15. The Mentors Ghost
The Mentor's Ghost
SLOANE
The studio lights have a way of making everything feel like a secret.
At two in the morning, the vibrant, high-tech sheen of NovaWave Media dissolves into something skeletal and strange.
The only thing left in the room is the low hum of the server racks and the faint, citrusy scent of the cleaning solution they use on the consoles once the 'talent' has gone home.
I should be at home, too, but my brain is a browser with sixty tabs open, and every single one of them is playing that anonymous WAV file Rhea sent me on a loop.
I’m sitting on the floor of Studio B, my back against the soundproof foam.
It’s supposed to absorb noise, but right now, it feels like it’s absorbing my life.
I have my knees pulled to my chest, a posture that feels entirely too small for a woman who built an empire on being the loudest voice in the room.
Then the heavy, pressurized door gives that familiar hiss of yielding air.
Cooper is standing there, silhouetted against the dim hallway light.
He isn't wearing his usual 'ready-for-television' grin. He looks rumpled, his charcoal henley slightly wrinkled at the elbows, his hair a mess of golden-brown waves that suggest he’s been running his hands through it for hours.
He doesn't say anything at first. He just slides down the wall next to me, leaving exactly four inches of space between our shoulders.
"I figured you'd be here," he says, his voice low and raspy, lacking its usual performative brightness. "You have that look when you leave the office. Like you're going to go find a corner and think yourself into a fever."
"I’m not thinking," I lie, staring at the glowing red power light on a nearby preamp. "I’m auditing. There's a difference."
"Right. Auditing the silence." He shifts, and I can feel the heat radiating from him. He smells like cedarwood and the peppermint gum he always chews before a recording. "Sloane, talk to me. You’ve been a ghost since that meeting with Rhea. Is it the audio file?"
I let out a breath that feels like it’s been trapped in my ribs for years, sharp and cold.
My hands are shaking—a fine, vibrating tremor—so I tuck them under my arms to hide the evidence.
The wall behind me is cold, a stark contrast to the man sitting beside me.
I don't look at him when I speak, because if I look at him, I’ll see the pity, and pity is the one thing I can't survive.
"Everyone thinks they know why I’m like this," I say, my voice sounding thin and brittle in the acoustic treatment.
"They think I’m just a cynic because it sells.
They think 'No-Bull Sloane' is a brand I put on like a blazer.
But the truth is, I learned how to build walls from a master architect.
I had a mentor, Cooper. Back when I was a twenty-two-year-old intern who thought the truth was a holy thing. "
Cooper doesn't interrupt. He doesn't offer a platitude or a 'I'm sorry.' He just listens, his body perfectly still, his attention so focused on me that it feels like he’s leaning in without moving a muscle.
"His name was Marcus," I continue, the name tasting like copper and old ash.
"He was the king of public radio back then. He taught me how to edit, how to find the narrative thread in a mess of tape. One night, after a particularly brutal session, I broke down. I told him things I’d never told anyone—about my parents, about the fear that I was just a collection of other people's expectations.
I was crying, really crying, and he just... he kept the mic hot."
I can hear Cooper’s breathing hitch, a sharp, jagged intake of air that slices through the acoustic foam silence. I don't stop. I can't stop now that the seal is broken.
"He didn't just keep it hot. He edited it.
He took my words, my actual, raw vulnerability, and he spliced them into a segment about 'the fragility of the modern millennial.
' He turned my trauma into a viral 'moment' to save his failing afternoon slot.
I woke up the next morning and I was a punchline.
I was the girl who cried on air because she didn't know who she was.
He called it 'artistic license.' I called it an execution. "
The silence that follows isn't peaceful. It’s heavy, vibrating with an energy I don't recognize.
I finally turn my head, expecting to see that uncomfortable, shifting gaze people give you when you've shared too much.
Instead, I find Cooper staring at the opposite wall, his jaw set so tight I can see a muscle jumping in his cheek.
His hands are fisted in his lap, his knuckles white.
"He did what?" Cooper’s voice isn't warm anymore. It’s a low, dangerous growl that makes the hair on my arms stand up. "He recorded you without your knowledge? He used your own voice against you?"
"It was years ago, Cooper. It’s why I don't trust the 'exchange.' It’s why I don't trust you when you talk about being real on mic. Because 'real' is just raw material for people like Marcus. And people like Rhea."
Cooper stands up abruptly, his movements jerky and uncoordinated.
He paces the small width of the studio, a caged lion in a charcoal henley.
He looks like he wants to punch the soundproofing right off the walls.
I've spent my whole life with people being mad at me—for being too sharp, too defensive, too much—but I’ve never had someone be this visibly, violently angry for me.
"That is absolute bullshit," he says, spinning around to face me.
His eyes are dark, focused, and terrifyingly sincere.
"That's not journalism. That's not even entertainment.
It's predatory. He took the one thing you gave him—your trust—and he turned it into a weapon.
I want to find him. I want to find him and I want to...
" He stops, closing his eyes and taking a jagged breath. "I’m so sorry, Sloane. I’m so goddamn sorry that happened to you. "
I stay on the floor, looking up at him. The protective fury rolling off him is so physical it’s like a change in the room’s barometric pressure.
It’s disarming. It makes the armor I’ve spent a decade welding into place feel heavy and unnecessary.
For the first time, the studio doesn't feel like a bunker. It just feels like a room.
"Why are you so mad?" I ask, my voice barely a whisper. "It’s not your reputation. It’s not your past."
Cooper stops pacing and looks down at me.
He walks back over, but he doesn't sit. He reaches out a hand, hesitates, and then lets it drop.
"Because you're the bravest person I know, Sloane.
And the idea that someone used that courage to hurt you makes me want to burn this whole building down.
You deserve to be heard, not handled. And I'm going to make sure Rhea Saye never gets the chance to do to you what that coward did. "
He sits back down, closer this time. Our shoulders touch, and I don't pull away. I let my head rest against the foam, and for a second, the silence is actually quiet. The shadow of Marcus, the ghost that has lived in every studio I’ve ever entered, feels a little less substantial.
Cooper reaches over and, with an almost painful gentleness, covers my hand with his. His palm is warm, solid, and real.
"I'm not him, Sloane," he murmurs, his thumb tracing a slow, rhythmic circle over my knuckles. "I'm not the network. I'm just a guy who really likes your podcast. And your son. And the way you look when you're about to prove someone wrong."
I look down at our joined hands. The denial loop in my head is trying to start up—telling me this is just high-stress bonding, that he's a 'fixer' and I'm his latest project—but it fails. It stalls out because the heat of his hand feels like an anchor, and for the first time in ten years, I’m not sure I want to swim away from it.
I don't say thank you. I don't know how to say it without breaking.
Instead, I just turn my hand over and lock my fingers with his.
"Don't make me regret this, Ellis," I say, my voice thick. "I'm out of practice with the whole 'trust' thing."
"Then we'll go slow," he says, squeezing my hand. "I'm a distance runner, remember? I've got plenty of endurance."
We sit there in the dark of Studio B, two people caught in the gears of a corporate machine, holding onto each other like a promise.
The red light of the preamp continues to glow, a small, steady heartbeat in the gloom.
I don't know what Friday’s 'drop' will bring, and I don't know how I’m going to handle Graham and Rhea, but as Cooper’s thumb continues its slow path across my skin, the fear doesn't feel like a drowning thing.
It just feels like data. And for once, I don't have to audit it alone.