“But… he says he doesn’t feel complete.” Her voice cracks like it’s been holding that sentence back for too long. “He’s afraid, Alexander. Afraid that when you find out the truth—what really happened to him—you’ll see the parts of him that are… tainted. The damage. The shame. He thinks you won’t want him anymore, that you’ll look at him differently. That you’ll stop seeing him the way you do now.”
I clench my jaw, biting down on the fire rising in my throat.
“He says it’s not fair,” she continues, a broken breath escaping her. “That the boys who did this to him, who turned him into someone he can barely stand, are out there living their lives happily thriving. While he’s trapped in his own skin, drowning in self-hate and low self-worth.”
My hands curl into fists in my lap.
“I won’t disappear from his life.” My voice comes out low, steady, and sharp like cut glass. I lift my gaze to meet hers, every syllable heavy with promise. “I don’t care what happened. I’m not going anywhere.”
She studies me. For a long, quiet second, she doesn’t say anything, just watches me like she’s searching for something in my face, like she wants to believe me but part of her is still afraid to. Then her eyes flicker down to the camera clutched in her hands, and I see the grief come rushing back into them like a wave.
“You’ll see the happiest moments of my son in here,” she says, her voice soft and cracking. “But you’ll also see the worst. The broken version of him. The scared and helpless version”
Her hands tremble slightly as she holds the camera out to me.
“And… you’ll see what happened to him that night.”
I hesitate.
My palms go cold. I stare at the camera like it’s something sacred and cursed all at once.
Do I really want to see this?
Do I have the right to step into that part of him? That sacred, splintered corner of his life that he hasn’t offered me himself? Would it hurt him to know I saw it without his permission?
But there’s something else, something stronger than hesitation.
Rage.
A quiet, consuming fury that is crawling beneath my skin like wildfire.
I want to know who they are. The motherfuckers who stole his peace. The ones who took his sleep, his voice, his safety, and walked away untouched. I want to know their faces, their names, their shadows.
Because I want to destroy them.
I want to make them feel it. I want to know how they did it so that I can punish and torture them ten times worse because no one—no one—hurts him and walks away like it meant nothing.
Not while I’m still breathing.
I reach out for the camera, but Kathryn doesn’t let go.
Her fingers tighten around it, knuckles white, trembling.
I lift my eyes to hers, my brow raised with quiet impatience, but what I see in her face stops me—grief, fear, hesitation. Her lips part as if the words pain her to say.
“Please,” she whispers, voice raw, “I beg you. What you’re about to see… It’s not just disturbing, it’s devastating. No one else has seen this. No one.” Her voice breaks as tears finally spill down her cheeks. “Lucas doesn’t even know I still have it. He thinks it was lost that night… or that one of those boys took it.”
My chest begins to ache with a slow burn, the weight of what she’s saying tightening like a vice.
She swallows, wiping at her cheek, but it’s useless. Her tears are flowing now, years of silent suffering unraveling in front of me.
“I’m giving this to you because…” she hesitates, then meets my eyes, steady and serious despite the shake in her voice, “I saw what you did to Oliver. I know you’re capable of protecting him in a way the system won’t. In fact, they might arrest Lucas, too, if this gets out to the police. I need you to take care of this. Of them. Give him closure. Let him breathe again. Let him live without that shadow following him every time he tries to smile.”
Her fingers finally loosen around the camera.
“And if you can’t look at him the same afterward,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper now, “if your feelings for him fade when you see what they did to him… I won’t blame you. But promise me this— Don’t give them mercy.”
She steps back.
