Chapter 4 - The Woman in the Agency Office
Celeste Wynn agreed to a deposition because refusing would look worse.
She arrived with two attorneys and the confidence of someone who had spent years turning outrage into engagement.
Luca watched from a separate room.
He did not attend.
Daniel insisted.
“You being there lets her perform against you.”
Luca disliked the logic because it was correct.
Celeste wore white.
She smiled before answering difficult questions.
“Did you recruit Vanessa Reed to pursue Luca Santoro?”
“No.”
Emails appeared on the screen.
She adjusted.
“We discussed public opportunities.”
“Before Ms. Reed met Mr. Santoro?”
“Yes.”
“So you discussed Mr. Santoro specifically.”
“As a potential public-facing family brand.”
“He had not agreed.”
“No.”
“His daughter was four.”
“Yes.”
“Had she agreed?”
Celeste’s smile vanished.
“She was a child.”
“Exactly.”
The deposition continued.
Celeste insisted they never instructed Vanessa to make Mia cry.
That was true.
They instructed her to capture “emotionally authentic moments.”
They rewarded posts with higher engagement.
They sent analytics showing crying videos performed better.
Vanessa learned.
Not because someone ordered cruelty in a memo.
Because the system paid more when a child hurt on camera.
Luca understood that kind of corruption.
Nobody needed to say the ugliest part aloud.
Money taught people.
The agency had sent Vanessa a message after one thunderstorm clip:
Strong retention. More raw emotion like this.
Luca left the viewing room.
He walked outside.
For five minutes, he stood beside the courthouse fountain and tried not to become the man Bruno wanted him to be.
Detective Mara Velez approached.
She had joined the case after state investigators began examining whether HearthHouse violated child labor and privacy laws.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
Luca looked at her.
“You have children?”
“Two.”
“What would you do?”
She thought.
“Professionally?”
“No.”
“Unhelpful question.”
He almost laughed.
Mara continued.
“I’d want to destroy everyone.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re doing the then.”
That stayed with him.
State investigators executed warrants on HearthHouse.
The agency shut down temporarily.
Sponsors fled.
Other families came forward.
The case expanded beyond Mia.
Luca could have made himself the center.
He refused.
Daniel asked whether he wanted a press conference.
“No.”
“A statement?”
“No.”
“People are writing that you forced Vanessa into silence.”
“They can write.”
“That’s unlike you.”
“I’m learning.”
At home, Sofia helped Mia create a new rule chart for the house.
No filming without asking.
No posting children.
No using someone else’s sadness in a joke.
Knock before entering bedrooms.
Bunny gets a seat at breakfast.
Luca read the last rule.
“This one seems legally questionable.”
Mia smiled.
“Bunny voted.”
“Of course.”
They taped the rules inside the kitchen pantry.
Gabriel signed them.
Sofia signed.
Luca signed.
Mia made Bunny’s paw print in blue marker.
For the first time, a household rule in Luca Santoro’s home was not written by a lawyer or security chief.
It mattered more.
Then Daniel called.
“We found something in Vanessa’s financial records.”
Luca’s brief peace ended.
“What?”
“She wasn’t keeping all the money.”
“Agency percentage?”
“More.”
“How much?”
“Forty percent of her content revenue went to another company.”
“Whose?”
A pause.
“Bruno Marchetti.”
Luca went very still.
His own captain.
The man demanding revenge.
The man calling legal action weak.
Bruno had been earning money from Vanessa’s access to Mia.
The betrayal was no longer outside the gates.
It was sitting at Luca’s table.
Celeste’s deposition produced another name.
Richard Wynn.
Her older brother.
A venture investor who had funded HearthHouse’s expansion and sat on the board of one of Luca’s legitimate media partners.
The connection was not criminal.
It was inconvenient.
And personal.
Richard had once urged Luca to improve his public image before a major development bid.
Luca had refused.
Now Luca wondered whether the push toward “family content” had been part of a broader strategy.
Daniel cautioned him.
“Do not turn every connection into conspiracy.”
Luca leaned back.
“You enjoy ruining my theories.”
“Your theories are expensive.”
Investigators found no evidence Richard directed Vanessa.
He had, however, pressured HearthHouse to increase emotional engagement because sponsors paid more for “authentic family vulnerability.”
Again, ugly behavior without a single mastermind.
Luca hated that.
Villains were clean.
Systems were not.
At dinner, Sofia asked why he looked angry.
“Too many people are partly responsible.”
“That sounds like adulthood.”
He glared.
She kept eating.
Mia listened.
“What does partly responsible mean?”
Sofia looked at Luca.
His problem.
He sighed.
“It means sometimes lots of people each make a small bad choice and together it becomes a big bad thing.”
Mia thought.
“Like everyone dropping trash on the floor?”
“Yes.”
“Then who cleans it?”
Luca looked at her.
“Everyone should.”
She nodded, satisfied.
Sofia smiled.
“There. Governance solved.”
“Please stop.”
But the metaphor stayed.
Luca could not clean only Vanessa’s part.
He had to look at his own.
At the men who sold access.
At the companies that rewarded attention.
At the household habits that treated Mia’s privacy as secondary to adults.
At himself.
That realization was less dramatic than revenge.
And much harder.
The deposition also revealed something Luca had not expected: Vanessa had occasionally pushed back.
Not enough.
Not when it mattered most.
But enough to complicate the picture.
One message from Vanessa read:
She’s too upset. I’m stopping.
Celeste replied:
If you stop every time she cries, you have no story.
Another exchange showed Vanessa saying Mia did not want a bedtime video posted.
Celeste responded:
Children do not understand long-term brand value.
Luca stared at that sentence for a long time.
No child should have to understand brand value.
A child should understand bedtime.
Milk.
Blankets.
Someone saying good night.
That was the scale Mia deserved.
Not dashboards.
Not sponsor retention.
Not adults turning her feelings into revenue projections.
Luca sent the exchange to Daniel.
“Use this.”
“For damages?”
“For context.”
Daniel smiled faintly.
“You’re learning lawyer words.”
“Don’t insult me.”
Later, Luca showed Dr. Hayes the same message.
“What does this do to a child?” he asked.
The therapist answered carefully.
“It can teach her that adults may value the performance of her feelings more than the feelings themselves.”
Luca looked away.
That was exactly what his world had done to men too.
Fear mattered when useful.
Loyalty mattered when visible.
Anger mattered when it controlled someone.
Nothing was allowed to simply be felt.
May you like
He had not invented Vanessa.
But maybe he understood the culture that made her choices possible better than he wanted to admit.
