Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dexter
The moment I hear the words—“Sorry, Dex. You need to come back now.”—something inside me snaps taut.
Not inconvenient-bad.
Not gossip-column-bad.
This is so fucking bad it’s already unraveling me.
That voice—Eddie’s voice—crackles in my ear like static. But it isn’t the phone. It’s me. My mind already miles ahead, the air closing in. My grip on the receiver tightens as if I can physically brace myself.
Aly props herself on an elbow, eyes half-lidded, curious. She’s glowing—skin flushed. The sight of her makes my chest tighten. She looks peaceful, and for a second, I wish I could freeze time. Keep her right here, untouched by whatever’s waiting on the other end of this call.
There’s something so calm about her expression, so open. And it guts me.
She has no idea. No warning. She’s just here—soft and beautiful and entirely unaware that something is about to detonate.
I want to press pause. Just this once. I want to bottle this exact moment and keep it somewhere safe. Aly, looking up at me like I might be worth something.
Instead, the pit in my stomach hollows deeper. My chest threatens to cave in.
Maybe someone got a picture of us. Maybe this is about the wrong people finding out. It wouldn’t be the first time. But it’s not that possibility that terrifies me—it’s the fallout she doesn’t deserve. What happens to her if my past claws its way to the surface?
She’s not built for scandal. She’s not a storyline in a National Paparazzi headline or a name to trend for the wrong reasons. She’s not like the others—they never really looked at me. Not me. Just the version they could use.
But Aly? She’s the only one who’s ever seen the part of me that might still be salvageable.
And now I’m going to ruin her life.
“I’m here,” I say, voice dry and scratchy. “Talk to me, Edgar. What’s going on?”
Eddie exhales on the other end—a long, guttural sound that makes the back of my neck tense.
“This is bad. Fucking bad. Worse than anything you can imagine.”
“Define worse,” I snap, already bracing.
“They’re calling it ‘The Vaughn Files.’” His words come too fast, like he’s trying to outrun the truth. “VH1’s backing it. Someone sold unreleased footage—old studio reels, private sessions, even police file material from ’83. The night at the hotel.”
My body goes still.
Eddie doesn’t stop.
“There’s audio. Victor, talking to the cops. Someone leaked the statements. There’s talk of the coroner being paid off.”
Everything else vanishes. The room, Aly, the sound of the ocean through the cracked window—it all drops away.
Suddenly I’m there again.
The hotel suite. The doors to the balcony are wide open.
Chlorine in the air, the reek of cheap vodka still fresh in my memory.
My father’s voice shaking as he told me to help him clean it up.
I had no idea where the blood came from or what the fuck was happening.
He just needed me to fix it. Like it was a spill on a marble floor and not a human life.
And I did. Or tried to. Because I was seventeen and terrified and trying not to drown in a sea I didn’t know how to swim.
“I didn’t do it,” I whisper, the words automatic, instinctual.
“I know, but you were there,” Eddie says, quiet but not accusing.
I press a hand to my forehead. It’s damp. “What are they saying?”
He hesitates. And then: “They’re painting it like you were there when it happened. That you knew. That Victor bought everyone off to save you. That you tried to blame him—when it was the opposite. They’re twisting it all over—again.”
My throat aches like I swallowed sand. “That’s fucking bullshit.”
“I know. But it’s out there. Again.”
Of course it is. It always comes back. We’ve been here before, just with different angles and louder microphones. Some journalist digs up a piece of Victor Vaughn’s past and decides to pin it on me. My face. My name.
Because that’s what sells. This is why I’m always in the headlines. People are morbid and they don’t care if I’m a person. They believe I’m just something to obsess over.
And I’m always the goddamn punchline.
“Those seedy magazines are sniffing. LAPD’s ‘reviewing new evidence.’ If this breaks before we get ahead of it—Vaughn Records is done. Artists will walk. Sponsors will drop. This isn’t just your name this time, Dex. It’s everybody’s. We can’t afford for you to disappear again.”
I close my eyes.
Disappear again.
That phrase isn’t lost on either of us. It’s what I do. When things start to spiral, I vanish. I hide in the haze. Old vices. New ones. Whatever it takes to quiet the noise.
“I can’t drag you back from another binge,” Eddie says, softer now. “I need you here. I need you fucking sober.”
Something inside me pulls tight—like a thread stretched too far, ready to snap. My pulse kicks up, heat rising beneath my skin, and I can’t breathe around the pressure building in my ribs.
“Can you do it?” he asks.
Three words, and everything I’ve tried to build since leaving that world threatens to come undone.
I’ve spent half my life trying to outrun the Vaughn name, and the other half pretending I didn’t want to burn it all down. Victor’s ghost is always one step behind me. Even dead, he’s still here—still making sure I never fucking breathe.
There’s a rustle behind me. Aly moves closer. I feel the heat of her arm brush against my back, tentative, grounding. She doesn’t say anything yet, but her touch is real and present and makes the guilt that much worse.
“Who is it?” she murmurs.
I can’t turn around. I can’t let her see what this is doing to me.
“We need to get ahead of this,” Eddie says. “I’ve rerouted a jet. You’re flying to L.A. tonight. The other one will bring Alyssa to Seattle. The lawyers want a statement drafted by noon.”
“Ed, slow the fuck down—”
“I’m not asking.” His tone cuts hard. “We need to fucking move. There’s a witness. They’re going public. We have hours, maybe, before this blows open.”
“Who?” I demand.
There’s a pause, long enough to confirm I’m going to hate the answer. “Your brother.”
The word hits like a punch to my chest. Of course it’s that asshole. I let out a short, hollow laugh. “Stepbrother. And Malcom Smith is nothing to me. Or to the Vaughn name.”
Except that’s not what the world will see. They’ll see the story he spins. The bitter son who got left behind. The one with evidence.
“He’s calling it his redemption arc,” Eddie mutters. “He’s implying Victor covered for you and that he has proof.”
My stomach roils. Of course he is.
Of fucking course.
“This is how he gets his book deal,” I say, voice low. “Oprah. Larry King Live. A table stacked with receipts and his name on a paperback. This is his shot at making the world see him.”
Eddie doesn’t argue. Because we both know it’s true.
“Dex—” he starts.
But I don’t answer.
Because Aly is still waiting behind me. She’s close enough that I can smell her, feel the warmth of her body through the sheet. She doesn’t know yet that everything’s about to change.
And when she finds out?
There’s a very real chance she won’t stay. This is how it ends, even when it barely began.
“Don’t,” I snap, rubbing the back of my neck. “He’ll sell anything for attention. His soul, his mother’s lies, mine—it doesn’t matter. He’s always waiting for a chance to crawl out of the gutter and pretend he belongs.”
I can feel Aly watching me, silent. I don’t have to turn around to know the confusion written on her face. The worry. The way her body tenses when she doesn’t know if she should step closer or stay where she is.
“Do they have footage of me?” I ask.
Eddie hesitates, and that tells me enough.
“They’re saying there’s tape from the night of the party,” he says. “You showing up at the hotel. The timeline matches, but I doubt it’s real.”
My heart starts pounding in my ears.
“I didn’t even get there until—” I stop. My voice fractures. “Until after. After he’d already—”
“I know,” Eddie cuts in. “We’ll handle it. But you need to get out of Mexico. Now. Before this explodes and they think you’re hiding.”
I run my hand down my face, trying to breathe through the rush.
This can’t be happening. Not again. Not after everything I’ve rebuilt.
I spent years cleaning up the ashes of Victor Vaughn’s legacy—paying off the damage, rewriting the narrative, pretending the sins died with him.
And now it’s back. The ghost, the story, the name.
The fucking Vaughns never die.
“I’ll pack,” I say finally. My voice doesn’t sound like mine.
“Good,” Eddie says quietly. “The car’ll be there in thirty.”
He hangs up before I can answer.
The silence that follows is worse than the noise.
Aly’s still standing there. Barefoot. Wearing one of my shirts that hangs too loose on her, the hem brushing the tops of her thighs.
She looks out of place and yet so heartbreakingly at home in this room that’s never known peace.
Her brows knit together as she studies me—trying to read what I’m not saying.
“Dex, what’s going on?”
I can’t bring myself to face her. My throat feels raw, as if the words are scraping their way out. “They’re reopening something that should’ve stayed buried.”
She takes a step closer, cautious but determined. “What is it?”
“There was an accident.” The word burns. “At least, that’s what my father called it. I don’t know who was there before I arrived to help him.”
I pause, my chest rising too fast, breath catching between what I remember and what I wish I could forget.
“I was seventeen,” I continue, quieter now.
“And all I wanted was his approval. I thought if I showed up—if I fixed it—he’d finally see me.
Instead, he told me to clean it up. The police called it tampering with evidence, but they couldn’t prove who did it or who .
. . well, they couldn’t prove anything. Prints were smudged, samples gone.
It was all too perfectly ruined. My father made sure of that. And when it was over, he blamed me.”
A bitter laugh slips out. “Said I was the one. That they handled it gently because I was a minor who’d made a mistake.
When my grandfather stepped in, everything changed.
They found out the truth. It was gruesome.
My father was in it up to his neck. But my grandfather paid his way out, like he always did. Money fixed everything—except me.”
The words taste like old regret. As if they’ve been sitting in my mouth for years, waiting to poison me again.
Aly hesitates before reaching out, her hand finding my wrist. Her touch is soft, almost hesitant, but it sears through me all the same. It’s not pity. It’s something else—something I can’t afford to feel.
“And they’re blaming you now?” she asks.
“They’ll try—again.”
I finally meet her eyes. “They’ve been trying my whole damn life.”
Her expression shifts—less confusion now, more heartbreak. “Then let me help.”
The words hit harder than anything Eddie said. Harder than the past itself.
I shake my head. “You can’t. This isn’t something you can fix with statements or strategy. This—” I gesture toward the air, the ocean beyond the glass, the name stitched into every piece of me. “This is poison. It stains everyone who gets close.”
Her jaw tightens. “I’m not afraid of stains.”
“You should be.”
She doesn’t back down. “I’m not leaving you.”
And God, I want to believe her. I want to believe I deserve someone who doesn’t look away from the wreckage that trails behind me. Someone who sees it—all of it—and stays anyway.
But I already know how this ends: The cameras will come. The headlines will write themselves. And her name will be dragged through stories she never asked to be a part of.
I’m quiet for a beat too long. My throat burns. There’s no version of this where she doesn’t get hurt. I open my mouth—and the wrong words come out.
“Pack your things,” I say finally, forcing each word out through the knot in my throat. “They’re flying you home on the other jet.”
Her eyes flash with disbelief. “You’re sending me away?”
“It’s safer.”
“Safer for who?”
She steps closer, her anger burning beneath the hurt. “You think you get to decide that? You think you’re protecting me, but you’re just doing what everyone else does when things get hard. You’re running.”
She’s right. Every syllable of it. But I can’t stop myself.
“I can’t let them drag you into this,” I say, quieter now, my voice rough with exhaustion. “I’ve lived this story before, Aly. You haven’t. I need to protect you.”
Her voice trembles, but she doesn’t falter. “Then maybe it’s time someone helps you change the ending.”
The words slice through the distance between us. I swear the room goes still.
And for a moment, I can’t breathe.
“Aly, baby . . .” My voice drops to a whisper. “This is going to take time, and you can’t take more time off. Even if I wanted you with me—which I do—it’s impossible. If you want, you can come for a day, but Seattle’s calling your name.”
She exhales, a sound caught between resignation and defiance, as if she’s saying, I hate it, but you’re right.
“How long will you be gone?” she asks.
I shrug, though it feels like an apology. “Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe I can swing home for a night. Maybe just a few hours.” I lean in, brush my lips against her nose. “Just long enough to see your beautiful face.”
Her eyes lift, unsure. “What if I visit you on—” She can’t finish the sentence.
“Spring’s your busiest season,” I remind her gently.
“And Jules said your summer is busy too.” I kiss her eyelids, then her cheeks, one after the other, trying to memorize her warmth before I lose it.
“I’d love to have you next to me. But I can’t ask you to give up your world to fix the fucking mess that’s mine. ”
Her lips part like she wants to argue, but the silence between us says what neither of us can. She stays there, close enough that I can feel the heat of her skin and the ache that comes with knowing I’m about to let her go—because I love her too much to let her stay.