Chapter 61

It was noisy.

When Aiden opened his eyes, it was still dark in his room. His phone was on the table and was ringing and it was also the reason as to why he had suddenly woken up.

‘It’s still early in the morning.’

He thought, looking outside the window. The sun hadn’t risen yet and it seemed to be around 4 or 5 in the morning. He wondered if he had set his alarm wrongly.

While fumbling to unplug his phone from the charging cable, he saw that it was not his alarm but missed calls.

There were 6 missed calls and all of them were from Wade.

‘It’s still 5:04 in the morning. What happened suddenly? Is he alright?’

Thinking that, he called him. For some reason, an ominous feeling was in his heart like something bad was going to happen. The missed calls had made him a bit sceptical.

Things were going very fine in his life for a while, so he was hoping that it would stay like that for a while longer.

But when one starts to feel like everything is going okay, something bad would happen at that exact moment.

“Hello, Wade. I saw your missed calls.”

He said after the call was picked up. A ragged voice came out from the other side. There was a worrying feeling in it.

“Aiden, I’m coming to your apartment. We need to talk.”

“What happened?”

“I got an email from Granite films. It was about the audition. They said that you didn’t get the role of Kai. They decided to give it to some guy named Tyler Reed after having another meeting.”

Immediately, his sleepiness was all gone. For a moment, he was not even able to process what Wade had spoken. Tyler Reed? Kai? The role? Those words echoed in his mind._.

“Didn’t they confirm that I got the role?”

“Yeah, f*ck, I still have the email they sent before. They are saying it was sent accidentally. Some intern made a mistake. I call that total bullshit.”

Wade cursed on the phone.

Aiden’s mind suddenly played the images of the party last night. His meeting with Tyler, him giving a good impression and even congratulating him on getting the role.

‘You never know in Hollywood. There are all sorts of twisted people here.’

Omar’s words rang in his head. It looked like the latter was right.

Although there was no proof, it was easy to pinpoint that Tyler Reed had done something to get the role back. Aiden was sure of it.

‘F*cking two-faced bastard.’

Aiden frowned in his mind as Wade’s words came out of the phone.

“Are you there? I’m coming to your apartment. Let’s talk about it more there.”

“Okay.”

After that, the phone call ended and all sorts of thoughts flooded Aiden’s mind. His throat felt dry and he wondered how he was going to tackle this situation.

***

“So, you met him at the party? Are you sure everything went normal?”

Wade asked, standing in his apartment. Aiden had just finished narrating to him about the events that had transpired in the party last night.

How he had met Tyler and what they had talked about. He told Wade everything but the latter just frowned hearing that.

“Yeah, it was very normal. I didn’t say a lot because I was being careful. But it did seem like he was not happy about getting rejected for the role. I thought it was just natural and his attitude was always amicable.”

Every actor goes through rejection, so in the industry, they are pretty used to it. There were various roles that one auditioned for and there were various reasons one was rejected for them.

Only the top actors get to choose their script.

So, when Tyler had felt dejected, Aiden was sure it was just a normal reaction because he also had them in the past.

“What can we do now?”

Aiden asked, knowing full well that they can’t do a lot here. But still being a bit hopeful.

“If I’m being honest, we can’t do anything. Go to the Granite films to talk about it but they will stick to the fact that it was a mistake. At most, they will give you some other role. Not like it’s the first time that a person with influence has taken away the role of someone with no backing.”

Wade frowned, feeling like punching Tyler’s face into a bloody mess.

This was not the first time one of his actors had experienced something like this. It was very normal in Hollywood, but he felt very frustrated every single time.

Especially knowing how hard they had worked for the role.

‘What can I do now?’

Aiden thought, sitting down on a sofa and closing his eyes.

The obvious answer was to let go, try to do more auditions and just hope that one day he would be above Tyler, not because of any backing but because of his own strength.

But he still felt empty.

‘You need to make it to the top no matter what. There will be troubles but don’t let them just walk over you. At least, try to fight them.’

Some words suddenly rang in his head. Words that he had heard a long time ago. Words that he hadn’t forgotten yet.

‘I can’t let a two faced f*cker walk over me like this.’

He thought, taking out his phone. His brain worked at a rapid pace as he thought of a way to put Tyler in place.

There were not a lot of things he could do against him.

‘He has everything. Influence, money, power – but he’s surely got a lot of secrets. Any two faced person does, especially in Hollywood.’

He just needed to find a way to get his hands on those secrets rapidly. Anything that might help him.

Although it was just like firing an arrow in the dark, Aiden needed to bet on anything he gets.

Thinking like that, he felt like there was only one person that could help him out.

***

On the big screen, a cloaked figure was slashing down enemies, while hiding in tall grass.

It was all happening at a rapid speed as Uncle Sam got close to breaking his record combo.

“Cloaked Assassins was worth staying awake all night.”

Cloaked Assassins is one of the best single player game experiences, developed by a big gaming studio. It was also one of Uncle Sam’s favourite games.

Uncle Sam muttered as he paused the game and took a can of beer from the small fridge to the left of the sofa. He was having his once a week game night, playing around with his old game collection.

It was at that moment that his phone suddenly rang.

Wondering who was calling him so early in the morning, he picked up his phone and saw that it was his nephew. Hoping that everything was fine, he picked up the call.

“Aiden, what happened? Are you in jail?”

His weird question threw Aiden off and it took a second longer for him to respond.

“No, I’m not in jail or anywhere close to it.”

“Then, why are you calling me so early in the morning? In my memory, the only time I have gotten a call so early is because someone was in jail or my wife was pregnant.”

Uncle Sam chuckled saying that. No matter what time, he always had his typical sense of humour that he didn’t care if people liked it or not.

On the other hand, not wanting to waste any time, Aiden quickly came to the point.

“Uncle, I need some help?”

“What help?”

“I need information. About a guy named Terry Reed, he’s the godson of Harrison Owens. You must have heard of him.”

Uncle Sam widened his eyes for a second and got serious. It seems like his nephew was in some type of big trouble.

“I have met Harrison Owens. He thinks with his dick but is pretty lucky to have made it so big in Hollywood. As for his godson, I heard a thing here and there. Nothing much. What happened between him and you?”

“It’s related to my role in the movie by the Granite Films studio. I hope you can find something interesting about this Tyler guy.”

Uncle Sam rubbed his chin hearing that.

“Granite Films? Is that a new studio or something? I haven’t heard much about it.”

“It’s a new studio,” Aiden nodded.

“Hm,” Uncle Sam frowned, “I have long left Hollywood and don’t want to get back into it so soon either. I don’t think I would know anyone from this place, but I will see what I can do to help you. So, what kind of information?”

“Interesting stuff. Anything that could be considered a big scandal. I don’t just want to know who he’s sleeping with but something more.”

“Aiden, you do know I’m not a paparazzi, right? Anyway, even if someone has information like that on him, that old guy Owens ain’t going to let it get public. He cares a lot about the people under him.”

There was a pause on the phone as Aiden thought of something. He spoke after a few seconds.

“I won’t get anything public. I can work without doing that.”

“Again, I’m not a pap-“

“You do know them.”

Aiden interrupted Uncle Sam as the latter went silent. It was true that he knew people, a lot of them, but only a few would help him out in such a short time.

“Aiden, I can’t promise anything. I can look for something but I can’t say for definite. I would need to dial a lot of people.”

“Any help is appreciated, Uncle.”

Aiden said, a sense of gratefulness in his voice that Uncle Sam clearly felt. He sighed before saying.

“Alright. Even though I can guess what happened, I want you to tell me what’s going on after everything is over. And remember, you can’t afford to get into trouble so early on in your career. You’re no way near your goal. There’s still a lot to do.”

After that, Uncle Sam cut off the call. It seems like his game night is over now.

…

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