One Night in Valeria - Chapter 58: Chapter 58

The city didn’t sleep that night.
By sunrise, every major news outlet had published the leak. Headlines screamed across screens in velvet and red:
> “Project Veil: Klara Hale’s Daughter Exposes Fashion Industry’s Biggest Scandal.”
“Legacy or Lie? Hale Empire Implodes Under Daughter’s Confession.”
“Dorian Hale Missing. Klara Hale’s Death Reexamined.”
Crowds gathered outside the Velaria Conservatory.
Not just journalists.
But students. Survivors. Protesters.
Many wore crimson.
Some wore Jessica’s designs.
And a few held up hand-drawn signs that said only one word:
> “DAUGHTER.”
Jessica sat at the studio window, staring at the chaos she’d unleashed.
Smith flipped through press screenshots, muttering about legal fallout and brand management. Celeste was half on the phone with their lawyer, half editing a press response.
But Liam?
He was with her.
Feet up. Coffee in hand. Calm in the storm.
“You okay?” he asked gently.
She didn’t answer right away.
“Why does it feel like I just tore down the house I was born in?”
“Because you did,” he said. “But only because it was built on someone else’s bones.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder.
“Was it worth it?”
Liam kissed the top of her head.
“You’re worth it.”
That evening, they didn’t go home.
The studio became shelter.
They curled up on the worn velvet couch, wrapped in blankets, laptops humming nearby. Somewhere between exhausted silence and drifting sleep, Jessica reached for him.
Not out of need.
But comfort.
She laid on top of him, chest against his, cheek resting where his heart beat strongest.
“You’re always here,” she whispered.
He chuckled softly. “Well, I did say I wasn’t letting go.”
She looked up at him, eyes glassy but soft.
“Even if the world hates me tomorrow?”
“I’ll still be here,” he said, brushing a hand through her curls. “When they love you. When they lie about you. When they forget you. And especially when they try to erase you.”
Jessica kissed him then slow and tender, like grounding herself in him. The kiss deepened, their bodies syncing without urgency, just need. A need to feel alive, together, in the middle of so much loss and noise.
They made love like it was a vow.
Unrushed.
Raw.
A language all their own.
The next morning, the world didn’t collapse.
But it shifted.
The Conservatory’s board issued a statement defensive, vague, full of denial. But the public wasn’t buying it. Independent journalists, former students, and underground designers came forward with their own stories. Testimonies. Receipts.
What began as one scandal had now become a movement.
And Jessica Hale was its reluctant spearhead.
“I didn’t want to lead anything,” she said aloud, scrolling through the storm of reactions.
“You didn’t,” Celeste replied. “You just stopped lying. That’s leadership now.”
Late afternoon.
A courier arrived.
An unmarked envelope. Thin.
Jessica’s name handwritten across the front in sharp, distinct lettering.
Inside only one page.
Liam leaned over her shoulder as she unfolded it.
It was dated nearly a year ago.
From Dorian Hale.
“I never deserved your forgiveness. But if you’re reading this, it means you kept going anyway.”
I left the world because I was ashamed not just of the truth, but of how long I helped hide it. I begged Klara not to speak. I told her silence was safer. I thought protecting you meant disappearing.
But you… you never needed saving. You needed freedom.
The final sketch was never hers. Never mine. It was yours before you even touched a pencil.
Go rewrite the world, Jessica.
And know that even in absence… I was always watching.
— D
Jessica folded the page slowly.
Pressed it to her heart.
And whispered, “Then watch me now.”