Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
LEO
I needed to get the stench of lies, privilege, and everything I used to think made me untouchable out of my damn lungs. So I did what I always do when the pressure builds—I took the boat out. Past the jetties, until land looked like a postcard someone else sent.
Salt air. Freedom.
And yet, all I could see behind my eyelids was her face.
Jade. Walking across the quad with steel in her spine and pain in her eyes. That look—like she was holding herself together with dental floss and hope—it haunted me.
I cut the engine. Let the waves carry me.
She never asked for this. Not for the cameras. Not for the court of Royal Oaks turning on her. And definitely not for her car to be filled with dead fish.
What the actual fuck?
My parents trained me well. Smile at the gala. Shake hands at the board meeting. Play the martyr if the narrative needed a fall guy—just so long as the Holt name stayed squeaky clean.
But this? This was beneath even us.
I yanked my phone from the console and turned it off. Tossed it onto the leather seat like it burned me.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Until a rumble of another boat pulling alongside broke my spiral.
Tristan, grinning like a pirate. “Thought we’d have to send out the Coast Guard.”
Xavier stood at the wheel, calm as ever behind his aviators. “You okay, man?”
I wasn’t. But I nodded. They didn’t push. Just tossed over coffee and waited.
And then—I told them everything.
The night my parents sat me down with a file. The headlines. The screenshots. The sealed report from her Ohio school. The fake porn. The supposed scandal. And the ultimatum: walk away, or they’d scorch her future down to ash.
They called it protection. I call it blackmail.
“She’s been through enough,” I said hoarsely, fingers curled around the rail. “And I made it worse.”
Tristan swore. “They weaponized your last name, bro.”
Xavier just stared at the waves. “So what now?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know I’m tired of pretending I don’t care.”
That’s when Xavier looked at me. Real still.
“I’ll make a few calls,” he said, sliding his phone out.
“To who?” I asked warily.
“My godmother’s firm,” X said. “Private investigation, cyber, clean-up crew. They’re discreet. Owe us a favor.”
He flipped his screen toward me. “Turns out… Jade Morgan Bryan doesn’t exist.”
The words hit harder than the file my parents handed me.
“What the hell does that mean?” Tristan asked.
X's jaw tightened. “It means her scholarship file’s a fake. Her real name is Jaden Leigh Barron. And the sealed school report your parents gave you? That was the PG-13 version.”
My pulse ticked up. “What are you talking about?”
“They watered it down, Leo. Left out the lawsuit. The settlement. The police investigation that’s still technically open. The trauma. The OnlyFans investigation by the Feds. Someone tried profiting off this…”
I reached for the phone. “Show me.”
Xavier scrolled. Legal docs. Scans of affidavits. Bank wires to her parents. Deepfake analysis reports. It was a mountain of digital hell.
“She didn’t just get bullied,” he said. “She was digitally raped. They took her face, pasted it on someone else’s body, spread it around, and monetized it. Her own friends helped. No charges stuck.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“They ran,” Xavier said quietly. “Her parents, her aunt—everyone helped change her name, get her out. She was a ghost by the time she showed up here.”
I swallowed hard, feeling my stomach churn.
“And the report she just filed with the local cops after the fish stunt?” X added. “She used the name Morgan Bryan. It’s in the system. Anyone watching Royal Oaks close enough could pull the thread. That alias won’t hold much longer.”
So much for protecting her.
I’d broken up with her to keep her safe, and now she was facing another public storm… alone.
“Damn,” I whispered, looking down at the waves. “All this time… I thought I’d seen the worst of it.”
“And your parents?” X asked. “They had access to all this. They chose to hand you the sanitized version.”
“They lied,” I muttered. “Not just to control me. But to hide what they did. What they’re still doing.”
“They didn’t want you in love with a survivor,” Tristan said, voice grim. “Didn’t fit the narrative.”
“No,” I agreed. “But now that I know everything…”
I looked up, the sea wild behind my eyes.
“…we burn them all down.”
Tristan smirked. “That’s more like it.”
“We start with the Royal Oaks girls who’ve been targeting her. Then we hit Ohio. Get those fake content creators outed, blackballed, sued—whatever it takes.”
“We’ll go legal,” X said. “At first.”
“And if that fails?” I asked.
“We’ve got money,” he replied. “We make it go away.”
I leaned forward, the wind slicing through me like it wanted me to wake the hell up.
“She deserves more than my guilt,” I said. “She deserves justice.”
“And she’s going to get it,” Tristan said.
“Even if we have to set fire to every lie that built this school,” I whispered.
Because this time, they messed with the wrong girl.
And I’m done pretending I don’t care.