Chapter 16
1128 Words
The scandal broke at 6:14 a.m.
Dominic didn’t need to check the news to know it had finally hit. He felt it in the way his phone vibrated nonstop on the nightstand—one call bleeding into another, aides, lawyers, security chiefs, names that only ever surfaced when something was burning.
Nyah woke to the sound.
Not the phone.
The shift.
The air in the room changed. Heavy. Electric. Like a storm pulling itself together just outside the walls.
Dominic was already standing by the window, shirt half-buttoned, jaw set hard enough to crack marble. He hadn’t looked at her once.
She sat up slowly, sheets pooled around her waist, collar cold against her throat.
“What did you do?” she asked quietly.
He didn’t answer.
That told her everything.
Her phone—her phone, the one he’d replaced three times already—lit up on the bedside table.
Unknown numbers. Missed calls. Messages stacking so fast they blurred.
She picked it up.
The first headline hit like a slap.
PRESIDENT’S SON LINKED TO MYSTERY WOMAN — SOURCE CLAIMS ‘KEPT’ IN PRIVATE ESTATE
Her breath caught.
She scrolled.
Blurry photos. A shadowed shot of the two of them stepping out of the car last night. Her face half-turned. The collar visible if you knew what to look for.
Another headline:
POWER, CONTROL, AND SILENCE: WHO IS DOMINIC VALE’S GIRL?
“Girl,” she whispered.
Not woman. Not partner.
Girl.
Dominic finally turned.
“Put the phone down.”
Her hands were shaking, but she didn’t stop scrolling.
“They’re calling me a mistress,” she said. “No—worse. An escort. A ‘former adult entertainer rescued by wealth.’”
Her eyes lifted to him, sharp with something feral.
“Rescued,” she repeated.
“I told you this world is brutal,” he said flatly. “They smell weakness and tear it apart.”
“You didn’t protect me,” she shot back. “You fed me to them.”
“That’s not—”
“You paraded me,” she snapped, standing now. “You knew they’d dig. You knew they’d ask where I came from.”
His jaw tightened. “I didn’t expect this to leak so fast.”
That—that right there—was the truth.
Not if.
When.
“You expected it,” she said.
Silence.
She laughed once, hollow. “God. I wasn’t even a secret. I was a liability you hadn’t managed yet.”
He stepped closer. “Watch your mouth.”
“Or what?” she challenged. “You’ll silence the press? Erase me harder?”
“You think I won’t?” His voice dropped. “You think I don’t have that power?”
“I know you do,” she said. “That’s the problem.”
Another buzz.
This time, a message preview flashed from an unknown contact:
They’re calling for an inquiry. Your name came up in the ethics committee briefing.
Dominic’s eyes darkened.
Nyah saw it then—the first real crack.
Fear.
Not for her.
For himself.
“For the first time,” she said softly, “you can’t just buy your way out, can you?”
His gaze snapped to hers. “You have no idea what this could cost me.”
She stepped closer until they were inches apart. “Funny. You didn’t care what it cost me.”
“This is bigger than you,” he snapped.
Her face hardened. “That’s always your excuse.”
Another call came in. This one, he answered.
“Yes,” he said sharply. “I know. No, she’s not speaking to anyone. Yes—lock down staff, drivers, everyone.”
He paused, listened.
Then: “My father doesn’t get to dictate my personal life.”
A beat.
His expression went lethal.
“I don’t care if it looks bad.”
He ended the call and turned to her like a storm breaking.
“They want you gone.”
Her heart thudded.
“Gone how?” she asked carefully.
“Out of sight. Off-grid. A statement will be drafted. You’ll disappear for a while.”
She stared at him.
“You mean erased.”
“You’ll be safe,” he insisted.
“No,” she said. “I’ll be convenient.”
He grabbed her wrist. “You don’t get to make this harder than it already is.”
She yanked her hand back. “You don’t get to decide whether I exist!”
The room vibrated with the force of it.
“This scandal,” she continued, voice shaking with fury, “isn’t happening to you. It’s happening because of you.”
His eyes burned. “I gave you everything.”
“You took everything,” she shot back. “My job. My choices. My voice.”
“And you’re alive,” he growled. “You’re protected.”
She laughed bitterly. “I’m owned.”
That word hit him harder than she expected.
“You think I don’t see what they’re doing?” he said harshly. “They’re trying to use you to weaken me. To humiliate me. You’re leverage now.”
She swallowed. “So what am I supposed to do—hide quietly while you clean up your mess?”
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate. Automatic.
Final.
Something in her snapped.
“No,” she said.
He froze.
“No?” he repeated softly.
“I won’t disappear so you can stay clean,” she said. “I won’t be your dirty secret.”
“You don’t have a choice,” he said.
Her hand trembled as she reached up—and unclasped the collar.
It hit the floor between them.
The sound was deafening.
“If you force me into silence,” she said, voice steady now, “I swear to you, Dominic—I won’t protect you anymore.”
His face went still.
“What does that mean?” he asked slowly.
“It means,” she said, meeting his eyes, “that I know things.”
His breath stilled.
“Things that wouldn’t look good on a headline,” she continued. “About how you found me. How you kept me. How much ‘choice’ I had.”
“That’s a threat,” he said quietly.
“It’s the truth.”
The space between them felt like a blade’s edge.
“You wouldn’t,” he said.
She tilted her head. “Wouldn’t I?”
For the first time since he’d taken her, since he’d caged her—
Dominic Vale looked unsure.
“You want war?” he asked.
Her chest rose and fell. “You brought me into one.”
Outside, sirens wailed faintly in the distance. Phones continued to buzz. The world was watching now.
- Writer
