Chapter 9
On the fifth day of Xavier’s disappearance, a video popped up on my phone from an unknown number.
The thumbnall showed a massive open–air terrace, filmed from a distance–clearly from a building across the street.
That soft orange backdrop… It looked familiar.
Before I could even open the video, the number called me.
was Xavier.
He sounded almost breathless, like he was holding back excitement.
“Avery, I told you–I never touched Sophie.”
“I found the hotel I stayed in that night. The terrace surveillance had been deliberately wiped, but I tracked down a photography hobbyist who was there. He had footage from his camera. Raw, original footage.”
He paused for a beat, then added, “The pictures and the videos? All fake. Sophie’s cousin the guy with the bleached hair–he used Al software to fabricate everything. Do you remember him? He nearly knocked you over that day outside the hotel
Bleached hair?
That pay–the one I’d nearly collided with that day?
My fingers tightened around the phone. I didn’t think about him any further.
Instead, I stared at the paused video thumbnail for a moment two seconds, maybe and still didn’t open it
My voice came out calm. Steady.
“Xavier, is the only kind of betrayal you recognize the one that happens in bed?”
“Even if this video proves you never touched her what does that change?”
“When you handed her the couture gown I had custom ordered did you think about how much that would hurt me?”
her…did
“When you left me on the street to go play hero for her did you care how humiliating that was for me?”
“When you took her on that business trip and let her flood social media with stories that made it look like a damn honeymoon… did you even once consider how people would look at me?”
“You brought her back to Ravenhurst. Let her sit in the chair I’ve always sat in. You say it was meant to “shake me up.’To me, it was nothing but cruel. A pubic slap in the face.”
There was a long silence on the other end.
Then finally, a soft, broken whisper.
“I’m sorry, Avery.”
I heard him choke back a quiet sob, his voice trembling as he tried to hold it together.
“I know that
no matter what I say now… nothing can erase the pain I caused you.”
“I see it now–how selfish, how stupid I was. Sorry, I didn’t protect you.”
“But please belleve me–1 never meant to hurt you. I never wanted to lose you.”
But as I listened to his apology, I felt… nothing.
Pain fades, Wounds close. But scars? Scars don’t go away.
And we?
