60. Reese
Reese
I don’t sleep much anymore.
Not because of nightmares—those faded with the sound of Harmony’s breathing beside me—but because the silence is loud now. Deafening in ways I didn’t expect.
There’s nothing left to guard.
Nothing left to watch.
The machine Damien built is dead. And I was the one who took it apart.
It started with the Orchard. Then the Golden Hollows. Then I helped shut down Club Muse. For good.
I lit the first match myself. Walked through each room with a can of kerosene and memories I wish I could forget. The halls were empty by then, cleared out during the final raid, but the ghosts remained.
Harmony’s blood.
Brooke’s fear.
The echoes of girls who never made it out.
I soaked every floorboard, every mattress, every inch of that place until the walls reeked of gasoline and shame.
Then I watched it burn.
On e spark.
And the empire he’d built turned to smoke.
It should’ve felt like justice.
But it didn’t.
Justice implies balance.
There’s nothing balanced about this.
There’s only fire.
And what comes after.
I made a list the day after Harmony was released from the hospital.
Every name. Every contact. Every building. Every account.
I knew them all. Damien made sure of it. He trusted me—because he thought I was him.
He was wrong.
I never wanted power. I never wanted blood.
I just wanted purpose.
He gave me that at first. In pieces. In lies.
Now I’ve taken it back.
The rec room was next.
The stage. The lights. The collars still hanging on the wall like ornaments.
I took it all apart.
Brick by fucking brick.
I hired a crew under a fake name. Told them it was an old theater. Told them I wanted it gone.
No salvage. No resale.
Just dust.
They asked questions. I gave them answers that sounded normal.
Sometimes, I can still fake it.
But inside?
It was like ripping out bones one by one.
I left the last wall standing for a moment longer than I should have.
Th ere were names scratched into the brick. Initials. Tally marks. A countdown I never noticed before.
I ran my fingers over the last line. It read: “He won’t break me.”
That wall took longer to fall than all the rest.
Harmony didn’t ask what I’ve been doing.
But she knows.
And she lets me come home covered in ash and silence, waiting until I’m ready to speak.
Some nights I don’t.
Others, I do.
She just listens. She holds my hand. She kisses the bruises Damien left behind.
She makes it bearable.
There was one final ledger. A hidden safe I’d pretended not to know about for years.
Buried in the floor of the Orchard’s east wing. Behind a false slab.
Inside?
Everything.
Passwords. Buyer lists. Transfer logs.
Proof of what we did.
What I did.
I stared at it for hours. Long after the flames had turned the rest of the building into charcoal.
It was the last piece of him.
The last voice whispering in my ear.
You’re still one of us. Obedience is golden. Sin is cleansed.
A chill clouded the room around me. I set it on the ground and poured acid over it. Let the metal corrode. Let the paper rot.
It took hours.
And I watched every second of it.
Lucien offered to help.
So did Dante.
But this was mine.
My penance.
My purge.
They took care of the living—rescuing the girls, helping the survivors.
I buried the dead.
I erased the footprints.
I pulled up the roots and salted the soil.
Harmony doesn’t know about all of it.
Not yet.
Some truths deserve to die quietly.
But when she looks at me, I think she sees it—the weight gone from my shoulders. The violence drained from my hands. The guilt still there, but no longer bleeding.
She calls me “hers” now.
And I believe her.
Because for the first time in my life, I’m not waiting for orders.
I’m choosing.
The Golden Hollows is rubble.
The Orchard is ashes.
The network is severed.
I even tracked down the off-site accounts—shell companies in Brazil, the Cayman Islands, and Russia. I shut them all down. Transferred every remaining cent to foundations for trafficking survivors. Anonymous deposits. Clean.
No blood money.
Not anymore.
I kept one thing.
His ring.
The one he wore on his left hand. Gold. Heavy. Engraved with our crest .
I had it melted down.
Turned into something else.
A bullet.
One.
Just in case.
I keep it in a box under my bed. Not because I plan to use it.
But because reminders matter.
He lived. He ruled. He burned.
Now he’s nothing but metal shaped by my will.
That’s what I took back.
Control.
I drive past the Orchard’s empty lot sometimes.
It’s just grass now. No trace of what it was.
But I remember.
I always will.
I don’t want to forget.
Because if I forget, I’ll stop fighting.
And I owe it to every girl who never made it out—not just to fight, but to win.
Sometimes I dream about him.
Not in fear.
But in confrontation.
He walks toward me through the flames, wearing that smile like a mask of divinity.
And I tell him the truth:
You never made me.
You just woke the worst part of me—and she helped me kill it.
Harmony saved me.
Not with softness.
But with fury .
With defiance.
With the same fire I used to destroy everything he loved.
Now?
I’m just a man.
A man in love with the girl who got away—and came back stronger.
A man who tore down an empire and built silence in its place.
And if he were still alive?
I think even Damien would be impressed.
But he’s not.
He’s dead.
Buried in blood.
And all that’s left of him is a name no one speaks anymore.
Good.
Let it rot with the rest.