53. Stefan
STEFAN
Stefan killed the engine but didn’t move. The podcast hosts’ voices still rattled through his speakers—some true-crime duo dissecting Erika’s trauma as entertainment—and he jabbed the power button before he could hear whatever came next.
The silence was worse. He sat with his knuckles white on the steering wheel and made himself stay in it.
The hard drive on the passenger seat caught the light, a black rectangle that held enough ruin to bring down an empire. Or enough to bury him trying.
Fifty-six days since the island. Fifty-six nights waking in the dark, arm stretched across empty sheets. The smell of clean cotton warmed by the sun. Her voice when she whispered, “You came.”
And her face the last time he saw her. Closed against him. Her hand shoving his chest, not hard, but final. A push that said this is where we end.
“Don’t touch me.”
Three words. They played on a loop in his skull. Every night he whispered the same prayer into the dark: Perdóname, Princesa . . . Perdóname.
Two months of watching the studio cover for him, watching Erika’s name dragged through comment sections while she went silent, waiting for someone with more courage than he had, someone who wasn't afraid of what speaking up would cost them.
Nobody had stepped up for Stasia eight years ago—nineteen years old, swallowed by the same machine. He’d heard the rumors then, too. Watched her disappear into an NDA. Told himself it wasn’t his fight. Told himself someone else would handle it. Mentiras. Lies he’d whispered to help himself sleep.
Now Erika’s face was there every time he closed his eyes. The same hollow look Stasia had worn.
He’d been a coward long enough. He grabbed the hard drive and stepped into the downtown glare.
The conference room smelled like recycled air. Stefan crossed to the windows. Below, the city moved. He stood there until Sarah spoke.
“You have time to walk away.”
He turned. His agent stood at the long table. He set the hard drive down between them.
Walk away. He could. Pack a bag, fly to Cudillero, let someone else be the hero. Let Erika hate him from a distance instead of up close.
“The studio’s lawyers called,” Sarah said. “They’ll sue for libel the second you go public. Brand you an obsessed ex. Dredge up every rumor, every headline.” She stepped closer. “Stefan, they will tear you down.”
“I’m not walking away.”
Sarah’s eyes widened. He pressed both palms to the table—felt the wood grain beneath his fingers, solid and real and unforgiving.
“Let them sue. Let them burn me down. Let them turn me into a cautionary tale they tell at industry mixers.” His voice dropped to gravel. “I’m done waiting for someone else to do the right thing. Ya basta. Enough.”
Silence. Sarah’s fingers stopped drumming. She looked at him the way she had ten years ago.
“You know what this will cost me.” Not soft. Just factual. “Verramago. The Meridian deal. Half my client list has Zenith money in their next picture. I’ve known about Martin’s patterns since Midnight Run. I kept placing clients anyway.”
“I know.”
She held his gaze another beat. Then her calculations stopped.
“Okay.” She straightened. “Then let’s burn it all down.”
The door opened. Two women—the first compact, cropped hair and black-rimmed glasses; the second taller, auburn ponytail, looking like she’d heard every version of every lie this industry had to offer. They sat down like they’d already decided how this would go.
The compact one offered her hand first, grip firm. “Mr. Cruz. I’m Kodi Jolal.”
The taller one didn't sit so much as claim the chair, making brief eye contact, already pulling out a notebook. “Teagan Truly. Thank you for meeting us.”
Kodi set a recorder on the table. The red light blinked.
“We’ve covered Hollywood scandals for twenty years,” Teagan said. “Nine times out of ten, men who show up wanting to ‘help’ are managing their own PR.”
“That’s not why I’m—”
“You were on that set for six weeks.” Teagan didn’t blink. “You knew Martin Blackwell’s history—the rumors, the settlements, Stasia. And when he started circling Erika, you did what? Warned her? Reported him? Or did you take her to dinner and hope someone else would handle it?”
The dinner. Mierda. One night he’d let himself pretend wanting to protect her was the same as actually doing it.
Pendejo. He’d sat across from her, while Martin was planning how to destroy her. While the trap was being set.
The contracts, the NDAs, all of it—he could explain all of it. But excuses were another kind of cowardice. They wouldn’t undo what Martin did while Stefan was playing house.
Cobarde. The word fit.
Kodi leaned forward. “So tell us why you’re here, Mr. Cruz. Because you’re not the savior of this story. You’re part of the machine that made it possible.”
Stefan moved to the window. Pressed his palm against the glass. Sí. Todo. Yes. All of it. He turned back.
“I knew Martin’s name long before this. Heard the rumors at every gala, every wrap party, whispers that disappeared before they could stick to anyone’s conscience.
Todo el mundo sabía. Everyone knew. And everyone did nothing.
So did I.” He laughed bitterly. “That’s how this industry works.
You hear things, you look away, you keep cashing checks. Complicity is the price of admission.”
“She came into my life. And I watched him circle her—the compliments that were calculations, the isolation that looked like attention. Watched him take her apart, one scene at a time.” His voice hardened.
“I should have gone to the studio. Called a lawyer. Filed a report. Instead, I took her to dinner. Told myself I was protecting her. Qué chiste. What a fucking joke.”
Y la decepcioné. Let Martin walk right up to her while I did nothing that counted.
“When everything fell apart, I walked away. Left her on that island. Told myself I’d come back, I’d fix it, I’d find a way.
” He met Teagan’s eyes. “But you don’t get credit for promises you break.
So no. I’m not the hero. I’m the man who could have stopped this and didn’t.
Who watched the fire start and walked away before it burned. ”
Kodi’s recorder blinked red.
Teagan’s pen came down. “Prove it.”
Stefan tapped the hard drive.
“Everything Isabelle Vance has been gathering for eight years. It’s all on here.”
Kodi picked it up, turning it over in her palm. Her professional distance dropped.
“Zenith’s head of crisis management, stockpiling dirt on one of their top directors. Why would she risk that?”
“Because she helped bury Stasia and it’s been eating her alive.
” Stefan braced his hands on the back of his chair.
“Patricia Voss—Zenith’s HR director—closed every complaint, shredded every report, and paid off every woman who tried to speak.
El sistema perfecto. And Isabelle watched it happen, hated herself for it, and started building this file in secret—waiting for someone stupid enough or angry enough to light the match. ”
“And that’s you?”
“That’s me.”
Kodi opened her laptop.
“Start with the HR files.” He pointed over Kodi’s shoulder, his voice tight. “A decade of complaints, all stamped with the same phrase: ‘insufficient evidence to proceed.’ Every single one signed by Voss. In this town, that’s just code for ‘we don’t want to know.’”
“Then the emails. Warnings, legal replies. They knew exactly who Martin was and chose to protect the investment instead of the actresses.”
Teagan’s pen flew across the page. “They knew.”
She studied him for a long moment. He didn’t wait for the question he could see forming.
“Claro que sí. I know how it sounds. But if I only cared about my reputation, why would I hand the Courier every file that could destroy me?”
He pulled up his phone. “But this is what matters.”
Grainy footage filled the screen—Lena, luring Erika across the empty set toward the abandoned bar, the door closing behind her, and Martin waiting in the shadows.
“Premeditation. In high definition. Un monstruo, and everyone looked the other way, including me.”
Kodi sat back. Her distance had dropped. “Fifteen years in investigative journalism. I’ve never seen institutional complicity this blatant.”
“Welcome to Hollywood, where the monsters get paid leave and the victims get NDAs.”
Teagan snapped her notebook shut.
“It’s not enough.”
Stefan stopped pacing. Por supuesto que no.
“We need someone on the record. Without a victim willing to speak publicly, Zenith’s lawyers will tear this apart—the HR files become due diligence, the settlements become risk management, and the machine keeps grinding.”
He knew how that story ended. He’d watched that story end before.
He braced his hands on the back of his chair. Somewhere out there Erika was at her sister’s house, curtains drawn, phone unanswered, trying to exist after a system he'd spent years quietly benefiting from nearly got her killed.
Creo que podría confiar en ti. She’d whispered it on the yacht.
Porque la destruiste.
Sarah’s voice came quietly behind him. “She’s going to therapy. But she won’t talk to anyone else. She hasn’t answered a single call.”
Stefan didn’t turn around.
“What about Stasia?” he asked. “Is she ready?”
Kodi shook her head. “Four-million-dollar NDA. Her lawyer’s good—Solokov, the one who gutted Meridian Studios last year—but even he can’t outspend Zenith indefinitely.”
Stefan laughed—because of course.
“We run the story anyway.” Teagan leaned forward. “These documents will spark outrage—careers will end, heads will roll. But if you want Martin in handcuffs, criminal charges rather than just headlines, you need a survivor on the record and testifying to law enforcement.”
He could call Erika—beg her to speak, tell her the world needed her voice.
?Y qué derecho tienes tú de pedírselo?
She’d trusted him once, and he’d repaid her by disappearing when she needed him most—not because he had to, but because it was easier than staying and harder than leaving.
“I can’t ask her.” His voice came out rough. No tengo ese derecho.
“Then we adapt—dig into the institutional angle, Zenith’s cover-up, their pattern of protection. Three weeks to verify, cross-reference, give Zenith a chance to respond. Then we go to print.”
“And after that?”
“The world burns. Stock crashes, shareholders sue, executives get hauled into court. Martin Blackwell becomes radioactive—and in this town, losing power is the only death that counts.”
“He might not go to jail.”
“International prosecution is brutal—expensive, slow, and without a survivor testifying, prosecutors will settle for probation and fines. It won’t be justice.” Teagan’s voice didn’t soften around the word. “But sometimes a destroyed career is all we get.”
Stefan laughed. “That’s the pitch? ‘Sorry we couldn’t put the predator in prison, but hey, he lost his IMDb page’?” He shook his head. “Meanwhile Erika's out there somewhere, and I don't even know if she's okay, and there's nothing I can do about that.”
Teagan didn't write that down. She just looked at him for a second too long—recognition, not sympathy.
Kodi slid the hard drive into her satchel. “We’ll make his name impossible to ignore—every newsroom, every blog, no one gets to pretend they didn’t know.”
“Good.”
Teagan rose. “Mr. Cruz, when this story breaks, you’ll be in it. Not as the savior. As the witness who stayed silent. We’ll note your cooperation, but we won’t erase your complicity. That’s part of the truth.”
He’d known this was coming, had known it since the moment he picked up the drive and walked in here.
Me lo merezco.
Teagan studied him, waiting for him to say something else. He didn't.
“You’re about to make enemies who can end your career with a phone call. Are you ready for that?”
He thought of Erika—her voice the last time she’d spoken to him, the words she’d chosen, the way she’d meant them.
Don’t touch me.
He thought of Stasia. Of the sixteen names in those files.
“I've been ready since the night I found her on that floor.”