Rising From Betrayal Reborn As The Family Outcast novel Chapter 10

Chapter 10

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Nicolas was taking a break after wrapping up a scene when Liam called.

He picked up. “What’s up?”

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Liam didn’t beat around the bush. “Nicolas, I heard something at the office today. Alicia wants to terminate her contract with the company.”

Nicolas’s casual expression shifted to one of confusion. “Alicia? No way. Did someone just make this up?”

Liam knew Nicolas wouldn’t believe it and said, “It’s not a rumor. I checked. She went to the company herself and asked to terminate her contract.”

Nicolas was silent for a moment, then asked, “So, how did the negotiations go?”

Liam replied, “They’ve already agreed. It’s just a matter of going through the formalities now.”

Nicolas’s face darkened. “Who signed off on her termination?”

Liam picked up on his irritation and quickly explained, “Alicia hired Thomas Wise, one of the top lawyers in the business. He came in person to negotiate the termination with the company.

“He’s got some evidence that could really hurt the company, and he made it clear that if the company didn’t agree, he’d take it to court.

“The company had no other option but to say yes.”

Nicolas frowned, still puzzled. “Why would Alicia suddenly want out? Did something happen?”

He’d been filming a movie deep in the mountains for the past six months.

The network signal was so bad that even loading a simple webpage was a struggle, let alone making a video call.

Thus, he hadn’t been able to keep in touch with Alicia very often.

They’d even had a cold war for over a month, not speaking to each other at all.

It wasn’t until last week that Alicia finally called him, inviting him to her show.

But on the day of Alicia’s performance, he was caught up filming a crucial scene, so he couldn’t make it.

Then, Nicole invited him to attend a gala the following day.

Once the key scene was finished, and knowing how disappointed Nicole would be if he didn’t show, he decided to support her at that gala.

After the gala, he was planning to go see Alicia, but the director suddenly summoned him back with a phone

call.

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Chapter 10

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He was worried Alicia might be upset about it, so he decided not to contact her for the time being.

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Yesterday, Nicolas even went all the way down to the town at the base of the mountain just to pick up some local treats he knew Alicia would love, thinking he’d bring them back for her in a few days.

‘If she was still mad at me, that should be enough to make her forgive me,‘ Nicolas thought to himself.

But out of nowhere, he got hit with the news that she was quitting the company.

Liam knew there was no way to keep it from him.

But he tried to downplay it. “A C–list actress tagged Alicia on X and started mocking her. Alicia called the cops, filed a defamation suit, and blasted the whole thing all over X.

“Her agent thought it wasn’t worth making a fuss over and told her to just delete the post.

“But instead of deleting it, she dropped the call recording with her

agent online.

“And then she had her lawyer come to the company to request the termination of her contract.”

Liam wasn’t really covering for Haley; he just purposely left out Nicole’s involvement in all this.

Nicole was super close with Liam’s wife, always gifting her the latest designer clothes, handbags, and jewelry.

She’d even bring his wife along to those high–society events she normally wouldn’t have a shot at getting into.

So whenever Liam was dealing with Nicolas, he’d always take Nicole’s side.

Nicolas frowned, “Who’s got the nerve to call out Alicia like that?”

Liam could hear the irritation in Nicolas’s voice.

He said tactfully, “It was Alexandra Barton. She was pretending it was for Nicole’s benefit, but she didn’t even bother to check with us first and just went ahead and mocked Alicia.”

Nicolas couldn’t help but feel a headache coming on. “Who does Alexandra think she is? She’s not even qualified to get involved in their drama, and she’s trying to stir up trouble with Alicia? Is she crazy?

“Ban her. I don’t want to see her name again.”

Now that Nicole’s involved, this whole thing just leveled up into a real headache.

Honestly, for the past year or two, Alicia just couldn’t stand Nicole anymore, and their beef kept getting worse and worse.

And now someone waved Nicole’s flag to stir up drama with Alicia? That was basically lighting a fuse.

Nicolas was seriously annoyed. ‘Who does Alexandra think she is, coming after Alicia like that? She’s way out of her league, he thought.

Liam breathed a sigh of relief. “Got it. I’ll take care of it right away.”

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Throwing Alexandra under the bus was the easiest way to handle this mess.

Honestly, she brought this on herself.

Nicolas added, “Go dig up the details about the termination and fill me in.”

“Got it,” Liam replied.

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After hanging up with Liam, Nicolas didn’t even think twice. He dialed Alicia’s number right away.

But every time, all he got was a busy signal. No matter how many times he tried, he just couldn’t get through.

So he sent her a message through the app

instead.

With the crappy signal, it took a while before an error popped up. His message couldn’t be delivered.

Nicolas stared at his phone, completely floored.

‘Seriously? Did Alicia just block me? How did I end up making her this mad?‘ Nicolas thought, completely confused.

Even during their worst fights or the longest cold wars, she’d never blocked him before.

The constant busy signal just meant he’d been blocked.

Nicolas couldn’t help himself. He immediately started borrowing phones from other crew members, trying to call Alicia.

*****

Meanwhile, Alicia was at home, reviewing the new contract Jason had just sent her.

Her phone rang. She saw an unfamiliar number on the screen.

She answered, “Hello?”

On the other end, Nicolas’s voice came through, a little hesitant. “Hey.”

Alicia wasn’t surprised to get Nicolas’s call. He’d probably already heard she was leaving the company.

She didn’t want to deal with him right now, so she just hung up.

Nicolas was about to ask her why she was quitting, but before he could say anything, she’d already ended the

call.

He blinked, thinking maybe the crappy signal had dropped the call.

He dialed again, but he noticed that she’d blocked him.

He couldn’t help but feel a little panicked.

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Chapter 10

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He grabbed two more phones from the crew and tried calling her again, but Alicia ignored every call.

That was when Nicolas finally got it. This was way bigger than he’d imagined. It wasn’t just a simple misunderstanding.

After a while, Liam called Nicolas.

He said he’d found out that Alicia was going to the company the next day to sign the papers and officially end

her contract.

When Nicolas heard that, he couldn’t stay put for another second.

He rushed to the director, asked for some time off, and immediately headed down the mountain, telling his driver to take him straight back to Solmare.

Once his phone finally got a decent signal, he checked X and the trending topics from before.

He even listened to the call recording between Alicia and Haley.

Then he checked the comments and saw a ton of people dragging Alicia, accusing her of faking ties to the Hammond family heiress.

He also found out from the comments that Alicia had actually gotten hurt during her performance and had to go to the hospital.

The worst part was that he had no idea she was in the hospital, so he never even reached out to check on her or go see her.

And the next day, he went to Nicole’s gala instead.

‘No wonder she’s so pissed that she blocked me and hung up on me, Nicolas thought.

And the reason Alicia blew up online was that Nicole posted that photo of them together.

Nicolas’s grip on his phone tightened, his expression turning grim.

He’d been stuck filming in the mountains for over half a year, with barely any signal, so he barely knew what was going on in the outside world, let alone any online drama.

He honestly had no idea Alicia was getting roasted online for allegedly pretending to be the Hammond family

heiress.

Now, he just had one question. Are the people in the company’s PR department even alive?”

Normally, when something like this happened, the PR team was supposed to do damage control and clear things up for their artists.

But when it came to Alicia, the PR team didn’t even bother to do any damage control. They just let things spiral out of control and watched her get trashed online.

And that whole conversation between Alicia and Haley was seriously messed up.

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Chapter 10

Alicia even said Haley made her take the fall for the rest of the girls in LUMIA.

He’d always known Alicia didn’t really get along with the other four girls in the group.

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But according to Haley, it was mostly because Alicia was just too blunt and stubborn, so they never really clicked.

Nicolas never really thought much of it.

After all, Alicia only got into showbiz because she was following him. She never took it that seriously. If she couldn’t fit in or things got too tough, she could just walk away.

Honestly, both Nicolas and her family always felt that showbiz wasn’t the right place for her.

In Nicolas’s mind, once Alicia and he got married, she could live the high–society life as a socialite, or go out and pursue something else if she wanted.

But he never expected there was so much more going on beneath the surface.

He hit play on the recording again.

He heard Alicia’s voice, icy and indifferent. “As for Nicolas, it’s not like we’re close. Why should I care if he’s happy?”

Nicolas’s heart tightened, and he shut his eyes, feeling restless and annoyed.

No matter what, he was determined to rush back and stop Alicia from quitting the company.

This time, he’d personally reach out to the higher–ups and the PR team, making sure they kept an eye on Alicia and had her back.