Page 129 of Beautiful Obsessions
Because if I was coming back from this—if I clawed my way out of whatever the hell this was—it wouldn’t be for revenge.It would be for her.
38
Flashback - Archie
Grief doesn’t leave anything untouched.It seeps in, stains the edges, makes even silence feel heavy and unwelcome.
That was the state I was in when the truth found me.
It came in the early evening, carried by one of the perimeter guards.He stood in my doorway, frost caught in his beard and fear sitting too comfortably on his face.
When I told him to enter, he shut the door behind him with the care of a man stepping into a church he no longer frequented.
“I have something you need to see,” he said.
He looked sick.
I almost sent him away.
Then I saw his hands shaking.
He opened his hand and passed me a drive.
“What is this?”
He swallowed.“Proof.”
My pulse quickened.
“Of what?”
His eyes dropped to the floor.“Your brother.”
I moved before I knew I had decided to.
One moment the drive was in his hand.The next I had him against the wall, my fist knotted in his jacket, his boots scraping over the floor as plaster cracked behind him.
“What about my brother?”
“Just watch it… please.”
His fear was real.Acrid.Immediate.
“It was copied from perimeter footage before it was removed,” he said.“I hid it.I shouldn’t have.But I did.”
“Why bring it to me now?”
His mouth trembled.“Because I have children.And I have a conscience.”
Something in me loosened and I let him go.
The laptop on the desk hummed too loudly in the silence as I inserted the drive.I remember absurd details from that moment—the faint smear on the screen, the clock on the far wall ticking, the fact that my right hand would not stop trembling once I sat down.
The footage opened.
It was grainy, drained of color.Night vision flattened the world into shades of grey and green.
The footage opened on Viktor’s office.
