Page 144 of The Hollywood Switch-up

Isabelle looked at the floor, back up. “For Stasia,” she said. “I should have done this eight years ago.”

“What do you mean, for her?” Erika had known Isabelle was building the case. She hadn't known Isabelle was also the one who'd shut her up in the first place.

“I drafted her NDA. Smoothed out the settlement papers.” Isabelle’s voice went flat. “I watched a terrified nineteen-year-old crumble and told her silence was her only option. Patricia Voss handed me the file and said make it go away or we find someone who will.” A beat. “So I made it go away.”

“Eight years is a long time to wait for someone to grow a conscience.”

Isabelle took it without flinching. “Yes,” she said. “It is.”

“But it didn’t.”

“No.” Her face cracked—not performance, just the weight of it finally showing. “Every year I watched Martin's power grow—bigger budgets, more praise, more protection.”

“So what changed?”

“I watched them try to bury you the same way they buried her.” Isabelle’s voice went hard. “And I realized I wasn’t just watching. I was the burial.”

She met Erika’s eyes. “Stasia never got to tell her story. Sixteen women in those files never got to tell theirs. You’re not signed to silence. That’s not nothing.”

Her voice hardened. “I’m tearing up every NDA I signed. If Zenith finds out, I’m finished—fifteen years, gone. But I can’t be the person who stays quiet anymore.”

She thought of the sketchbook. His face when he laughed. The way she hadn’t wanted to close it.

“What if I do this and it doesn’t help? What if I tell them and I still feel broken?”

Nobody rushed to answer. The silence held for a beat. Real silence.

“Silence protects him. Not you.” Lily’s voice was quiet. Just that.

She thought of Stasia. Nineteen years old. Silenced for eight years.

“And the studio can’t stop me? I never signed anything.”

“You never signed an NDA,” Teagan confirmed. “They can’t touch you.”

Erika looked at Anneliese. Not a question. Just her sister’s face, the one she’d been reading her whole life. Looking at it now like she was trying to memorize it differently.

Anneliese didn’t say anything. Just held her gaze.

Lily moved to the garment bag by the door. Unzipped it quietly. The emerald silk caught the light—deep and specific, a green that had been waiting for her.

Erika looked at it for a long moment.

Yours.

“Start the camera.”

She crossed the room and sat in the chair.

“You’re sure?”

“No.” She almost smiled. “But I’m doing it anyway.”

The leather was cool against her back and the lights were too bright and Teagan was across from her with a pen and a patience that could outlast her silence.

The red light blinked once, twice, held steady.

“Erika Morgan.” Teagan’s voice was even, unhurried. “Fifty thousand people watched the livestream. The world thinks it knows your story. But they’ve never heard it from you.”