Showdown on the Red Carpet
The travel from secure safehouse in the Hollywood Hills to red carpet outside the Dolby Theatre, Hollywood consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The Dolby Theatre loomed against the Hollywood night like a temple of manufactured glory, its marquee lights bleeding across the faces of the thousand-strong crowd pressed behind barricades. Julian stood at the edge of the red carpet, the velvet rope trembling against his hip as a publicist he’d never met tried to wave him toward the press line.
He ignored her.
The earpiece Silas had planted hummed with silence. Julian scanned the throng of tuxedos and designer gowns, his gaze cutting past the flashing cameras to the cluster of studio executives huddled near the entrance. Reid Pemberton stood at their center, silver-haired and smooth as polished marble, his hand resting on Jasper’s shoulder like a blessing.
Jasper caught Julian’s eye.
The smirk that spread across his brother’s face was a blade. He said something to Reid, then detached himself from the circle and walked toward Julian with the easy confidence of a man who had never been told no.
“Didn’t think you’d show,” Jasper said, stopping just out of arm’s reach. A photographer’s strobe caught the sharp planes of his jaw. “Brave. Or stupid. I haven’t decided which.”
Julian didn’t answer. Instead, he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and withdrew a slim voice recorder, its red light already blinking.
The sound from the carpet’s speakers cut out.
The crowd nearest them went quiet first, then the silence rippled outward like a stone dropped into still water. Julian pressed play.
The voice that emerged was thin, reedy with age and regret. Arthur Kline, former general counsel for Pemberton Studios, recorded forty-eight hours ago in a conference room Julian had rented under a shell company. The man had been dying—pancreatic cancer, six weeks to live—and had decided, finally, that he wanted to unburden himself.
*”Mr. Pemberton—Reid—told me to draft the harassment complaints myself. He said we needed leverage against the Harrington woman. The restraining order was his idea. We paid two of the assistants to sign affidavits saying she’d threatened them. None of it was true.”*
Jasper’s face didn’t change. Not visibly. But Julian caught the micro-shift in his pupils, the way they contracted as the recording continued.
*”The car accident? That was Jasper’s project. He hired a man named Dominic Voss through a third party. I processed the payments. Three hundred thousand wired to a Cayman account that traced back to a shell company Jasper controlled.”*
The crowd had gone completely still. Julian saw someone from *Entertainment Tonight* holding her phone up, her mouth hanging open. A security guard reached for his radio.
Julian clicked the recorder off.
“Air it,” he said, loud enough for the nearest cameras to catch. “I’ve already uploaded the full file to every major outlet. My lawyers have copies. The LAPD has copies. And Arthur Kline signed a sworn affidavit this morning, witnessed by his oncologist and a notary public.”
Jasper’s composure cracked. Just a hairline fracture, barely visible—a twitch at the corner of his mouth that Julian would have missed if he hadn’t been watching for it.
“You’re bluffing,” Jasper said.
“Am I?” Julian pocketed the recorder. “Call your father’s lawyer. Ask him if the wire transfer records from the Cayman account have been subpoenaed yet.”
For three full seconds, Jasper didn’t move. Then he turned and walked back toward Reid with a gait that had lost its swagger, his shoulders curling inward like a man expecting a blow.
Julian watched him go. The cameras were still flashing, the reporters shouting questions, but he couldn’t hear any of it over the roaring in his ears.
The trap was set. The evidence was public. And now he had to wait for the counterpunch.
—
It came fourteen minutes later, while Julian was standing in a side hallway giving a statement to a detective from the LAPD’s financial crimes unit. His phone vibrated. Then Selene’s name flashed across the screen.
He stepped away from the detective. “Tell me.”
“They just dropped it,” Selene said, her voice tight. “TMZ, Daily Mail, Page Six—all at the same time. They’re saying Nova was a paid escort before she met you. That she targeted you because of the Ashby name. They’ve got photos, Julian. Old ones. From a party in Malibu five years ago. She’s standing next to a known fixer.”
Julian closed his eyes. “Are they real?”
“The photos? Yeah. The context? They’re lying. I was at that party. Nova was there as my plus-one. But the pixels don’t care about context.”
He could hear Nova in the background of the call—her voice, low and steady, reading something aloud. Then Selene came back on the line.
“She wants to go live. Right now. No prep, no handlers.”
“No,” Julian said. “We need to control the—”
“She’s already pulling up Instagram.”
—
The video started shaky. Nova had propped her phone against a water glass on the safehouse kitchen table, the afternoon light catching the dark circles under her eyes. Behind her, Julian could see the dingy beige walls of the rental Silas had secured—a far cry from the polished interiors of the Ashby estate.
She looked directly into the lens.
“My name is Nova Harrington. I’m twenty-seven years old. I’m a mother. I’m a survivor of childhood cancer, which left me with medical debt that took me six years to pay off. And I’m being called a prostitute on national television because the family of my son’s father wants to destroy me.”
She paused. Her hands were flat on the table, palms down. Steady.
“I worked as a waitress. I worked retail. I cleaned houses. I sold my car to pay for my son’s emergency room visit when he was two. And I have never—not once—exchanged sex for money.”
Her voice cracked on the last word, but she didn’t stop.
“The Pembertons are going to release photos of me at a party I attended with my friend Selene. I’m not ashamed of that party. I was twenty-two. I wore a dress I rented. I drank cheap champagne. And I left alone.”
She leaned closer to the camera.
“Ask yourself why they’re doing this. Ask yourself what they’re so afraid of. A woman with no money, no connections, no power—why would a family like the Pembertons need to destroy me?”
Her eyes welled up, but she didn’t look away.
“Because I have something they want. And they’ll burn me alive to get it.”
The video ended.
Julian watched the view count tick up in real time. Thirty thousand. A hundred thousand. Three hundred thousand. The comments exploded beneath it—ranging from venom to solidarity, the battlefield of public opinion shifting with every refresh.
Silas called sixty seconds later. “We’ve got movement. Two vehicles circling the block. Unmarked, no plates. They’re not cops.”
“Get her out,” Julian said.
“Already moving. We’re going to location three. Selene’s with her. But Julian—they know about the safehouse. Which means they know about Eli.”
Julian’s blood turned to ice. “Where is he?”
“School. Surrounded by my people. They’re not getting within a hundred yards of him. But you need to end this. Tonight.”
—
The after-party was a gilded cage of champagne flutes and hollow laughter. Julian walked through it like a ghost, past the crystal chandeliers and the oil paintings of dead studio founders, until he found Jasper standing alone on a terrace overlooking the city.
Jasper didn’t turn around. “You’ve caused quite a mess.”
“You tried to kill her.”
“I tried to *scare* her. There’s a difference.” Jasper finally turned, and his eyes were flat, empty of everything except cold calculation. “But now you’ve gone and made it personal. Public. That changes the calculus.”
Julian stepped closer. The city lights sprawled below them, indifferent and infinite. “Drop the custody case. Walk away. I won’t pursue criminal charges.”
“You’ll pursue them anyway. You’ve already uploaded the evidence.”
“Arthur Kline has terminal cancer. He might not survive to testify. And the wire transfer records are circumstantial without a witness willing to tie them to you directly.”
Jasper studied him for a long moment. “What are you proposing?”
“Eli stays with Nova. Full custody. You get a non-disparagement agreement that prevents her from speaking publicly about what happened. And I get a signed confession from your father that the harassment campaign was his idea.”
“You want me to throw Reid under the bus.”
“I want you to save yourself.”
Jasper laughed. It was a hollow, ugly sound. “You think this ends with a piece of paper? You think Reid’s going to just let you walk away? He’s been planning this for years. Ever since you left the family. You’re not just a rival to him—you’re a *reproach*. Every time you succeed, it proves that he raised a son who abandoned the empire. He can’t live with that.”
“Then he’ll have to learn.”
Julian turned to leave.
“Go ahead, big brother.” Jasper’s voice sliced through the night air. “But if you bury me, I’ll make sure Nova never sees that kid again.”