Chapter 14 Waging Wars
(Ryder)
Over a week had dragged by, each day thick and sticky like tar. I left a trail across January's polished floors, pacing from window to wall to door and back again. Despite the mansion's vast rooms, the walls seemed to inch closer with every passing hour.
"It's been over a week, Harding. How long am I supposed to keep laying low?"
Her eyes didn't leave the laptop, fingers flying over the keyboard. "Until I say so, Ryder. The senator hasn't gotten back to me, and that's not good news."
I stopped dead, running a hand through my hair, tugging at the roots until it hurt. "But Mira, she looked for me at first, but now she's vanished. What if she's finally done? What if she's actually leaving me alone?"
January's head snapped up. Her stare cut like broken glass. "Really, Ryder? Do you actually believe the woman who stalked you for years, who made you her obsession, just decided to let go because she got bored? That's not how this ends."
The sting of her words burned, but beneath it was the truth I couldn't swallow. "No," I admitted. "Of course not. But maybe her dad... maybe he convinced her to back off."
"I doubt it." January's tone was flat, final. "And until I have proof otherwise, you're not leaving this house. I've already pulled the legal team in. We're bracing for whatever he throws at us, court filings, media stunts, backroom threats. If she resurfaces, you'll be covered on all sides."
January had already moved. Quietly, surgically, like an artist laying the first careful incision.
Her call to the senator went unanswered, but the silence told her enough.
She wasn't waiting for permission anymore.
She suspected he wouldn't go along with what we needed, and time was already running short.
I knew she had laid down the framework of protection.
A police report filed, incident number in hand, because a record on file could mean leverage later.
Police involvement wasn't just a formality; it supported the petition for an emergency order, and it forced third parties to take preservation requests seriously.
"Ex parte gets you breathing room," she said, her tone calm but relentless.
She explained it to me; it was a temporary restraining order drafted and submitted without Mira being notified, granted provisionally, buying time before the other side even knew it existed.
On paper, I was already protected: Mira barred from contact, from circling near my home, my work, my gym.
All of it done in silence. She wouldn't know until service was required.
Meanwhile, January's hands were everywhere, collecting what I already controlled.
Screenshots of chats exported and time-stamped, cloud backups duplicated, voicemails saved, photographs of bruises catalogued alongside medical records, witness statements signed and sealed. Originals locked away, copies archived.
"Listen, Ryder," she said, "everything from here on is about control.
We preserve everything. Not subpoenas yet—too loud, too fast. I'm drafting preservation letters.
Phone carriers, social media platforms, email providers.
They won't delete a thing if they get those notices.
The data just sits there, frozen in place, waiting for us to claim it later.
Mira won't know. She won't get the luxury of a warning shot. "
I nodded, though my throat felt tight. "And the devices?" I asked.
She leaned forward, her gaze sharp. "The ones you legally have?
Phones, laptops, drives—we're sending them out for forensic imaging.
Bit-for-bit clones. We calculate hash values so if anyone dares say a file was tampered with, we have proof it wasn't. Every handoff logged.
Chain of custody airtight. No judge, no jury, no journalist could argue it's been tainted. "
I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to ground myself. "So she can't claim I faked anything."
"Exactly." Her tone didn't waver. "We'll keep the originals in an evidence locker, sealed, logged, untouchable. The forensic copies will go to my team and to independent labs. Metadata stays intact—timestamps, geolocation, server logs."
It was a fortress built in silence. Mira didn't know. The senator didn't know. Not yet. January had bought us time, and time was all we needed to move forward.
The days blurred. Spence stopped by, bringing takeout and his quiet brand of loyalty. Mel came with him once, trying to lighten the air with jokes that fell flat against the weight in the room. They sat with me, tried to remind me I wasn't alone. But the truth was, I was ever since I lost her.
Then one afternoon, we all met in January's office, the phone rang. A clipped voice asked her to turn on the Senator' s channel.
The moment the feed cut to the press room, my stomach dropped into freefall.
Cameras clicked in violent bursts, flashbulbs exploding like miniature lightning storms as the senator approached the podium.
Mira stood beside him, hands folded, eyes lowered, every detail curated.
She had dressed herself in innocence—hair pulled back too tightly, drowning in an oversized beige cardigan, a tissue trembling in her grip.
Fragile by design. Vulnerable by costume.
Even now, I recognized the exact shade of lip gloss she wore only when she wanted pity, and the sight of it burned hotter than any wound she had left on me.
The senator gripped the lectern, his voice carrying the solemn weight of a man performing duty, not theater. "No father should ever have to do this," he declared, grave and steady. "But today my daughter, Mira, has chosen to come forward about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Ryder Haas."
Abuse. The word detonated inside my skull, sharp and merciless. My chest seized around it. It didn't sound like an accusation, it sounded like a verdict.
Mira pressed the tissue to her cheek, eyes glistening, though no tear had dared to fall.
When she finally lifted her gaze to the crowd, her voice cracked like porcelain.
"I loved him," she whispered, a confession rehearsed to perfection.
"God help me, I loved him and for months, I thought if I just stayed quiet, if I just tried harder, maybe the anger would stop.
But it never did. He—he hurt me. He told me no one would believe me, because of who he is and I believed him. "
Reporters leaned forward, pens scratching, cameras zooming.
Every sob-laced syllable painted me as the monster in her story: the abuser, the predator, the man with too much strength and too little mercy.
She spoke like survival itself was etched into her bones, while I was reduced to a caricature of violence, a cautionary tale with my name stamped on it.
It didn't matter that I had bruises in photographs, hospital reports, texts where she admitted rage.
None of that was here. All they saw was Mira—the trembling daughter, the wronged woman, the victim who had found her courage, and in the eyes of the press, the public, and soon the courts, that was enough.
Her shoulders shook, dainty, rehearsed.
My hands balled into fists. I could still feel the sting of her nails down my arm, still see the blood on my shirt, and now she was flipping it, feeding the world a story where I was the monster.
January's voice cut low beside me. "She's reading from a script."
Mira sniffled theatrically, the sound slicing through the room like a rehearsed cue. "I stayed because I thought I could save him. I was wrong. I can't be silent anymore. No woman should."
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 both compensatory 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 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 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."