The press room detonated into chaos—shutters snapping, questions hurled from every direction. She shrank beneath the frenzy, head bowed, clutching her father's hand as though she were a child in need of protection. To the cameras, she looked saintly, fragile, the embodiment of courage wrapped in tragedy.
The senator leaned toward the microphones, his voice sharpened to steel."We are filing a civil suit for damages, as well as pursuing criminal charges for domestic abuse and assault. This is not about politics. This is about protecting women from predators who believe their status makes them untouchable."
Predator. The word scalded my throat.
The news crawl at the bottom of the screen screamed in red:
BREAKING: Senator's Daughter Accuses Ryder Haas of Abuse.
Breath abandoned me. My chest locked tight, my eyes refusing to look away even as bile rose in my stomach. My phone buzzed on the table, a relentless stream of messages and notifications stacking higher and higher. Hashtags were already exploding across the internet:#StandWithMira. #RyderTheAbuser.
Comments blurred past the feed:"Knew he was trash." "Lock him up." "Another fake nice guy exposed."
Across from me, Mel sat frozen on the couch, pale and stiff, her wide eyes reflecting the television's glow. Her whisper barely carried across the room. "How can people believe her?"
Something inside me splintered. "Because she's crying!" My voice tore out raw, jagged, strangled by fury and disbelief. "Because she knows how to play them. She hit me, not the other way around. I never—" The words collapsed in my throat. What was the point of saying them aloud? Out there, in the circus of flashbulbs and microphones, truth was irrelevant. Image was the only currency, and she had bought the world with tears.
January didn't so much as blink. While Mira's crocodile tears replayed on the muted screen, January was already scribbling notes in her sharp, slanted hand, her jaw set like carved marble. Calculating. Cold. Unshaken.
"This is perfect, actually," January said, smiling.
"What?" I snapped, voice raw.
She folded her hands over the file like a judge closing a docket. "If we'd gone public first," she said, phone still warm in her palm, "they would have spun it as slander. They would have painted us as opportunists. So I let them take the stage. Let them strike first with their theatrics. Then we will answer with authenticated documents they cannot refute."
Her pen moved across the paper as she spoke, each line of her notes punctuating the strategy. "I expected this when he didn't call back," January continued, every syllable clipped, surgical. "Their playbook is obvious: preemptive lie, manufacture sympathy, contaminate the narrative so truth chases perception. Senator Golding and his team just handed us evidentiary leverage—public statements become admissions, witnesses' testimony is preserved on record, and anything they say can be contradicted with exhibits already under seal. Amateur theatrics. They made a tactical error."
She folded her hands over the file like a judge sealing a verdict. "The police report is filed. The temporary restraining order is signed and entered," January said, voice clinical and certain. "Those are the facts on the record. On the civil side, we are moving now."
Her eyes hardened. "We will pursue injunctive relief to enjoin any further defamatory statements and to preserve the status quo. We will file a civil complaint asserting defamation per se, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and tortious interference with reputation and employment prospects. I will seek bothcompensatory and punitive damages."
She stood, moving with the efficiency of someone who had run this playbook a dozen times. She called all her team of 10 lawyers to her office and started ordering: "Call Harper & Lane. Tell them to prep the embargoed dossier: authenticated exhibits, chain-of-custody logs, time-stamped video, hospital records, forensic metadata. Get the expert witness on standby for immediate declaration. Draft the motion for expedited discovery and preservation; I want proposed orders ready to file the second their press conference ends. Contact PR—Carter. Tell Carter we want a controlled release, full Q&A, talking points; no leaks. Put the journalists on a short leash with NDAs and embargoes, and Alice, notify the federal prosecutor's intake if Golding's office interferes with evidence. If he touches a phone or a server, we move criminally."
She didn't need to shout to be terrifying. The room filled with her momentum. Phones rang; people answered in clipped, businesslike tones. I heard names, investigative reporters, litigation partners, a digital forensics firm, drop into place like soldiers taking position. A minute later, January's scheduler pinged a calendar invite: press-window plotted, last-minute filings queued, witnesses prepped to sign affidavits.
Adrenaline fizzed through me, equal parts dread and something like relief. The scale of what she'd unleashed terrified me; the control of it steadied me. January's machine was already moving: lawyers drafting motions, PR teams rehearsing lines,reporters waiting with embargoed evidence. The plan was surgical, merciless, inevitable.
She fixed me with a look that had teeth. "I've got you, Ryder. I will make him and that little actress pay. If Golding wants war, he's volunteered for a fight he can't survive. I wage wars, I don't fumble them."
Chapter 15: Chains of Silence
(Ryder)
The flashbulbs detonated before I even reached the podium. White-hot bursts burned against my eyes, turning the room into a battlefield of light and shadow. January stood at my shoulder, steady as stone, her presence the only thing keeping me upright. The cameras weren't cameras anymore—they were rifles, barrels pointed, waiting for me to flinch so they could fire. I knew most of the people packed into that room had already judged me guilty. They hadn't come for truth. They'd come to watch me bleed.
I gripped the lectern until the wood bit into my palms. My throat felt sandpaper raw, but the words forced their way out.
"My name is Ryder Haas," I said, voice carrying over the restless murmur. "For years, I lived in silence. For years, I let myself believe no one would ever care to hear what was really happening behind closed doors. Two days ago, Mira Goldingstood here and called me her abuser. She cried on cue, trembled in all the right places, and the world rushed to her side. But the truth is simpler—and far harder to stomach:sheabusedme."
The silence hit sharp, like a collective inhale sucked out of the room.
I dragged air into my lungs, and with it, every scar, every bruise, every night I had prayed I would wake up still breathing. "Last year, she broke my ribs with the heel of her boot. That night, I crawled into the shower because it was the only place I could get away from her. I have the X-rays. Shecut my shoulder with a bottle opener and laughed while I bled. I have the photographs and medical records. She sent me voice messages saying,If you ever leave me, I'll ruin you.I kept them all. Time-stamped. Verified. Preserved."
Images lit up on the screens beside me—January's strategy. Each file displayed in cold sequence: scans of fractured bones, photos of bloodied skin, audio waveforms frozen mid-threat. Each image was a hammer swung at the mask Mira had built for herself.
"She told me no one would believe me, because men aren't victims. Because I'm an athlete. Because I'm bigger, stronger, the one people assumed had the power. In the public eye it would always look the other way around. I believed her. Every time I pulled sleeves down over bruises and every time I laughed through clenched teeth.
She controlled more than my body—she dismantled my mind. She told me I was weak for crying, pathetic for flinching, childish for wanting comfort. She would hurt me, then convince me it never happened. If I remembered the pain, she called itdramatics. If I confronted her, she twisted the story. I learned to question my own memory. Nights blurred into apologies I didn't owe, days into performances for cameras that showed nothing of the reality behind closed doors. She made me believe that if I left, no one else would ever want me, that I was broken goods before I had even escaped her hands.
