Chapter 5
The promotional link sat open on my phone beside the sink, its bright call-to-action button reflected faintly in the black kitchen window. Rain tapped the fire escape outside. Titus stood on the other side of the counter, close enough to help and far enough not to crowd me.
He had been quiet since we discovered the link showed different versions of the story to different viewers. Mine had carried the warning. His had made my fear look irrational.
I filled the kettle, though neither of us had asked for tea.
“She controlled a project I was part of,” I said.
Titus didn't move. “The woman from the warning?”
I nodded and set the kettle on the stove. The burner clicked three times before the flame caught.
“It wasn't just a project by the end. It was the public story around it. She decided what people saw, what they heard, which parts counted.” I kept my eyes on the small blue flame. “If I objected privately, she called me confused. If I objected where someone else could hear, she said I was betraying everyone who had worked on it.”
“What kind of project?”
My fingers tightened around the counter's edge.
Titus noticed. His mouth closed before another question came out.
“That isn't the part I can tell you yet,” I said.
“Okay.”
The answer was so immediate that I finally looked at him. There was tension in his jaw, but no impatience. He pulled out a chair and sat, making himself smaller in the room instead of asking me to be braver in it.
The kettle began its low, rising hum.
“She was good at making silence look voluntary,” I said. “Nobody had to threaten you in a room full of people. They just stopped returning calls. They left your name off an email. They asked whether you were really committed. By the time you spoke, everyone had already been told that speaking was proof you couldn't be trusted.”
“And now she's doing it again through the campaign.”
“Yes.”
I turned off the burner before the kettle whistled. In the sudden quiet, the refrigerator motor sounded too loud.
Titus glanced at my phone. “The separate links let her decide who sees which version.”
“They let her prepare the reaction before I do anything.” I poured the water and missed the mug, sending a thin stream across the counter. “If I go alone, she controls what happened. If you come, she says I brought you to pressure her.”
He reached for a dish towel, then stopped with his hand halfway across the counter.
“Can I?”
The question caught me harder than it should have.
I nodded. He wiped up the water without touching me or taking the mug from my hand.
After he sat again, he said, “What concrete boundary do you want preserved?”
I stared at the steam rising between us. “You mean what won't I tell you?”
“No. I mean what do you need me not to do?”
That distinction made room in my chest, though breathing still hurt.
“Don't contact her,” I said. “Don't answer the campaign publicly. Don't send the files to anyone without showing me exactly what you're sending first.”
“All right.”
“And if I say I need a conversation to stop, it stops. You don't get to decide I'm too scared to make that call.”
“All right,” he repeated. “Anything else?”
I rubbed my thumb along a chip in the mug. The next part had been sitting behind my teeth since the video appeared.
“She warned me not to bring you.”
His eyes lifted to mine. “Directly?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
I shook my head.
He waited, then gave one small nod. “You don't have to answer that tonight.”
I carried both mugs to the table. Titus didn't ask why she had named him or what I was still protecting. He only turned my phone so we could both see the link without picking it up.
“So my presence is leverage,” he said.
“Yes. Against both of us.”
“And going alone gives her the only account of what happens.”
I looked at the frozen promotional frame. For days, I had treated isolation as the price of keeping control. Now I could see how neatly that belief served her.
“I still make the decisions,” I said.
“You do.”
“But you can help me verify them.”
His shoulders lowered a fraction. “Within the boundaries you just gave me.”
I opened a new document on my phone and typed those boundaries at the top. Under them, I added one line: I will not meet her where no independent record exists.
Titus read it only after I slid the phone toward him.
May you like
Outside, tires hissed over the wet street. The promotional link remained open in another tab, waiting for me to click alone.
For the first time, I closed it without feeling that I had surrendered.
