13. Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
EMMA EASTON
I don’t remember moving. One second I’m standing in the hallway, and the next I’m already running, footsteps slamming against the stairs as I take them two at a time. Adriana is right behind me, and I can hear the house erupting before I even get up there.
By the time we reach the living room, it’s chaos.
Rafe is standing near the center of the room, phone in hand, his jaw locked while staring at the screen.
Heather is beside him, her face drained of color as she scrolls on her own phone.
Nico is hunched over his laptop, multiple tabs open, fingers flying.
Micah snatches his phone off the table, already unlocking it and shoving it into my hand. And then I see it.
It’s everywhere.
It’s on verified accounts, major platforms, clipped and reposted, headlines already forming around it like fucking little vultures circling a body that's still warm. Notifications are exploding across every screen in the room. Anonymous tip with exclusive footage of the falling star, Jude Graves.
My stomach drops so fast that I'm dizzy. “No,” I whisper, but my thumb is already pressing play.
The video loads. For a split second, there’s nothing but static and dim lighting. Then the angle shifts onto him. But it’s not the Jude I know, or even the broken version I’ve been trying to hold together. This version of him is…unrecognizable.
He’s wearing that white mask we found in his jacket.
My skin had crawled the moment Rafe pulled it out and we saw the blood smeared on it.
I wonder how many people’s DNA is on that thing.
He stands in the middle of a concrete room, the same one from the other video.
His chest rises and falls rapidly, like he’s already been pushed past his limit.
There’s blood on his hands. His hair is damp, sticking to his forehead.
And someone is on the floor in front of him. At first, it’s just movement. Something trying to drag itself away. Then the camera shifts, and I see his face. I clamp a hand over my mouth when I see that it’s bruised, swollen, and barely recognizable as a person anymore.
“Убийство.”
Alexei’s distorted voice slices through the video.
My entire body goes cold. Jude flinches. It’s small, but it’s there. A fracture in the control. And then—
He moves fast enough that my eyes struggle to track it.
His fist connects with the man’s ribs, once, twice, the sound dull and heavy even through the phone speaker.
The man tries to crawl away, fingers dragging uselessly against the floor, but Jude grabs him by the back of his shirt and yanks him up like he weighs nothing.
“No—” I breathe, my voice breaking, but I can’t look away.
The man is saying something. Pleading. The words blur together in Russian, but I don’t need to understand them to know what they mean. When he slams him back down, the impact feels like it echoes straight through my body.
Again.
And again.
Each hit lands harder than the last, brutal in a way that makes my stomach twist, because this isn’t someone losing control. This is someone who already did.
My heart is pounding so hard that it hurts.
Jude’s hand shoots up suddenly, ripping the mask off his face.
It catches for a second, then comes free, dangling from his grip before dropping out of frame.
When he turns for just a second, I can see his face.
There’s nothing there. No hesitation, conflict, or even a trace of the man who ever loved me.
It’s like someone tore his soul away and left the body behind.
My stomach lurches. “Jude…” I whisper, but it disappears under the sound of another hit. This one makes me flinch, and the phone nearly slips from my hand.
The man’s voice cuts off. Just…gone. But the silence that follows? Worse.
Terror crawls up the back of my throat, and I have to swallow hard to keep from choking on it.
The video glitches, the frame stuttering once before cutting to black.
A sound leaves me, but I don’t recognize it.
It tears out of my chest as if my fucking soul just ripped.
My hand presses against my sternum, like I can hold everything together if I just push hard enough.
I’m gasping, trying to breathe. Trying to undo what I just saw. But I can’t.
Because I watched him—
I watched him beat a man to death.
Micah is already pacing. “This is everywhere,” he says, his voice cracking. “It’s already trending. It’s already—fuck.”
Heather shakes her head, her screen reflecting in her eyes. “They’re calling him a monster. Some of them think it’s staged, but…” her voice falters, “Most don’t.”
Nico doesn’t look up. “Three major outlets. And climbing.”
Rafe’s voice is quieter. “This is only the beginning.”
I can’t breathe, because it’s not just a video. It’s a narrative. And it’s already being written without him. My chest caves in as the images replay anyway. The way he moved without hesitation once the order was given. How his face looked like there was nothing left inside it even worth saving.
“Emma.”
Micah’s voice reaches me, but it feels far away.
I shake my head once.
No.
No, no, no.
“This isn’t him,” I whisper, even as my voice breaks apart. “This is what they made him do. This is what they turned him into.”
But the words feel absolutely useless right now, because the world doesn’t give a damn what we know. The world saw that video, and now, Alexei has done exactly what he wanted. He’s turned Jude into the villain.
Micah’s phone slips from my hand and hits the couch, the screen still glowing on the headline. And all I can think, as the room spins and tilts and refuses to steady, is that we didn’t just lose time.
We might have just lost him to the world, too.