Chapter 17
17
ANNA
W hen I saw my name in a tabloid headline for the first time, it felt like reading about a stranger who just happened to have my face.
From Darling to Dangerous? Philharmonic Freezes Out Anna Peters After Scandalous Society Encounter
Beneath it was a photo I hadn’t known was taken—snapped outside the conservatory, the light harsh, my expression drawn. I looked pale. Exhausted. My shoulders curled in like I was trying to disappear. Like I had something to hide.
And that, of course, was the point.
They didn’t need facts. Just a frame. Just the right shot to make me look broken.
They always choose the photo that tells the story they want.
Comments flooded in like poison. Some came from strangers. Others from names I half-recognized. Charleston’s social scene was small, and the Philharmonic even smaller. Word traveled fast, and judgment traveled faster.
She never seemed all that stable to begin with. Didn’t she date that conductor? What’s his name? Creepy vibes. She’s a liability to the Spoleto season. Pretty girls with breakdowns always play the victim card when it suits them.
I shut the laptop. Slowly. Carefully. As if closing it gently might stop the rest of the world from falling apart.
I’d come to The Palmetto Rose a few hours ago to secure a room for my parents. They were flying in from Boston—dropping everything the moment I called—and had insisted I not pick them up from the airport. “Stay out of sight,” Mama had said gently but firmly once she learned what was happening. “We’ll come to you.”
I hadn’t argued. I didn’t want to risk being seen, not after the headlines, the calls, the way the city suddenly felt like it was watching me through a pane of cracked glass.
So now I was here, hiding out in their hotel room before they’d even arrived. The room was quiet, dim with drawn curtains, and smelled faintly of rose from the linen spray someone had used before I checked in. I hadn’t moved from the edge of the bed in over an hour.
Then came the knock.
A soft rapping at the door—gentle, but certain—before I could even rise.
“Anya?” My mother’s voice, tentative but warm.
I opened the door and let her in without a word. She stepped inside with the quiet authority of someone who had survived worse than a media scandal. Her eyes swept over the suite, taking in the untouched room service tray and the crumpled tissue beside the nightstand.
Then she pulled me into her arms and held me like she had when I was ten and had dropped my harp on a slick sidewalk and cried like it was the end of the world.
“I saw the Post and Courier article,” she said softly. “And the tabloid piece.”
“I know, Mama.”
“We read the comments.”
“Of course, you did.”
My mother pulled back just enough to cup my face in her hands. Her expression was fierce now. No softness. No pity.
“We know who you are. None of this changes that.”
I nodded, but it didn’t feel like enough.
My father appeared a moment later, dressed in a button-down and slacks, his carry-on tucked under one arm, his brow furrowed in grim concern. “There were reporters downstairs,” he said. “I took a different elevator. They’re camped outside the lobby now.”
Perfect.
“I’m so sorry you came into this mess, Papa,” I whispered.
My father crossed the room, pressed a hand to my back. “We didn’t come into it,” he said. “We came for you.”
The tears nearly fell then. But I didn’t let them.
We sat together on the edge of the bed—Mama, Papa, and me in the middle—and I explained everything. Eugene’s stalking. His manipulation. Atlas. What happened at Garrison Green. What didn’t happen. And the way it was all being twisted now into something I didn’t recognize.
Mama’s mouth grew tight.
Papa rubbed his temples and said, “This is how it works, you know. In regimes. First, they call the woman unstable. Then they take her voice. Then they take everything else.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do,” he said, voice low. “When your mother was your age, she tried to publish a piece on academic freedom in Moscow. It was pulled. She was blacklisted. Her name didn’t appear in any journal for three years. The only thing that saved her was getting out.”
Mama nodded. “They rewrite the story while you’re still living it. And by the time you notice, you’re gone from the page.”
I stared at them both.
“But this isn’t Russia,” I said.
“No,” Mama said. “Here, they just call it PR.”
A heavy silence settled.
I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin there. “So, I guess you saw the part about the suspension.”
My father’s expression darkened. “We did. Charleston Tea may be a gossip rag, but the Philharmonic still panicked like it was The Times . Folded the second the word scandal hit print.”
I nodded slowly, reluctantly.
Mama shifted closer. She looked heartbreakingly elegant even in her travel clothes—cream trousers, a navy cardigan, and the delicate gold cross she never took off. Her dark hair, streaked with silver now, was twisted into a neat low bun. Her eyes—deep brown and perceptive—had always seen more than I wished they could.
Papa stood, then paced near the window, hands braced on his hips, his silhouette sharp against the pale drapes. His jaw was clenched, his face flushed with restrained fury. Tall, broad-shouldered, and still imposing despite his age, he looked every inch the man who had once defied half a government to keep his wife’s name off a blacklist. His dark hair was thinning at the crown, and his beard—always trimmed with expert precision—seemed tighter than usual today. The veins in his temple pulsed.
His voice, when it came, was low and thunderous.
“Suspension. For what? For being violated in the press by a coward who cannot accept no?”
I looked up at him. “They said it was to protect the Philharmonic. That it’s a high-profile season. That the Spoleto Festival?—”
“Spoleto can go to hell,” he snapped. “If they need to destroy a young woman’s name to keep their donors happy, they are not worth a single note of your music. Did they tell you this themselves?”
I shook my head. “No, another musician, Lindsey Crawford, told me.”
Papa narrowed his eyes, seething.
Mama gave him a quick, warning glance, but didn’t argue. She looked just as angry, just quieter about it.
“She’s a scapegoat,” Papa continued, voice thick with that particular Russian edge that only came out when he was truly furious. “This Eugene—this slug in a suit—he doesn’t want you back. He wants to ruin you. If he cannot control you, he will erase you.”
My heart twisted. I hated how right he was.
“Do you know what it costs a man to say a woman is crazy?” he asked, eyes blazing now. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Just a whisper. A story. A subtle nod in the right ear. It’s a game older than any of us.”
I pressed the heel of my hand to my eye. “He said I’m unstable. That I have a history.”
My father turned sharply. “Do you?”
“No,” I said simply.
“Then he’s lying. And the truth will come out.”
He crossed the room to crouch in front of me, taking my hands in his. His palms were rough, callused from a lifetime of writing with pens that bled ink and pride.
“You are my daughter,” he said. “I know your mind. I know your soul. You are not unstable. You are not fragile. You are strong. And you will not be undone by this … parasite.”
Tears finally slipped down my cheeks. I didn’t try to stop them.
“We’ll stay as long as you need,” Mama said softly. “Fight beside you. Walk into courtrooms. Call every contact we have. We didn’t raise you to back down when men try to make you small.”
My throat thickened, tears threatening again, but I swallowed them down. “I don’t want to mess up your lives. Your work. I know this wasn’t part of the plan.”
Mama scoffed, brushing my hair behind my ear like I was still a child. “Plans change. You matter more.”
Papa didn’t flinch. “MIT will survive without me for a while.”
I gave him a shaky smile. “Are you sure? You once told me your department would collapse into chaos without you.”
He gave a rare, dry grin. “They exaggerate my importance to make me feel useful. Besides, I have sabbatical days saved. I’ll file for leave if I need to.”
Mama nodded. “And if not, he’ll teach over Zoom. That’s what academia does now, yes? Panic and pretend the internet is enough.”
He grunted in agreement. “I’ll adjust. They owe me, anyway. Years of publishing papers, mentoring students who cry at office hours, attending faculty mixers where no one listens.”
Despite everything, I let out a quiet laugh. “You hate those mixers.”
“They are worse than death,” he muttered. “But I endured them for tenure. I can certainly endure time off for my daughter.”
I looked between them—my fierce, brilliant mother and my unshakable, furious father—and felt a flicker of something warm rise in the middle of all this ruin.
“I’m lucky to have you,” I whispered.
“No, Anya,” Papa said. “Eugene Tiddle is unlucky to have crossed you.”
I smiled.
Mama brushed a hand down my back. “What about the man who cares about you? The one who stayed through the night. Atlas. What is he doing now?”
I looked at her, lips twitching. “Plotting something. Quietly.”
She arched a brow. “Good.”
Just as the emotion tightened in my throat and I opened my mouth to speak again, the landline on the nightstand rang. A jarring, old-fashioned trill that felt impossibly loud in the quiet of the room.
I stared at it.
No one ever called hotel landlines anymore. Did they?
Papa reached for it, but I beat him to it. My fingers curled around the receiver, cold and slick with nerves.
“Hello?”
A woman’s voice answered, warm but careful. “Hi. Is this Anna Peters?”
“Yes?”
“This is Isabel Harper. I’m at the front desk downstairs. We haven’t met—I wasn’t here when you checked in earlier—but I know who you are. And I know you’re with Atlas.”
I stiffened. “I … I don’t know what you mean.”
“It’s okay,” she said gently. “I’m not going to ask you for anything. I just wanted to help. Atlas is … he’s one of ours. And so are you now.”
My heart skipped.
“I’m sorry, how do you?—?”
“I’m Ryker Dane’s fiancée,” Isabel said. “And I work here. I saw your name come through the reservation system and realized what was going on. You don’t need to be alone in this, Anna. Dominion looks after its own.”
Ah, the Izzy that Atlas had told me about.
A wave of something too big to name crashed over me—relief, fear, gratitude.
“I’m okay,” I said quietly. “My parents are here.”
“I know. But Ryker and Noah are on their way to you now. They’re coming to bring you to Dominion Hall. Somewhere safe. Somewhere private. You don’t have to decide anything right away—they just want to talk.”
I swallowed hard. “Is Atlas with them?”
There was a pause.
“No,” she said softly. “He’s not. He’s … he’s been arrested.”
I sat back like the words had struck me across the chest.
Mama rose to her feet in alarm. Papa moved closer, sensing something shift in the air.
“What?” I whispered.
“They booked him an hour ago,” Isabel said. “For questioning. He’s not charged, not yet. But they wanted to rattle the cage. Make a show of it. Eugene’s stirring things with people who shouldn’t be listening.”
My grip tightened on the receiver. “Is he okay?”
“He’s Atlas,” Isabel said simply. “But I know this is hard. Believe me, I do. When things started happening with Ryker, I didn’t know how to process it either. The intensity. The danger. The kind of love that doesn’t leave room for half-measures.”
I stared at the ceiling, blinking hard. “It all happened so fast.”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “It tends to. But you’re not alone now. Wait for Ryker and Noah. Talk to them. And if you decide to come with them … we’ll be waiting.”
She hesitated. Then added, “And for what it’s worth? I think he’d burn the world down for you.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the receiver in my hand.
“Who was it?” Mama asked.
I lowered the phone slowly. “Someone who says I’m not in this alone.”