I reached for my choker and jolted when I remembered why I wasn’t wearing it.

“Oh God. My key. Melody. I turned my phone off. How could I have turned my phone off?” I muttered as I waited the small eternity it took for it to turn back on. When it did, my worst fears were confirmed. Four hours ago. She’d hit the panic button four hours ago, and I’d been too selfish to have my damn phone on. Jesus Fucking Christ.

I tried not to freak out. If she was really in trouble, it would’ve alerted emergency services, which is about the best I could’ve done too since I hadn’t been with her.

Before my phone had even finished updating everything, I called her, almost collapsing with relief when she answered immediately and sounded calm.

She said, “Hey, I’m so sorry for the false alarm. I hope it didn’t freak you out.”

“Why was it a false alarm? What happened?”

“Max came charging in and cornered me. I’ve never seen him like that. He was out of his mind screaming at me and threatening me. I freaked out and hit the button almost as soon as he came in uninvited, but then he left just as quickly as he’d come and nothing happened. I was shaken, but everything was fine, so I deactivated it and texted you to say it was okay.”

“So you’re okay? Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m home now and I’m okay. What about you? Have you been keeping up with the news?”

“No, I’ve kind of been hiding out. I don’t need to see it.”

“You should go look right now,” she said, sounding weirdly excited. “It’s not all bad.”

When we hung up, I did a news search for my name online to see what she was talking about. The first article that popped up was his rebuttal to my claims. The sentences I could read in the search preview were enough to keep me from clicking on it. I’d known it was coming, but it was awful and I didn’t need to read any more of it.

The next section started with the headline:

Kate Brannan, Melody Martin Accuse Maximilian Gates of Sexual Misconduct

Holy shit. I’d had my suspicions when Alex mentioned how much she hated Max, but never in a million years would’ve expected her to stand with me against him. In the article, she explained what he’d done to her, why she’d stayed silent all these years, and said she was finally coming forward because I’d been brave enough to speak up.

I was repeatedly referred to as “Alex Chase’s girlfriend” so he must have held off on issuing the announcement that we’d broken up. I kept saying I didn’t want my identity to be tied to being his girlfriend forever, but now I could see it wouldn’t matter if it meant I got to be with him.

I reached the section with quotes from Alex and started to cry. He vocally supported me, said he believed me, and had pulled out of Crown of Swords because he wouldn’t work with someone who treated women like Max did.