18. Hugo
— ? —
Hugo
Los Angeles greets us with smog and traffic and the weight of everything we left behind.
The drive back feels different from the drive up, more loaded somehow, despite the lightness in my chest. The vineyard was a cocoon, safe and separate from reality. Now reality is rushing toward us at seventy miles an hour, and there’s no avoiding what waits at the end of the highway.
Lucille’s phone has been off since we left, but mine hasn’t. I check it at a gas station while she uses the restroom, and the notifications make my stomach drop.
Ginny’s interview has spawned think pieces and hot takes and a cottage industry of opinion.
The spliced wine clip has been viewed millions of times.
There are compilation videos now, every photo of Lucille looking stern or tired reframed as evidence of instability, every paparazzi shot analyzed for signs of “unhinged behavior.”
The narrative has calcified into a lie both solid and ugly: Hugo Kensington’s jealous wife attacked an innocent woman, and now she’s hiding while the truth comes out.
I turn off my phone and don’t mention any of it to Lucille.
She’ll find out soon enough. We both will. But for now, in the car, with her hand in mine and the memory of the vineyard still warm between us, I want to protect this moment a little longer.
We’re an hour outside the city when my phone rings with a call I can’t ignore.
“It’s my mother,” I say, glancing at the screen. “I should take this.”
Lucille nods, and I answer.
“Hugo.” Florence’s voice is clipped, urgent. “Where are you?”
“About an hour out. We’re driving back from the vineyard.”
“Good. Come straight to my house. Don’t go home, don’t stop anywhere public. I have proof you need to see.”
“What is it?”
“Not over the phone.” A pause. “It’s about the leak, Hugo. We found the source.”
My grip tightens on the steering wheel.
“We’ll be there in an hour.”
***
Florence’s house is a sprawling estate in Bel Air, all manicured gardens and Mediterranean architecture. She’s waiting at the door when we pull up, her face drawn with an expression I’ve rarely seen from her, a look between fury and vindication.
“Inside,” she says, ushering us through the foyer. “Both of you. This concerns Lucille too.”
We follow her to her study, where a man I don’t recognize is seated in one of the leather armchairs. He’s middle-aged, unremarkable, the kind of person you’d pass on the street without a second glance.
“This is Warren Finch,” Florence says. “He’s the investigator I mentioned.”
I shake his hand. “What did you find?”
He pulls a folder from his briefcase and sets it on the desk.
“The leak originated from a backup server at the Nashville Conservatory,” he begins, his voice clinical and precise.
“The song file was accessed eighteen months ago using credentials that traced back to an alumni account. The account belonged to a former student who graduated the same year as you, Mr. Kensington.”
“Who?”
“Virginia Davies.”
“Ginny.” I’m not surprised. We suspected her from the beginning. “So she leaked it herself?”
“Not exactly.” Finch opens the folder and spreads several documents across the desk.
“Ms. Davies accessed the file, but she didn’t have the means to distribute it effectively.
For that, she needed help from someone with industry connections.
Someone who could ensure the leak went viral at exactly the right moment. ”
My stomach drops. “Who?”
He slides a photograph across the desk.
It’s Derek.
My manager. The man who’s handled my career for eight years. The man who sat in my living room and told me about the leak with convincing surprise, who helped negotiate the label’s demands, who stood beside me through every step of this nightmare.
“No,” I say. “That’s not possible.”
“I’m afraid it is.” He taps the documents.
“Financial records show a payment of fifty thousand dollars from an LLC connected to Ms. Davies’ management team to an account controlled by Derek.
The payment was made three weeks before the song leaked.
There’s also email correspondence, heavily encrypted, but we were able to recover fragments, discussing timing and distribution strategy. ”
I stare at the photograph of Derek, trying to reconcile the man I’ve trusted for nearly a decade with the betrayal laid out in front of me.
“He sold me out,” I say slowly. “My own manager sold me out.”
“He sold both of you out,” Florence corrects, her voice hard. “He didn’t just leak the song. He helped orchestrate the entire campaign against Lucille. The interview scheduling, the viral clips, the narrative management, all of it.”
Lucille has been silent, standing beside me with her arms crossed. Now she speaks.
“Why?”
He shuffles through his papers. “From what we can piece together, Derek was facing significant financial pressure. Gambling debts, mostly. Ms. Davies’ team approached him with an offer he couldn’t refuse, enough money to clear his debts in exchange for his cooperation.”
“And he took it.” My voice sounds strange to my own ears. “He took money to destroy my marriage.”
“He took money to advance Ms. Davies’ career,” he corrects. “Your marriage was collateral damage. I don’t think he particularly cared either way.”
The room is very quiet.
I think about all the times Derek pushed me toward the collaboration. All the times he insisted the label was forcing my hand, that I had no choice, that this was just business. All the times he stood in my living room and watched my wife suffer and said nothing.
He wasn’t just following orders. He was giving them.
“I’m going to destroy him,” I say quietly.
“Hugo…” Lucille starts.
“Not metaphorically. Literally. I’m going to make sure he never works in this industry again. I’m going to make sure everyone knows what he did and why.”
“That’s your choice to make,” Florence says. “But I’d suggest you consider how you want to do it. There are ways to handle this that don’t involve…”
“I don’t want to handle it. I want to end it.” I turn to Lucille. “Unless you’d rather…”
“No.” Her voice is firm. “I want to end it too. But I want to do it together.”
A knot in my chest loosens.
“Together?”
“You’ve been wanting to fight for me for months. I kept telling you I didn’t need rescuing.” She meets my eyes. “I still don’t need rescuing. But I’m ready to let you stand beside me. I’m ready to do this as partners.”
I pull her into my arms.
“Partners,” I agree against her hair. “Whatever you want, however you want to do it. I’m with you.”
“Good.” She pulls back, and there’s steel in her expression now. “Then let’s burn them both to the ground.”
***
Derek arrives at my house two hours later, summoned by a text that said only We need to talk. Urgent.
He walks into my living room with his usual confident stride, already talking before he’s fully through the door.
“Hugo, I’ve been trying to reach you for days. Where have you been? The Ginny situation is completely out of control, we need to strategize about…”
He stops when he sees Lucille sitting on the couch.
“Mrs. Kensington.” His voice doesn’t falter, but I see a flash of unease in his eyes. “I didn’t realize you’d be here.”
“I live here,” Lucille says mildly. “Or I did. I’m still deciding.”
“Of course. I just meant…” He shakes his head. “Never mind. Hugo, we really need to discuss…”
“Sit down, Derek.”
The edge in my tone makes him pause. He looks at me, really looks, and whatever he sees makes the color drain from his face.
He sits.
“I know,” I say.
“Know what?”
“Everything. The leak. The money. The emails.” I watch his expression cycle through surprise, denial, and finally a kind of resigned calculation. “I know you took fifty thousand dollars from Ginny’s team to betray me.”
Derek is quiet for a long moment.
“It wasn’t personal,” he says finally.
“It wasn’t personal.” I laugh, and the sound is ugly. “You sold out my career. You helped orchestrate a smear campaign against my wife. You stood in this room and pretended to be on my side while you were actively working to destroy my marriage. And it wasn’t personal?”
“It was business.” His voice is steady, but I can see the sweat beading at his temples. “The reunion narrative was going to happen with or without me. Ginny’s team was determined. I just… facilitated.”
“You facilitated the destruction of my life.”
“I facilitated an opportunity that benefited everyone. The song was going to make money. The collaboration was going to make money. Your career was going to benefit from the exposure…”
“My wife was accused of assault.” I’m on my feet now, moving toward him. “She was painted as a jealous, unstable woman. She had to hide from paparazzi. Her showcase, the biggest night of her professional life, was overshadowed by a hit piece you helped orchestrate.”
“That wasn’t my…”
“Don’t.” I stop a foot away from his chair, looking down at him.
“Don’t you dare try to minimize this. You had a choice.
You could have come to me when Ginny’s team approached you.
You could have warned me. You could have done literally anything except take their money and help them tear my family apart. ”
Derek’s composure finally cracks.
“I was drowning, Hugo. The gambling, I owed people, dangerous people. Ginny’s team came to me with a lifeline. What was I supposed to do?”
“Anything else. Literally anything else.”
The room falls silent.
I think about all the years I trusted this man. All the contracts he negotiated, all the deals he made on my behalf, all the times I handed over control of my career because I thought he had my best interests at heart.
I was wrong. I was so wrong.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I say, my voice cold and steady. “You have two choices. Option one: you come clean publicly. You release a statement admitting what you did, you cooperate with whatever investigation follows, and you take full responsibility for your part in this.”
“And option two?”