It's thick. Two inches of paper, photographs, reports.
I've digitized all of it, but there's something about holding the physical evidence of her life in my hands.
The weight of it. The realness.
I open the cover, and Liberty's face stares up at me.
The first photo is from eight years ago.
Gracie's graduation party.
Liberty at eighteen, laughing at something off-camera, head thrown back, dark hair spilling over her shoulders.
She's wearing a yellow sundress with little white flowers, and her skin is golden from a summer spent at the public pool.
My thumb traces the edge of the photograph.
I remember that night.
Remember standing in the doorway of the ballroom, watching her dance with some boy from her class.
Remember the hot, sick feeling in my stomach—jealousy so sharp it felt like swallowing glass.
She was too young. I knew that.
Knew I should look away, should find some appropriate woman my own age, should stop watching my little sister's best friend like she was the answer to a question I hadn't known I was asking.
I couldn't stop. I've never been able to stop.
I flip through the file, and Liberty ages beneath my fingers.
School photos, candid shots, images pulled from social media before she learned to lock her accounts down.
I watched her grow up. Watched her legs lengthen and her face sharpen and her body curve into something that made my hands ache to touch.
I waited.
I told myself I was being patient. Being honorable. Giving her time to grow into the woman I knew she'd become.
But the truth is darker than that.
The truth is I liked waiting.
Liked the slow build of it, the years of watching, the knowledge that she had no idea what was coming.
Every photograph I collected, every report I filed, every piece of information I gathered—it was all foreplay.
All preparation for the moment she'd finally be mine.
My father would understand. He waited for my mother too.
Courted her for years before she finally agreed to marry him.
Of course, by the end, she couldn't leave her bedroom without his permission.
Couldn't make a phone call he didn't monitor.
Couldn't breathe without him knowing about it.
