3. Azaria
AZARIA
The private terminal moves past me in a blur of marble and mahogany, all hushed efficiency and apologetic glances from staff who recognize me but pretend they don't. Security escorts me through corridors designed to shield the wealthy from inconvenience, their footsteps echoing against polished floors.
Eighteen hours ago, I was selecting between champagne and Dom Pérignon at a penthouse afterparty.
Six hours ago, I was asking a French police officer—very politely—whether there might be a different room available.
Preferably one without the fluorescent lighting that made me look like I'd been embalmed, or the woman in the adjacent cell who hummed what I'm fairly certain was the entire discography of Céline Dion.
There was not a different room.
The cot had springs that belonged in a medieval torture museum. The smell defied classification—part disinfectant, part despair, part something that might have been decades of cigarette smoke filtered through institutional paint. And they confiscated my flask.
"Evidence," they'd said, like my choice in whiskey was somehow connected to international diamond trafficking.
I'd pointed out that the flask was a gift from my father for my twenty-first birthday. I'd explained that the whiskey was from my personal collection. I'd even offered to let them test it for whatever they thought might be hidden in premium Scottish single malt.
None of this mattered to Officer Dubois, who spoke English like he was doing me a personal favor and treated my flask like it might explode if handled incorrectly.
Now I'm climbing the steps to my father's Gulfstream, still wearing last night's outfit—which has held up remarkably well considering it spent the evening at a police station—and sunglasses that serve no practical purpose at ten o'clock at night except to hide the fact that I haven't slept in thirty-six hours.
The cabin smells like leather and the particular kind of silence that comes from soundproofing money can buy.
My father sits in his usual seat, the one facing the door so he can see everything coming.
His expression is the one he wears during board meetings when someone's about to be fired but hasn't figured it out yet.
My phone is in his hands.
"Really, Dad? The phone?"
"Your publicist has called seventeen times. Your agent has called twelve. There are forty-three messages from journalists, six from photographers, and one from someone claiming to be from Netflix about documentary rights."
"Documentary rights? Already? That's actually impressive."
"This is not amusing, Azaria."
I get into the seat across from him and fasten my seatbelt. The jet begins its taxi toward the runway, and through the window, I can see photographers with telephoto lenses positioned behind chain-link fencing like they're documenting some kind of exotic wildlife migration.
"The flask was a gift from you."
"I remember."
"Engraved and everything. They treated it like evidence in a crime against humanity."
"Because right now, everything connected to you is evidence."
"Including my alcohol?"
"Including everything."
The engines spool up, and I feel the familiar pressure of acceleration.
Paris falls away beneath us, taking with it the fluorescent-lit holding cell, Officer Dubois and his suspicious attitude toward premium whiskey, and the woman who knew far too many Céline Dion songs for anyone's psychological wellbeing.
My father continues watching me with that expression. The one that means he's already decided how this conversation ends.
My father activates the cabin's conference system with the efficiency of someone who's spent decades turning crises into quarterly reports.
The screens fold down from the ceiling, and suddenly I'm looking at faces I recognize—my publicist Rachel with her perpetually concerned eyebrows, my agent, Leonard who looks like he's aged five years since yesterday, and my attorney Jennifer whose expression suggests she's already mentally drafting invoices.
"Azaria." Rachel's voice crackles through the speakers. "We need to discuss immediate damage control."
"The Chanel campaign is frozen pending investigation," Leonard jumps in, his usual smooth confidence replaced by something sharper. "Dior wants to 'reassess the partnership.' Versace is taking a wait-and-see approach, which in fashion speak means they're already looking for your replacement."
Jennifer shuffles papers that I can hear but not see. "Legal counsel has been retained in Paris, London, and New York. The French authorities haven't filed formal charges, but they're treating this as an ongoing investigation into international money laundering."
"Money laundering?" The words taste foreign in my mouth. "I went to a party."
"A party where stolen diamonds were allegedly being moved through designer jewelry purchases," Jennifer continues, her tone as flat as if she's reading a grocery list. "Several attendees have been arrested.
Your presence there, combined with your family's business connections and your public profile, makes you a person of interest."
Rachel leans forward on screen. "We have a list of statements you cannot make. No social media posts. No interviews. No public appearances without prior approval. No photographs with anyone currently under investigation, which includes approximately sixty percent of the people at that party."
"The fashion week circuit is essentially off-limits until this resolves," Leonard adds. "Milan, London, New York—all problematic right now."
My father sits perfectly still, his hands folded in his lap like he's listening to a weather report rather than watching my career get dismantled in real time.
The numbers keep coming—brand deals suspended, photo shoots cancelled, magazine covers pulled.
Each one hits like a small explosion, but it's the accumulation that starts building something dangerous in my chest.
"The Netflix inquiry is actually legitimate," Rachel continues. "They're interested in a documentary about wealth, privilege, and criminal connections in high fashion. Your story would be the centerpiece."
"My story." I taste copper. "You mean my alleged story."
"The perception is the reality right now, Azaria. We need to focus on rehabilitation, not accuracy."
That's the moment. The exact second when listening becomes impossible and something else takes over entirely. Not panic—panic is scattered and desperate and makes you small. This is rage, which is focused and deliberate and makes you very, very large.
"Rehabilitation?" I stand up so fast my seatbelt locks, the mechanism clicking like a warning shot. "Rehabilitation from what exactly? Dancing? Drinking champagne? Having conversations with people who turned out to be criminals without wearing a fucking wire?"
"Azaria—" my father starts.
"No. Don't 'Azaria' me right now. I went to a party. I had a good time. I talked to people and danced and drank expensive alcohol that I paid for with my own money. And now my entire professional life is in a holding pattern because society apparently has a problem with me being young and turnt."
Rachel's voice comes through the speakers, all practiced calm. "The optics are challenging?—"
"The optics?" I laugh. "The optics of what? Existing while wealthy? Being photographed while Black? Having the audacity to attend social events without conducting background checks on every guest?"
"That's not what we're saying," Leonard tries.
"Then what are you saying? You are telling me to apologize for crimes I didn't commit to protect brands that are dropping me anyway."
My father finally speaks. "We need to focus on strategy, not emotion."
"Strategy? Dad, they confiscated my flask. The one you gave me. They treated it like evidence in some international conspiracy instead of what it actually is—a birthday present from my father that I carry because it reminds me of home."
"The facts don't matter right now," he says, and that's the thing that breaks something fundamental in my chest. "Perception matters. Control matters. Getting ahead of this narrative matters."
"The facts don't matter?" I stare at him, this man who taught me that truth was the foundation of everything worth building. "Since when do the facts not matter?"
"Since your name started trending globally in connection with criminal activity."
"Criminal activity I had nothing to do with!"
"That doesn't matter."
"It's the only thing that matters! I didn't do anything wrong. All I did was have fun. I came home. And now everyone—including my own father—is more interested in managing the fallout than in the fact that I'm innocent."
"Baby, you need to get your head in the game."
The endearment hits differently at thirty thousand feet, wrapped in disappointment and delivered in his boardroom voice. I turn away from the screens where my team continues their damage assessment, their voices becoming background noise to the ringing in my ears.
"Here's what's going to happen." Dad reaches into his briefcase, pulling out a folder. "You're going to New York. You're going to stay with Theo Tate until the press cycle settles."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Someone stable. Someone whose image can absorb the proximity without damage."
"Theo Tate." I say his name like I'm testing whether it might be poisonous. "You want me to stay with Theo Tate."
"The Tates have been family friends for twenty years. He has a clean reputation, zero scandals, and enough public goodwill to weather any association with this situation."
"Dad—"
"He's agreed to help."
The cabin suddenly feels smaller. The recycled air tastes stale. I can hear Rachel still talking through the speakers about crisis management and public perception, but her voice sounds like it's coming from underwater.
"I would rather walk back out to those paparazzi right now."
"That's not an option."
"I would rather give a live statement on the steps of the Paris courthouse. In French. With subtitles."
"Azaria—"
"I would rather do almost anything on earth than live with Theo Tate."
My father closes the folder with a snap that echoes through the cabin. "This isn't a negotiation."
But I'm already remembering him clearly—and the problem is, I have never not remembered him clearly, which has always been its own particular irritation.
Theo Tate at sixteen, all sharp angles and uncomfortable height, standing in our foyer wearing a suit that fit him perfectly because of course it did.
Theo at eighteen, accepting his valedictorian award with the kind of gracious humility that made me want to throw something.
Theo at twenty-one, drafted first round to the NHL while I was getting suspended from my third boarding school for reasons that seemed important at the time but now escape me entirely.
He was everything I wasn't and had apparently been that way since birth.
Never in trouble. Excellent in school. Hockey prodigy.
Courteous to adults in a way that felt almost aggressive, like he was personally offended by the concept of disrespect.
I am not sure I have ever heard him cuss.
Not once. And the worst part, the thing that had driven me absolutely insane as a teenager, was that no matter how hard I needled him—and I had been creative about it, I had been committed—he never gave me a reaction.
Nothing. Just that steady, slightly irritated composure that made me want to be louder just to see if I could find the ceiling.
I never found the ceiling.
"He won't want me there," I say, grasping for any argument that might work. "Theo Tate does not do chaos. I am literally chaos."
"He's expecting you."
“Daddy, please.”
“This is final, baby. It will be good for you.”
I am already annoyed and I have not even seen him yet.