1: The Miracle Gig

"Why the hell am I being fired?" Gianna demanded as she burst through the door in anger.

The manager looked up from his laptop, eyebrows raised. He leaned back in his chair but didn't say a word.

"I said, why am I being fired?" Gianna repeated, now leaning over the desk. She slapped the pink slip she’d been given down over it. "This says 'termination of contract' but gives no reason why. What did I do wrong this time?"

Rather than answering, the man picked up a stack of papers from his table and flung it across the desk at her. They went flying in the air around her.

Gianna flinched. She was stunned as the papers rained down around her. She just stood there motionless for a few seconds then bent down to gather the scattered papers. While she picked them up, she read the words on one of them; “NOTICE ON COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT”, “EARLY SCRIPT LEAKS FOR BRAVADOS III", as well as other evidence, including a chain of emails exposing the truth about the leaked scripts incident that happened a few weeks back.

A knot tightened in the pit of her stomach while she went through each of the documents.

She looked up at the manager imploringly. "I had nothing to do with this!"

"Maybe not directly," he said, steepling his fingers. "But it was your boyfriend who did the leaking, was it not?"

"Ex-boyfriend!" Gianna shouted, outraged. "Marco and I broke up months ago, that asshole. This has nothing to do with me!"

The man shrugged. "Be that as it may, the agency has decided you share culpability since the leaked materials clearly came from your end."

"That's ridiculous!" Gianna's face was bright red now.

"Marco and I aren't even on speaking terms. Why would I help him?"

"I neither know nor care about your personal affairs, Ms. William. Since the culprit has absconded and you’re the only one we can link to him right now, be rest assured you’ll be taking responsibility."

He picked up his laptop again, signaling the end of the discussion.

"The decision has been made. I suggest you show yourself out."

Gianna stood there, trembling with all the shades of anger, disbelief, and despair there could be. She looked down at the incriminating emails again in silence. Then she turned around and headed for the door.

“Our lawyers will be in touch,” the manager added.

Gianna slammed the door behind her.

She found her way to the bathroom as soon as she got out, stumbled over to the sink and leaned against it while staring at her reflection in the mirror, feeling lost, hurt, unfairly treated.

How could this be happening?

After all her hard work, all her struggles to finally start making a name for herself in the industry? This was supposed to be her big break with the Bravado movie franchise. And now some ex and the agency were trying to snatch it all away.

Gianna dug into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out her phone. She found Marco's name in her contacts, her thumb hovering over it as her hand shook with anger. They hadn't spoken in over a month, not since that horrible blowout fight after she discovered he'd been cheating.

She was disgusted just looking at his name on her screen.

But she had no choice. If she didn't confront the idiot, he was going to ruin her life and fledgling career over this stunt. Gianna was still one of the least favored talents at the agency. It took years of grinding it out in crummy student films and low-budget indies before she finally managed to get her foot in the door here after a streak of luck and perseverance.

She was just an upcoming actress, desperate to finally make her way into the limelight after struggling for so long in obscurity. And now this masturbating jackass Marco was jeopardizing everything!

Her eyes watered with hot tears as she stabbed his contact and raised the phone to her ear.

The line rang...and rang...but then an electronic voice came on: "The number you have dialed is unavailable..."

"Son of a BITCH!" Gianna cursed under her breath in frustration.

She was going to have to actually hunt the bastard down herself if she wanted to clear her name and save her career. If they were going to file a suit against her, she didn’t even have any dime in her name to foot her own bills, let alone that. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Gianna straightened up, brushed her fingers through her hair, dabbed at the tiny beads of tears in the corner of her eyes and walked out of the bathroom then stormed out of the agency building.

Her jaw was clenched so tight it ached as she angrily made her way towards the street. Her phone buzzed in her hand and she looked at the screen, seeing the notice, "Rent Due" on the screen.

Shit, not today of all days.

While she was reading the details and mentally calculating what other bills were coming due, someone bumped hard into her shoulder.

Her phone went flying out of her hand and clattered to the ground.

"Hey, watch where you're going!" she shouted at the oblivious pedestrian. But they just mumbled an apology and kept walking.

Gianna crouched down to pick up her phone, now finding that the screen was spiderwebbed with cracks.

"Oh no, no no no, not now!" she groaned desperately.

As if her day could get any worse.

Her phone buzzed again whilst she was still sulking over the nearly destroyed screen of her phone. This caused her to angrily pick up the call and snap at whoever the caller was,

"Get the fuck off my ph—"

"Gianna?"

Her shoulder slumped when she heard her friend’s voice—more like all the anger she felt got drained out of her and was replaced by weariness.

“What’s the matter? Everything okay?”

Gianna crouched down by the side of the street. The tears started coming to her eyes again and this time she didn’t hold them back.

“Nothing is okay. I'm just...I'm fed up with everything. I can't do this anymore…"

“Hey, hey...it's alright, just talk to me. What's going on?"

"Nothing’s working out," Gianna hiccuped between sobs.

"I can't get any work, any gigs...it's all so fucking pointless. And now, to top it all off, that bastard Marco is trying to sabotage and ruin the little bit I have left!"

She told her friend the whole story while the friend just listened patiently.

"Don't give up yet, babe. We'll get through this, I promise. Things always look their darkest before dawn, right?"

Gianna sniffled hard, wiping her eyes and nose with the back of her hand.

“I guess so."

"Actually, the reason I was calling you initially is because I heard about a potential acting gig…but, I don’t think I should..."

Gianna immediately perked up at those words, sniffling again.

“Oh please tell me!”

"Well, it’s happening in like an hour from now. A very minor role, just a few lines as an extra basically. But the actress they had lined up didn't show, so they need someone to fill in at the last minute. I mentioned that I knew someone who could do it."

"Oh my god!" Gianna clasped her hands with the phone.

"Thank you, thank you! Of course I can do it."

Gianna priced a smile even with her reddened eyes, smeared makeup and disheveled hair from all the emotional stuff from minutes ago.

"Alright, calm down….I'll text you the address and where to go once you get there. They'll fill you in on the role and everything else."

"I don't know how to thank you enough for this," Gianna gushed, now feeling a little spark of hope.

Just the opportunity to get out there and act again, and maybe get a little bit of cash could be exactly what she needed right now.

"Quit thanking me and just run along, would you? Don't want to be late.”

"Yeah, okay.”

As soon as she hung up with her friend, she brought up her messaging app, squinting hard at the cracked screen. Sure enough, a new text from her friend popped up. She checked the message and tried to make out as much as possible through the hazy shards of glass covering her phone.

Gianna huffed out a relieved sigh as she headed for the bus stop, hobbling along on her aching feet. It might be a tiny and utterly thankless part, sure, but it was still work.

She waved down a passing taxi and soon reached the address. It was a luxurious hotel. She quickly paid the fare and hurried inside, checking her phone again.

"Two ten...two eleven..." Gianna muttered under her breath, checking each numbered door in the hallway.

When she reached the said door, her heart did a quick flip then she crossed the hall and knocked on it.

Here goes nothing, she mused as she bent the doorknob.

She opened the door.

A very tall, ruggedly handsome man turned around from the window, lowering his phone from his ear as he was clearly in the middle of a phone conversation.