Chapter 10 Malik #2
For half a second, there is nothing. Time stands still, with no sound or movement, as if the entire world is processing what he’s just said. What’s left is the echo of those four words hanging between us, charged and alive and impossible to take back.
I hear a sharp intake of air from Cy, a muttered “oh shit” from somewhere behind me. Someone’s phone clatters to the floor.
Julian doesn’t stop there. His truth spills out of him like water from a broken dam, like a much-needed inhalation of breath after years of drowning.
“You stole from me,” he repeats, louder now, his voice carrying down the hallway and probably beyond. “You took something that didn’t belong to you and you built your entire life on it while I stayed behind and paid the price. Every single day, I paid the price for your ambition.”
“Phones down. Now.”
Renee’s voice slices through the chaos like a blade, cutting through the stunned silence with the authority of someone who’s handled crises that would break other people.
She moves fast, heels striking the floor with purpose as she steps into the center of the hallway like a general taking command of a battlefield.
Eli is right beside her, his manager instincts kicking into overdrive as he scans faces, already cataloging who needs to be handled.
“Every single one of you signed a non-disclosure agreement,” Renee continues, her tone cold and uncompromising, carrying the weight of legal consequences and ruined careers.
“If I see one more phone raised, if I catch even a hint of this appearing online, you’re done.
Fired. No references. No second chances.
I will make sure you regret posting anything.
You will lose everything, and I will personally see to it that you never work in this industry again. ”
There is immediate scrambling. Arms drop, phones vanish into pockets, and someone curses under their breath as they fumble to stop a recording.
Another person leans casually against the wall, head down, in a transparent attempt at pretending they were checking a message and not broadcasting the moment to thousands of strangers.
The damage control is swift but probably too late, in the age of live streaming and screen recordings, nothing truly disappears.
Eli gestures sharply toward the exits. “Back to work. All of you. Clear the hall. Anyone who doesn’t have a legitimate reason to be here needs to leave immediately.”
It happens quickly after that. The crew disperses with nervous energy, assistants scatter like startled birds.
Our security team steps in, creating a perimeter that should have existed from the beginning.
The hallway empties with surprising efficiency, leaving behind only the people who matter and the mess none of us can walk away from.
The damage is already done, though. The cracks have formed in the carefully constructed walls we’ve all built, and somewhere out there, someone is replaying those words.
Slowing them down. Posting them with captions that speculate and dissect and accuse.
The internet machine is already churning, taking this moment and feeding it into the endless hunger for scandal and exposure.
You stole from me.
Julian’s mother stares at him now, color high in her cheeks, her composure finally showing signs of strain.
“What is he talking about?” Her voice is carefully controlled, but I can hear the undercurrent of fury.
I’m sure she wants to lay into him for embarrassing her, for creating exactly the kind of public scene the Reed family has spent generations avoiding, but even she can see her son is on edge and walking a very fine line.
Julian exhales a laugh that sounds like it’s scraped straight from his chest, raw and painful.
“You want the truth?” he says, his voice carrying a bitter edge that makes everyone in earshot flinch.
“He’s the reason I never got to leave. He’s the reason I didn’t get the scholarship to attend Juilliard.
You remember Juilliard, don’t you? The school you refused to pay for because God forbid, I go to New York.
Too far away from your grip of control, it wasn’t conservative enough, wasn’t safe enough for your precious reputation.
Oh, you were delighted when I went to the school of your choice instead.
Under your control, with you holding my tuition over my head like a leash.
He’s the reason I stayed here and learned how to survive instead of how to live. ”
My chest caves inward at the visible hurt on his face, even after all this time. The betrayal is raw, red and weeping, the wound still festering after all this time, almost septic in its refusal to heal.
I take a step forward again without thinking, my body moving before my brain can stop it. “Julian, please, listen to me—”
“No.” He shakes his head, a sharp, disbelieving motion that he will probably feel in his neck tomorrow.
“You don’t get to explain this away with pretty words and sad eyes.
You don’t get to stand there looking wounded when you’re the one who did the wounding.
I lived with it. I built a whole life around the consequences of what you did, and you got to be free. ”
His father looks stunned now, something brittle cracking through his usual authority.
For the first time in my memory, Fred Reed looks genuinely lost, like the ground has shifted beneath his feet.
His mother’s mouth tightens, her mind already working, already recalibrating, already reframing this into something manageable, something that can be spun into a narrative that protects the family reputation.
Portia finally speaks, his voice soft but urgent, cutting through the tension. “Julian, please. You don’t want to do this here. Not like this.”
Julian doesn’t even seem to register the words. He’s too far gone now, too deep in the release of finally speaking truths that have been poisoning him for years.
“I hated you for a long time,” he says, his voice quieter now, more dangerous for its restraint. “And then I learned how to live with the hate because it was easier than feeling everything else. Easier than missing you. Easier than remembering what we used to be to each other.”
The words hit me harder than anything else he’s said, striking something deep in my chest that I thought I’d learned to protect years ago.
I swallow hard, forcing air into lungs that feel too small.
All I can do is give him my own truth, the truth he never let me get out years ago.
“I was afraid,” I say, the words finally bursting from my lips, clawing their way out of the place where I’ve kept them buried.
“I was terrified you were going to leave me behind. I thought if I proved myself, if I made it first, you’d come with me.
I didn’t understand what I was taking from you.
I thought you would attend Juilliard regardless, I thought your parents were going to pay for you eventually.
I didn’t know they would use it as leverage.
I didn’t know they would—” My voice cracks. “I swear to you, if I could undo it—”
“Stop.” The finality in his voice is absolute.
“I don’t need your regret,” Julian says, each word carefully enunciated, delivered like a diagnosis.
“I needed my future. I needed my freedom. I needed to be who I was supposed to be instead of who they decided I could be. Free, Malik. You know exactly what I mean by that.”
Silence rushes back in, thick and suffocating. The weight of everything unsaid presses down on all of us, years of buried hurt and unspoken truths settling like dust in the sudden stillness.
For a moment, I think he might say more.
I think he might finally let everything spill out and leave nothing standing between us, no more secrets or careful omissions.
Julian has spent too many years learning restraint though, learning when to stop before he says too much.
Instead, he turns away, his movement sharp and final.
“I’m done,” he says flatly, his voice emptied of everything except exhaustion. “I need to leave. Now. Momma, Dad, Cy, I can’t. I just can’t do this anymore.”
He doesn’t wait for permission. He doesn’t look at his parents for approval. He doesn’t look at me.
Portia hesitates for half a second, caught between politeness and loyalty, then follows him without question, murmuring a quick apology to no one in particular as they go.
Cy lingers just long enough to meet my eyes, something conflicted and heavy passing between us, understanding, maybe, or pity, before he turns and trails after his brother, leaving the adults to clean up the wreckage.
Julian’s parents remain, stunned and tight-lipped. Mave Reed fixes me with a stare that could freeze blood, her fury carefully controlled but unmistakable, before they too retreat, probably already planning damage control, already crafting the narrative that will minimize this explosion.
Then there’s just me. Standing amongst the rubble.
Surrounded by echoes of words that can never be taken back.
Knowing that whatever happens next, whatever statements are released or tours salvaged or narratives spun, nothing between us will ever be simple again.
Ha, simple. Nothing between us was ever simple.
This is utter destruction, where there was an empty building, now there’s dust with nothing left standing.
Somewhere beyond these walls, the internet is already buzzing with questions, with speculation, with the hungry anticipation of a scandal involving two of music’s biggest names at the moment.
The real answers are standing in this hallway, unspoken and bleeding, raw as open wounds.
I have no idea how to fix what I’ve finally been forced to face. I have no idea how to make this right, or if making it right is even possible after so much time, so much damage. I’ve lost him, but maybe, maybe I never truly had him to begin with.