thought about not calling her because I didn't want her to feel like I was pushing her or that she couldn't confide in Jo anymore because she told me things she told her in confidentiality. I ultimately decided that I would call her though and not bring it up, but just take note of how she was interacting with me.

The phone rang a few times before she picked up. Her face filled the screen of my phone, making me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

"What's up, pretty girl?" I greeted smoothly.

"Hi, love. What are you doing?" She beamed.

She seemed in a genuinely good mood. That's good.

"Nothing just cooking myself some grilled chicken and broccoli for dinner. You?" I flipped the camera to show the food.

She made a face. I already know what she's about to say, yo.

"What's up with the face?" I asked flipping the camera back to me.

"...Why's it still white?" She asked trying to hold back laughter.

"Bruh." I smacked my lips.

"It kinda looks like you. An unseasoned chicken cutlet. Ya know because -" She said not being able to hold her laughter in anymore, the both of us cracking up.

She had tears in her eyes as she tried to apologize, but couldn't get the words out over her chuckles. This in turn made me laugh even more too.

"We're not doing this again, Sae. You know damn well when I cook it doesn't taste as good as yours."

"That's not an excuse to eat unseasoned food." She said, making me look through my spice cabinet, telling me what to add.

When I was done cooking, it actually tasted so much better than it would normally. We sat on FaceTime, eating our dinner together even though we're miles apart.

"I miss you." She said quietly.

"I know. I miss you too, Sae."

"Well your birthday is coming up so I'll be seeing you soon."

"That it is." I chuckled lightly, "So what's October look like for you? I want to see how long you'll be able to stay for." I inquired.

"I'm basically not going to be home for the entire month. I fly out to California tomorrow night, have a talk show to do Thursday, have a photoshoot for a perfume brand that I'm the face of Friday, will spend the weekend with Bama since she lives in Beverly Hills, fly out from Cali to Milan, Italy Sunday. That's a 12 hour flight, which is insane. Then I'll be there for Fashion Week, which is from the 10th of October to the 14th. Then I'm going to leave Saturday morning on the 15th and fly straight to you in Detroit, which is a 16 hour flight, and that's even crazier. Then I'll be reunited with you. And Jo just told me that your manager emailed her about wanting me to do a photoshoot for your brand Mr." She said smirking at me.

She said email. Ha. She was actually here, but I'm glad she doesn't have a clue about Investigation Myers.

"Yea. Can't wait to see you in my shit, looking fine as hell." I winked, making her hide her face in her hands.

"Chile anyways. So that's on the 24 or something I believe. There's no point in flying back home just to fly back to you a few days later. And after that it'll only be a week left of October that I'm at home. So I'm very booked and busy this month." She concluded.

"You might as well stay the rest of the month at my place then." I suggest jokingly, but deep down I'm actually very serious.

"I'll have to see about that. Only if I'm allowed to get some work done at your house."

"You mean like filming your videos?" I hesitantly ask her.

I'm big on my privacy, and she knows that. She respects my wishes though and never posts anything about me or us or whenever I'm with her. She refuses to even take pictures of herself even though I've told her that's fine as long as I'm not in it. So I know she respects my boundaries, but I'm always careful.

"No I film ahead of time so I'll be able to have a few videos to post in situations like this when I'm not able to. I wouldn't film at your house anyways because I respect your space. I mean doing emails, going over edits, phone calls, posting content I already have for social media, things like that."

"Ight. I don't mind that. That's cool with me." I shrug.

"Okay then, I guess I'll be with you until November once I leave Milan." She happily said.

I can't wait to see my girl. She's my girl that isn't my girl that's my girl...If that makes sense. She's got me down bad. We spoke for another hour. She was happy when she was talking with me over FaceTime and I could see her facial expressions so I could clock her if she lied to me or was being closed off. I was just happy she was happy in this moment and wasn't clouded thinking about the internet.