Chapter 12: The List Has Teeth
The third name was Cesar Valmoria—a former cinematographer turned studio fixer.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1zDMcl1Ha5
He was the kind of man who made problems disappear.
Girls who cried rape? Transferred.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNaDgJ0bquR
Crew members who spoke out? Fired quietly.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1pihCQdq49
He filmed everything.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQE4SJuOeVH
Even the things the cameras weren’t supposed to catch.
And Mia had once begged him to erase footage.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxU1RwNIgcT
She never forgot the way he smiled.
“What will you give me to forget?” he had asked.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6D0BpdQPdc
She gave him silence—and paid for it in nightmares.
Now it was Cesar’s turn to be the one on camera.
Clark watched her prepare.
They weren’t lovers.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXjrnhxJCuV
Not in the traditional sense.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡI3L8VpUjUE
They hadn’t kissed.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOVtLGlgrig
But their secrets had slept beside each other long enough to know desire wasn't always sexual—it was strategic.
Mia handed him a burner phone.
"Record what I say. And if I go silent more than 24 hours, send it to three people on this list."
Clark looked at the names.
Producers. One journalist. A nun.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
Mia slipped on a leather jacket. Black. Clean.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnptHgIelkl
The kind you wear to a funeral.
“Confession.”
She met Cesar at a private lounge—dim lights, velvet booths, an atmosphere of sin dressed as exclusivity.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjLw0x7EyQm
He hadn’t changed.
Still with the wine.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLaJLxIWw9h
Still with the rings.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrvicaR9vA3
Still with that voice that oozed control.
“Mia. My favorite illusion,” he greeted.
She smiled, but her eyes didn’t.
“Still pretending to be relevant, Cesar?”
He laughed.
“I hear things. Like how the men around you are crumbling. Did you come to finish me too?”
“I came to give you a chance.”
He raised a brow.
“To confess.”
Cesar’s face darkened.
And that’s when Mia slid the phone between them—recording.
“I have backup copies,” she said before he could speak.
She laid out evidence: clips he thought were deleted, names of girls he threatened, even bank transfers linked to hush money.8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjwaRfpVCSn
Everything he thought he buried, she’d exhumed.
“You’re bluffing,” he growled.
Mia’s smile sharpened.
“Then sue me.”
He didn’t.
Instead, Cesar leaned back, a man unraveling in a tailored suit.
“What do you want?”
“Your confession. On video. A statement that you covered up abuse, that you threatened victims. One minute. I’ll let you live.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I release it all and let the media do what karma couldn’t.”
That night, Clark received a video file.
Cesar, on camera. Sweating. Broken.
“I was part of it. I knew what happened to those girls. I made them disappear. I took money to stay silent.”
It ended with him in tears.
Mia sent the clip to three people. Not for blackmail. For safekeeping.
Then she deleted her copy.
No trace.
Only consequence.
At the studio, the silence became screaming.
Two more names disappeared. One left the country. Another checked into rehab.
Mia walked through the set like a storm that already passed—but the wreckage lingered.
Clark caught up with her near the makeup trailer.
“Do you feel better?” he asked.
“No,” she admitted. “But I feel closer.”
“To what?”
Mia looked up at the sky. No stars. Just haze.
“To whoever I was before this all happened.”
Clark nodded, lips tight.
He didn’t say she was becoming someone else.
He didn’t say she might not survive this.
But he reached out—and held her hand for the first time.
Not as protector.
Not as witness.
But as someone willing to be destroyed beside her.
Mia didn’t pull away.
She just whispered, “Two more to go.”
And somewhere in the shadows of that godless industry,8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRPAWZGPIq6
someone watching her whispered back,
ns216.73.216.12da2“Let her try.”
