Beck looks up from his notes. "The photographers from yesterday—if they cross lines again, we handle it through legal channels. Harassment documentation, restraining orders if necessary. We build a case."
I hear what he's not saying:Don't do anything stupid. Don't give them a story.
He's right. I know he's right. But part of me wants to hunt down every one of those bastards and make them regret ever pointing a lens at the woman I intend to marry. That part of me doesn't care about legal strategy.
I force myself to nod. "Sure. Whatever it takes to keep her safe."
I’ve no sooner said it when my phone buzzes on the desk. I glance down at the display.
Avery.
I answer before the second ring. "Hey, beautiful."
"Nick." Her voice comes through shaking, raw, stripped of everything but fear.
My body goes still. That voice. I've never heard her sound like this—not even when she told me about Martin Coyle, about what he did to her, about the night that sonofabitch took his last breath. This is something else. Something that's cracked her open.
“What’s wrong?”
"Nick, there's—there's an article. Online. It’s about my mother. About me."
"What article?" I keep my voice calm. Controlled. For her. "Tell me."
"They interviewed her. They twisted everything she said, and it's—" Her breath hitches, a sound that cuts straight through my chest. "Everyone's going to see it. Everyone's going to know."
I'm already sitting forward, every nerve alert. Gabe and Beck have gone silent, watching me.
"Send me the link. Right now."
A pause. Then my phone buzzes with her text and a URL from some city gossip outlet I don't recognize.
"Hold on." I put her on speaker, pull up the link. "I'm looking at it now."
The page loads.
The headline hits first. It’s salacious, worded like a cheap tabloid hit piece. The subheadline is even worse, exploiting Avery’s mother’s prison conviction and attempting to paint Avery as a gold digger.
Fury ignites inside me as I scroll down to read more.
Two photos sit side by side. The first is Brenda's mugshot from years ago. Harsh lighting, hollow eyes, a woman who'd just sacrificed everything to protect her daughter. The second is Avery at some charity gala from last year, dressed in designer silk, diamonds at her throat, smiling on my arm.
The contrast is deliberate. Calculated.Look where she came from. Look what she's pretending to be now.
I keep scrolling, and the violations mount with every paragraph.
Quotes from Brenda, clearly manipulated. Innocent words about Avery's talent and determination twisted into implications of scheming ambition. Details about their poverty in rural Pennsylvania, laid out for strangers to pick through like carrion. Martin Coyle's death. The shooting. Brenda's conviction.
Does Dominic Baine know what he's marrying into?
I read that line, and something inside me goes very quiet.
Not hot. Not explosive. Something colder. Sharper.
They used Brenda. That gentle, broken woman who spent twelve years in prison to protect her daughter from a truth no child should have to carry. They put a microphone in front of her grief and twisted every word.
But worse than that—worse than anything—they put Avery in their crosshairs.
Dragged her past into daylight. Stripped her bare for public consumption. Turned her trauma into entertainment for people who will never know her suffering, her strength, or the courage it took for her to build a life from the wreckage of what was done to her.
