Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Dexter
The city stings.
Sunlight scrapes across the tarmac like it’s trying to blind me.
The air smells like asphalt and expectation, thick with the noise of a place that never learned how to whisper.
After the hush of San Cristóbal—where the day moved like warm waves and even the arguments felt like they came with a warning—this place feels jagged. Unapologetic.
The colors are wrong, too saturated. Palm trees line the perimeter like they’re guarding something sacred—or hiding it.
And I already want to leave.
We land at a tucked-away airstrip in Van Nuys—not quite private, but quiet enough for people who can afford to keep their names out of Page Six.
The kind of place where actors past their prime and studio heads on their third divorce touch down without anyone blinking.
Where secrets hit the ground before the tabloids catch wind.
And still—Eddie’s already there, phone to his ear, pacing like something’s on fire.
He waits at the bottom of the stairs like a storm cloud in a suit, phone glued to one ear, another clutched in his hand like he might throw it or eat it.
His tie is slung around his neck in a half-assed knot.
Jaw grinding. Eyes glassy. He probably hasn’t slept, and he’s vibrating with too much caffeine and not enough hope.
The second my boots hit the tarmac, he mutters, “Don’t say anything. Not a single word. Cameras are at every gate. We’re going through the back.”
No ‘good morning.’ No ‘welcome home.’ Not even a nod to the fact that I’ve just crash-landed into a scandal I didn’t start.
I slide into the SUV. The door slams shut, and the city starts bleeding past the window in smudges of movement—billboards for movies I didn’t audition for, palm trees too thin to offer shade, the downtown skyline flickering through smog like a mirage.
I haven’t eaten. I’m pumped with just coffee, adrenaline, and regret.
And her.
Aly.
I still taste her on my tongue—salt, heat, want. That last kiss shouldn’t have felt like goodbye, but it did. It fucking did. A silent surrender pressed into lips, into breath, into everything I didn’t say.
She whispered Promise, and I said nothing. I didn’t deserve her voice in that moment, let alone the promise she was asking for.
Eddie’s voice cuts through me like a slap. “The press is running with it. VH1’s trailer dropped last night—three A.M. slot. Prime for gossip shows. They’ve got leaked audio. Your dad is talking about a payoff.”
My stomach flips.
I close my eyes. “Audio?”
“Edited to hell, but yeah. And there’s new footage. You walking into the hotel lobby. Looks like the night it happened.”
“It’s not,” I snap, already clenching my fists.
“I know. But the timeline’s close enough for them to twist it. The guy looks too close to you in a grainy video. No one cares about fucking facts. They care about how scandal sounds over morning coffee.”
I drag my hand down my face, try to breathe through the heat crawling up my neck.
He continues, relentless. “We’re meeting with the lawyers in an hour. They want your statement ready before noon. You’ll need to sign off.”
The SUV winds through studio gates—our so-called safe house. The irony burns. It’s never safe here. Just controlled. Contained.
Across the street, a line of paparazzi has already formed. Their voices claw through the windows like sandpaper on skin.
“Dexter! Over here! Dexter Vaughn! Is it true? Did you know?!”
Even though they can’t see my face, they scream like they can peel away the tint and read every secret I’ve ever held.
The flashbulbs don’t even have to catch me. Their residue lingers behind my eyelids like punishment.
Inside the lot, everything reeks of burnout—old coffee, recycled air, panic. A PR team paces like they’re preparing for war. Conference tables are littered with headlines, stills from grainy footage, articles printed out and highlighted like evidence in a courtroom.
The Vaughn Files: New Evidence Emerges.
Was the Son Involved?
Who Really Killed Her?
I see my name once and stop reading. I already know what the rest say. They don’t care about the truth. Just proximity. Just blood.
Eddie slides a folder across the table. “They want you to do a sit-down with Mercury Edge magazine. Controlled questions. Exclusive. They’ll frame it as redemption.”
“Redemption for what?” My voice cracks, low and raw. “For being born to him?”
He doesn’t answer. Just scrubs his hand down his face like he can erase the last two decades and start over. Like any of us can.
A woman in a pinstriped suit clicks into the room, smelling like Chanel No. 5 and lawsuits. She’s efficient, clinical. Eyes void of empathy. She opens her briefcase and begins listing talking points like a grocery list.
I nod when I’m supposed to, but my body is still on that plane, my mind somewhere else entirely.
Back in San Cristóbal.
Back in that kitchen, her laugh catching in the air like music. Bare feet on terracotta tiles. Her fingers brushing flour from my jaw as if we had all the time in the world.
I can still feel her saying it.
“I’m not leaving you.”
But I already left her.
I said a lot more than just a goodbye just not with words.
I let the fear, the scandal drag me back into this circus of absolution I never asked for. And she—she stayed. Brave. Soft. Still believing in something we couldn’t name.
The lawyer snaps her fingers to bring me back. “Dexter? Are you listening?”
No.
I blink.
“Yes.”
She pushes a document toward me. “The phrasing here is crucial. We’re not admitting guilt, but we’re not denying knowledge. It’s a fine balance.”
I stare at the paper. The black-and-white print swims in front of me. It might as well be in another language.
“I can’t do this right now,” I mutter.
“You don’t have a choice,” she replies flatly.
“I’m not fucking ready,” I snap, louder now. Everyone freezes.
Eddie looks up. PR agents exchange glances. No one says anything.
And in the silence, something fractures in me.
This isn’t just press. This isn’t just headlines and talking points and spin. This is my life. My blood. My fucking father. And a woman I can’t stop wanting, even though I shouldn’t have let myself touch her at all.
I push back from the table and walk out.
No one follows.
The hallway is too bright, too sterile. A janitor’s cart squeaks somewhere down the corridor, wheels whining like a broken lullaby. I lean against the wall, palms to my face.
I miss her.
I miss the silence between us in bed, where everything felt honest. I miss the way she looked at me—like I wasn’t a Vaughn, or a headline, or a ticking time bomb—but a man worth saving.
I let that go.
I didn’t fight for it.
I don’t call her.
I can’t.
Instead, I pull the photo from my wallet. A polaroid I had in San Cristóbal with old film that barely worked.
Aly’s standing on the balcony at sunrise, mug in hand, hair twisted up like she didn’t care what the world thought of her. The light behind her softens everything—her eyes, her spine, her resolve. It’s blurry in places, imperfect.
Just like us.
She looked like freedom. Like a pause in a song.
And I left.
The elevator dings behind me. I don’t turn.
“You need to pull it together,” Eddie says, voice low but firm.
I laugh. It scrapes out of me, bitter and used-up. “Is that your professional advice?”
He barely blinks. “It’s personal.”
“You think any of this can be pulled together?”
He doesn’t answer, but the silence speaks louder than any PR line he could throw at me.
My throat tightens. “I kissed her like it meant something,” I whisper. “Then I left like it didn’t.”
He exhales through his nose. There’s no pity in his eyes. Just exhaustion. “So go back.”
I turn to face him, slowly. “What?”
Eddie shrugs, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “After this shitstorm dies down. Go back. Find her. Say the things you should’ve said before you walked out.”
My jaw locks. I press my palm to the wall behind me, needing the contact to stay upright. “It won’t blow over.”
He doesn’t argue.
“I’m not the guy who gets a clean slate,” I mutter. “I don’t get new chapters—I get headlines. I get whispers in dressing rooms and producers calling me a risk. I get shoved into a fucking rehab center in Oregon with no windows because it’s easier than facing the people I’ve disappointed.”
I drag my hand down my face.
“I usually just . . . vanish. Hide somewhere no one’s looking, burn whatever’s left of my life down to the screws, and pretend it doesn’t hurt.
I tell myself if I stay gone long enough, maybe I’ll forget I’m Dexter fucking Vaughn—the son of Victor Vaughn, the musical legend who fucked up more than he loved. ”
Eddie’s voice is quieter now. “Everything fades, Dex. You just don’t stick around long enough to notice. You check out. Numb it all. Drown in it until it stops mattering.”
And he’s right.
That’s always been my cycle. Crash. Disappear. Come back half-alive, acting like I’m fine. Like the broken pieces didn’t cut me on the way out.
I press my thumb into the inside of my wrist, like I’m trying to hold myself in place. Trying to stop the drift.
And still . . . the way it felt with her . . .
It haunts me.
Maybe if I get through this press circus. Maybe if I play the game, read the statements, let the lawyers pick apart the past until there’s nothing left of me but something palatable. Maybe if I torch enough of the legacy he left behind, I’ll have space to build something with her.
Maybe.
Or maybe I’ve already destroyed whatever chance I had.
I don’t know.
But I do know this:
The next time I kiss her—if she still lets me get close—I won’t walk away.
Not this time.
Not without a fucking fight.