Julian’s POV
The roar of my father’s voice still echoed in my ears, a punishing sound that made my skin crawl. Every word Richard had spat at , calling incompetent, useless, had added to my self-loathing. I wanted to be alone and drown in the dark until the sha stopped burning.
But Catherine wouldn’t let . She stood there, her eyes flashing with a defiance that matched the anger in my blood. When she threw my own command back at , refusing to move, sothing cut through my alcohol-induced haze. My anger suddenly felt misdirected.
I looked at her standing in the middle of my ssy, smoke-filled room. She wasn’t the one who had humiliated . She was the only person who had ever tried to stand between and that monster.
My shoulders slumped, the defensive posture I’d held since childhood finally failing .
"I’m sorry," my voice cracked in a mutter. I lowered my head, staring at the amber liquid in my glass. "I shouldn’t have yelled at you."
Catherine didn’t soften imdiately. She crossed her arms and tilted her chin up. "You’re going to have to do a lot more than just saying sorry before I forgive you for that, Julian," she said, though the edge in her voice was beginning to fray.
I looked up at her, and suddenly, the weight of everything beca too much. My throat tightened. The mask I wore every day, the one that projected cold indifference and Vaughn-family steel, shattered.
The first tear escaped before I could stop it, hot and stinging, and then it turned into drops of tears. I felt like a child again, trapped in the back of a black car, watching the world move on while I was stuck in a nightmare. I didn’t care about the alcohol or the cigarettes anymore. I just felt broken.
Catherine’s expression transford instantly. The defiance vanished, replaced by a look of empathy. She moved across the room in a blur, and before I could even draw a breath, I was out of my seat. I didn’t think; I just lunged toward her, burying my face against her neck as I let out a choked, broken sob.
She caught , her arms wrapping around . She squeezed hard, her hands rubbing my back as if she could physically pull the pain out of my bones.
"I hate him," I choked out, the words muffled against her skin. "I hate him so much, Catherine. I wish I had never co back."
"I know," she whispered, her voice a soothing balm. "I understand exactly how you feel, Julian."
I pulled back then, my face wet and my chest heaving. I looked at her, searching her eyes. "No," I said, shaking my head. "You don’t understand. You can’t understand. You only see the man who yells and insults but you don’t know all I’ve been through in his hands."
I took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to steady my racing heart. I walked back to the edge of the bed and sat down, my legs feeling like lead. Catherine followed closely. She didn’t sit; she dropped to her knees on the floor in front of , taking my shaking hands in hers.
I shut my eyes tight, the mory of the past rising. I felt the phantom heat against my skin, a pain that never truly went away, no matter how many years passed.
"Those scars," I whispered, as my voice trembled. "The ones you saw on my back... the ones I refused to talk about."
I opened my eyes and looked at her. Her gaze was fixed on mine, her face pale.
"They were inflicted on by him. By my father," I said, the truth finally breaking through.
Catherine’s eyes widened, her pupils dilating in a look of pure shock. Her hands tightened around mine for a second before she let out a horrified gasp. She let go of my hands and stood up abruptly, only to sit down on the bed right beside , her body hovering close.
"What?" she breathed, the word a tiny, shattered sound. "No..."
I swallowed hard. "It started after my mother disappeared," I began, the words coming out in a flat, hollow drone. "Everyone was told she just left. That she chose to move on with another man and abandoned us but that was a lie. I knew the truth. I was young, but I wasn’t blind. I saw him throw her out. I heard him tell her that if she ever tried to contact us, he’d make sure she ended up in a ditch."
I felt Catherine’s hand move to her mouth, her eyes welling with fresh tears.
"I couldn’t keep quiet," I continued. "I was a kid, and I loved her. Every ti soone ntioned how ’unfortunate’ it was that she left, I would scream the truth. I told the staff, I told the neighbors, I told anyone who would listen that he was the one who sent her away. I called him a liar to his face."
I paused, the mory of that day as vivid as if it were happening right now.
"He finally snapped. He caught telling one of his political advisors the truth in the hallway. He didn’t yell then. He just smiled, apologized to the guest, and dragged upstairs by my hair. He locked up in a small room in the old wing. He told that if I liked stories so much, he’d give sothing real to write about."
I looked down at my hands, my vision blurring. "He hit for hours. Not with his hands, he didn’t want to bruise his knuckles. He used a belt and a cane and when he wasn’t satisfied, he picked up an iron. Plugged it into the socket..."
Catherine let out a small, choked sob, but I couldn’t stop. I needed to expose everything I had passed through.
"He pinned down on the floor," I whispered. "And held the hot iron against my back, over and over again. I scread until my throat was raw and couldn’t make a sound anymore. He kept doing it, telling that every scar would be a reminder of what happens to boys who tell lies about their fathers. I fainted from the pain."
Catherine was shaking now, her hand gripping my shoulder so hard. "Julian... oh, God, Julian."
"When I woke up," I said, my voice dropping to a near-whisper, "I wasn’t in a hospital. I was in a ntal asylum. He had used his influence to have committed. He told everyone that I had suffered a psychotic break after my mom left. He told them I was self-harming, that I had burned myself in a fit of madness. He kept there for months. I spent months surrounded by people who were truly lost, while he played the grieving, burdened father to the public."
I looked at Catherine, and the horror on her face was absolute.
"He broke there," I admitted. "By the ti I ca ho, I knew the rules. If I stayed quiet, I stayed out of the asylum. If I played the part of the perfect son, I didn’t get the iron. I beca the cold, distant Vaughn everyone expected, because the alternative was too terrifying to endure."
Catherine was silent for a long ti, her chest heaving as she processed it all. Then, she stood up, her eyes burning with sudden anger.
"He’s a bastard," she dragged, her words dripping with a hatred I’d never heard from her before. "He’s a sick, twisted bastard. Julian, we can’t let him get away with this. We have to expose him. We can tell the truth about what he did to you, what he did to your mother—"
She started to turn toward the door, her movent fueled by raw anger.
"No!" I shouted, lashing out and grabbing her hand, pulling her back toward . I shook my head frantically, my heart hamring against my ribs.
"Catherine, stop! You don’t understand."
She looked back at , defiance clearly written on her face. "What? What don’t I understand? He’s a criminal, an abuser, Julian! He belongs in a cell, not a Senate seat!"
"He is Richard Vaughn," I said, my voice trembling with the weight of my fear. "He doesn’t just have money; he has power. He owns the police in this district. He has judges in his pocket. He has a team of fixers who can make people disappear as easily as he made my mother disappear. If we try to expose him without any proof that he can’t bury, he won’t just win, he’ll destroy us."
I looked her dead in the eye, my grip on her hand desperate. "He’ll send back to that asylum, and he’ll find a way to make sure you never see the light of day again. He is dangerous, Catherine. More dangerous than anyone you’ve ever t."
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