19. Azaria
AZARIA
The photograph stares up at me from the white comforter, Massimo's silver hair catching the surveillance camera's flash like a warning I should have heeded months ago.
"It's him."
My voice comes out flat, matter-of-fact, as if I'm identifying a stranger in a lineup instead of the man who's been systematically dismantling my life piece by piece.
"The Italian from Milan. The one I reported and buried in the litigation fee."
I trace the edge of the photograph with my fingertip, not quite touching his face but close enough to feel the memory burn. The weight of Theo's attention settles on me, patient and waiting, but I can't look at him yet. Can't let him see how spectacularly stupid I've been.
"The one who swung at me with his ring and left that scratch across my cheek the night before the Dior shoot. Massimo Lombardi."
His name tastes bitter, like medicine I should have swallowed two years ago instead of letting it fester into this elaborate revenge plot.
"I cannot believe—" The fury rises in my chest, hot and self-directed, the particular kind of anger reserved for moments when you realize you've been playing checkers while your opponent moved chess pieces around you for months. "I cannot believe I didn't think of him immediately."
I grab the photograph, holding it up like evidence of my own spectacular failure. Massimo's face stares back, that patrician smile that never quite reaches his eyes, the expression of a man who's never been told no by anyone who mattered.
Until me.
"I've been sitting in your townhouse for weeks, Theo. Weeks. I have thought about every enemy I've ever made, every person who might want to see me destroyed, cataloguing every slight and every burned bridge and every professional rivalry."
The words tumble out faster now. "Every photographer I've turned down, every designer whose vision I've rejected, every socialite whose party I've skipped."
I throw the photograph back onto the comforter, where it lands face-up, Massimo's smile mocking me from the expensive paper.
"And Massimo Lombardi—the man who has been bleeding money and social capital in a courtroom for two years because of me—didn't even make the list."
Theo shifts beside me, the mattress dipping under his weight. "I suspected it was him as soon as Logan showed me the picture."
"Of course you did." I laugh, but there's no humor in it.
"Because you're not an idiot who forgets about the powerful men she's humiliated in public.
Because you understand that revenge is a dish best served with a two-year planning period and enough financial resources to buy three models and orchestrate an international scandal. "
The navy nail polish catches the lamplight, still wet on my toes, a reminder of how easily I can be distracted from the things that actually matter. How I can focus on perfecting something meaningless while the real threat circles me like a predator I've somehow managed to forget exists.
"That's exactly why Paris happened."
Theo's voice cuts through my spiral, quiet but certain. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, grey eyes fixed on mine with the focus that makes everything else in the room disappear.
"You weren't a convenient high-profile name to attach to a scandal, Azaria. You were the point. The whole thing was built around you specifically."
I shake my head, instinctive denial rising in my throat.
"No, that's—that's not?—"
"Margot, Sophie, and Isabelle." He continues as if I haven't spoken, his tone matter-of-fact in the way that makes terrible truths impossible to argue with.
"They were Massimo's instruments. Recruited with the promise of your position, your bookings, your spot at the top of the roster once you were gone. "
The photograph of Massimo seems to blur at the edges, his patrician smile warping into something predatory. My chest tightens, breath catching like there's not enough air in the room.
"You think—you think he promised them?—"
"I don't think. I know." Theo picks up his phone, scrolling through something. "Logan found financial records. Payments made to shell companies tied to all three of them. He paid for that party. Deposits that coincide exactly with the dates they would have started planning Paris."
The walls of the bedroom seem to close in, the expensive white linens and minimalist furniture suddenly feeling like a cage. My breathing goes shallow, rapid, words tumbling out in fragments I can't quite control.
"Someone hated me enough to—to build this. To spend months, maybe years, orchestrating?—"
"Azaria."
"These women, Theo. These women I worked beside. Shared dressing rooms with. Margot and I did three covers together last year. Sophie helped me with my zipper at the Chanel show. Isabelle gave me her backup mascara when mine dried out during the Versace campaign."
The air won't fill my lungs properly. Each breath feels like I'm drowning in reverse, suffocating on the oxygen that should be keeping me alive.
"They looked me in the face and took the deal. They smiled at me and shared champagne and—and they knew. They knew the whole time what they were?—"
"Azaria, breathe."
"I walked right in wearing thirty thousand euros of Saint Laurent. I posed for photographs. I kissed cheeks and made small talk and I never saw any of it coming. I was choreographed into that party like a prop and I?—"
The room tilts sideways. My hands shake as I press them against my chest, trying to force air into lungs that have forgotten how to expand.
"I can't—I can't breathe properly?—"
Theo moves to me immediately, the mattress shifting under his weight as he closes the distance between us. His hands frame my face, large and warm and steady, thumbs brushing against my cheekbones.
"Look at me. Massimo made a mistake."
"Theo—"
"He built something elaborate and expensive to destroy you, and it's going to be the thing that hands him to the police."
His gaze hold mine, unwavering, as if he can anchor me to the present through sheer force of will.
"We're going to clear your name completely. I'm going to make sure of it."
"You don't understand?—"
"I need you to breathe and stay with me because we have work to do."
His hands stay steady against my face, anchors in the storm that's turned my chest into a battlefield.
"Count with me. Four in."
I shake my head, but he continues anyway.
"Four hold. Four out. Four hold."
"Theo, I can't?—"
"You can. Four in through your nose."
I hate that it works. Hate that my body responds to his command when my mind can't find purchase on anything solid.
"Good. Hold it."
The air burns in my lungs, but I hold it because he told me to. Because the alternative is drowning in this room that suddenly feels too small for the magnitude of what Massimo has done.
"Four out through your mouth."
The exhale shudders out of me, unsteady but longer than the panicked gasps from before. Theo's thumbs trace across my cheekbones, a gesture so gentle it almost undoes all the progress we've made.
"Again. Four in."
We repeat the pattern until my chest stops feeling like it's caving in on itself. Until the edges of my vision stop blurring and the room stops tilting sideways. Until I can breathe without feeling like I'm suffocating on my own stupidity.
"Better?"
I nod, not trusting my voice yet. His hands drop from my face, leaving cool spots where his palms had been warm against my skin.
"Massimo underestimated you." His voice carries certainty, as if this is a fact rather than an opinion. "He thought destroying your reputation would be enough. He didn't account for you fighting back."
"I didn't fight back. I walked into his trap wearing a smile."
"You survived it. That's fighting back."
The kindness in his voice makes something crack inside my chest.
"I want to be alone now."
I need him gone before I do something spectacularly stupid like cry in front of him.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
He stands, the mattress shifting as his weight leaves it.
"I'll be downstairs if you need anything."
The door clicks shut behind him with the soft finality of expensive hardware, leaving me alone with Massimo's photograph and the wreckage of my composure.
The tears come immediately, hot and furious and completely beyond my control.
I've always known modeling was ruthless.
Everyone warns you about that from day one—the competition, the backstabbing, the way success can make people desperate enough to destroy each other for a chance at the top.
But knowing about it in theory and being the target of it in practice are entirely different creatures.
The tightness in my chest returns, but different this time. Not panic, just the crushing weight of being someone's calculated enemy. Of having three women I trusted look me in the face and smile while they planned my professional execution.
I hate how many times Theo has seen me like this. Vulnerable and raw and nothing like the polished version of myself I've spent years perfecting. I hate that he's becoming someone I rely on, someone whose steadiness I crave when everything else feels like it's dissolving.
The tears soak into the expensive pillowcases until exhaustion finally wins, pulling me under into sleep that feels more like surrender.