Ch.34: The Shattered Image

I got out of the car. I couldn't breathe. The air felt too thick, too wet, like I was inhaling the same mud we had just dug up.

I walked to a tree at the edge of the cemetery, away from the graves, away from the lies buried beneath them. I leaned against the rough bark, my chest heaving.

Liam. My little brother. The boy who played guitar and rescued stray cats.

He wasn't a hero. He was a blackmailer. He was greedy. He was stupid.

And Mia. My baby sister. The girl I had protected from every bully, every nightmare.

She was a killer. She was a monster who traded her own blood for a corner office.

"It was all for nothing," I whispered, sliding down the trunk until I hit the wet grass. "Everything I did. Every sacrifice. It was all for nothing."

I had destroyed my career. I had become a fugitive. I had risked my life.

For what? To avenge a criminal? To save a psychopath?

I buried my face in my hands. The sobs came then, violent and ugly, tearing through my chest like shrapnel.

"I'm done," I choked out. "I'm done. I quit."

I heard footsteps crunching on the gravel. Julian.

"Harper," he said.

"Go away," I sobbed. "Just go away. Take the drive. Take the money. Leave me here."

"I can't do that."

"Yes, you can! You have what you want! You have the evidence! You don't need me anymore!"

He didn't answer. He just stood there in the rain.

"Why are you still here?" I screamed, looking up at him. "I'm nothing! I'm the sister of a traitor and a murderer! My whole life is a lie! I have no one!"

He knelt down in front of me. He didn't touch me. He just looked at me, his eyes dark and serious in the moonlight.

"You have me," he said.

I laughed, a harsh, jagged sound. "You? You're a client. You're a billionaire. You're just another man using me to get what he wants."

"Is that what you think?"

"It's what I know! Everyone uses me! Liam used me for cover! Mia used me for leverage! Sterling used me for a scapegoat! And you... you're using me for freedom!"

"You're wrong," Julian said.

He reached out and took my hands, pulling them away from my face. His grip was strong, grounding.

"I didn't choose you because you were useful, Harper. I chose you because you were the only person in this city who was still fighting. Even when you were losing. Even when you were alone."

"I was fighting for a lie!"

"You were fighting for the truth," he corrected. "You just didn't know what it was yet."

He leaned closer. Rain dripped from his hair onto his face, mingling with the blood from his cut.

"Your family is gone," he said, his voice low and intense. "The people you thought they were... they never existed. But you exist. You are real. And you are stronger than all of them combined."

"I'm not strong," I whispered. "I'm broken."

"Good," Julian said. "Broken things have sharp edges. We can use that."

He pulled me up. I stood there, shivering, my legs weak.

"We have the drive," he said. "We have the proof. We can take Sterling down. We can take Mia down. We can burn their empire to ash."

"And then what?" I asked. "What's left?"

"Us," he said.

He stepped closer. There was no space between us now. I could feel the heat radiating off him, a furnace in the cold night.

"We build something new," he said. "Something real."

I looked up at him. I saw the bruises on his face. I saw the exhaustion in his eyes. But I also saw something else. A fierce, terrifying loyalty.

He wasn't leaving. He wasn't using me.

He was standing with me in the rain, in a graveyard full of lies, offering me the only thing that mattered.

The truth.

"You have me," he said again.

And this time, he kissed me.