Chapter 153 - Santiago

Chapter 153 - Santiago
Today was the day I stood on the edge of everything—of judgment, of truth, of exposure.

I could feel the courtroom hours before I ever stepped into it: the heavy silence, the weight of eyes, the gravity of what I was about to say. My hands wouldn't stop shaking. Not from fear of what I was going to confess—but from everything else. The betrayal. The humiliation. The shame I had tried to bury, and the heat of rage rising again and again like bile I couldn’t swallow.

Because of course today—today—would be the day my father’s people released the worst of the videos.

The earlier ones had been strategic. Calculated. He'd released the clips of Nova and me first—just enough to draw blood without killing. Just enough to stain her image and bruise mine. Those had already gone viral in certain circles. I'd seen the comments, the way they spun the footage like a grotesque reel of character assassination. But this new one... this was different.

In this one, I wasn’t just involved. I was center stage. Caught in the act of domination, in a role that wasn’t rehearsed but was deeply, undeniably mine. The way I looked at her. The things I said. The presence of James and Levi. The power play was no longer a subtext—it was the script.

And it looked terrible.

Even to me.

Stripped of the consent, the history, the mutual trust behind it all, the footage was damning. It painted me as cruel. Detached. Predatory. And worst of all, it was deliberately timed. The video hit the internet less than two hours before I was set to testify.

I wasn’t stupid. I knew the game. My father had always been ten steps ahead, playing a brand of psychological chess no one else could stomach long enough to beat. He didn't want to silence me. He wanted to discredit me. To turn me into a villain before I could take the stand. To make the world question my motives, my credibility, my humanity.

And it was working.

When Olivia entered the room where I waited with her legal team, she didn’t speak right away. Her eyes were as sharp as broken glass. She dropped a file on the table, but she didn’t sit.

“I saw it,” she said.

I nodded.

“I imagine it won’t be the last,” I replied.

“No. It won’t,” she said. “He’s not trying to hide anymore. This is his war.”

Her tone was cold. Professional. But I could tell she was angry—not just on behalf of the case, but for what it meant. For how it exposed all of us, not just to scrutiny, but to ridicule, disgust, and misinterpretation.

She finally sat, crossing one leg over the other, folding her hands on her lap. “You’re about to be grilled, Santiago. Not just by me, but by his legal hounds. They will drag this into the mud. They’ll ask what kind of man lets himself be filmed like that. They’ll ask if you coerced Nova. If what happened was really consensual.”

“It was,” I said.

“Good,” she replied. “Because you’ll need to say it like you believe it. And you’ll need to be prepared for them to call Nova to the stand, too.”

I flinched at that. I hadn’t expected that yet. Not so soon.

“She’s ready,” Olivia said, reading the look on my face. “But you need to be.”

I didn’t answer. Because in that moment, all I could think about was the firestorm outside those walls. The way the footage would spread. The way it would follow her, and all of us, for months—maybe longer.

“Will it affect the case?” I asked eventually.

Olivia’s silence was long and deliberate. When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter.

“It’s not evidence. But it’s influence. And influence is half of what we’re fighting here.”

I leaned back in my chair, exhaling slowly. My chest was tight, like I’d been holding in a scream for hours.

“What do I say when they ask why I did it?”

She looked at me for a long moment, her expression unreadable.

“You tell them the truth.”

“And if they don’t believe it?”

“Then you hold your ground,” she said. “And you let the truth stand taller than the lies.”

The courtroom was colder than I expected. Not just physically—though the polished marble floors and high ceilings seemed to carry a permanent draft—but emotionally. The air in the room had the texture of something coiled and waiting to snap. It was the kind of silence that didn’t welcome truth so much as it demanded it—with teeth bared.

I sat in the witness box with my palms pressed tightly together, my knees still vibrating from nerves I hadn’t been able to shake since this morning. Every sound felt magnified—the creak of a bench behind me, the soft clack of a gavel being set down on oak, the quiet scribble of a court clerk’s pen. And of course, my father’s voice in my mind, repeating the words he’d always used to keep me small: Don’t embarrass us. Don’t forget where you come from.

But I had. Or I had tried to.

Now, seated under the harsh white lights of public scrutiny, I was expected to do the one thing I never imagined I'd do—testify against my blood.

“Santiago Gómez Hernández,” the magistrate said, his voice clear and formal, “you have been sworn in. Please state your full name for the record.”

I did.

The questions started slowly. Olivia’s team wanted the court to understand my position. How I’d grown up in privilege, believing my father was nothing more than a ruthless businessman with a flair for drama and steel. They asked about my schooling, the company I had before I came back to the city, the way dad put me in the mayor’s position, and how I had slowly begun to uncover things that didn’t quite add up.

“It began with money disappearing. Belen mentioned it to me a couple of times before I took it seriously. Belen oversees the family business.”, I told them. “Then as mayor I heard rumors about kidnappings, which some people tried to cover up.”, I added.

I told Olivia everything—about the money, the laundering, the kidnappings, every breadcrumb we had followed until the entire operation traced back to my father. I kept my focus solely on her, determined not to let my gaze wander to the defense table where he sat, because I knew the moment I did, my resolve might crack.

"And all this time you were a member of the club?" Olivia asked, her tone cool, professional, but laced with something else.

There it was.

"Yes," I answered, keeping my voice even. She had advised me beforehand to be succinct, no embellishments, no distractions. The truth, plainly spoken.

"How did you find out that your father is behind the club?" she asked next.

I recounted the paper trail we uncovered—the hidden transactions, offshore accounts, shell corporations—all of it creating a funnel from the club directly into the financial holdings my father controlled. A spiderweb of lies and cruelty, finally laid bare.

"Tell us how you met Nova," Olivia said.

I took a breath and told her the truth. I told her how I saw her across the room on my first night at the club, and how something about her stopped me cold. How she was later assigned to me, and I didn't question it.

"Were you aware it was not consensual?" Olivia's voice sharpened.

I turned my head slightly, glaring at her. She was supposed to be on our side. But then again, this was a courtroom. Allegiances didn't matter here.

"I was told everyone was there willingly," I said, my voice tight. "I had no way of knowing what was happening behind closed doors."

She nodded once, jotted something down, then looked back up. "Tell us about the night you helped her escape."

So I did. I described the chaos, the risk, the look in Nova's eyes when she realized I wasn't going to hurt her. How I walked her past security, how I knew that if we were caught, everything would fall apart. But it didn’t matter. Not anymore.

"Why her?" Olivia asked, her voice softer now, but more intimate, almost accusing.

I hesitated. The answer wasn’t part of the facts and timelines she wanted, but it was the only truth that mattered.

"I felt connected to her," I said finally. "Responsible, in a way.”

I wasn’t ready to call it anything else in front of everyone in this courtroom.