Chapter 15: The monsters remembers

Victoria's POV

I sat at the window side as I watched the remote and snow covered estate stay cold and utterly silent, my legs rested on the cold marble floors and my eyes would constantly dart around the old catholic paintings and oil lamp light — it was the place my mother owned before her death. The gilt mirrors reflected my face on it like some ghosts and someway I was scared.

I still stared onwards but I chose to play the piano. The low rhythm and sound seemed to play comfort but haunting was real — not backing off. My fingers suddenly turned stained with blood, but I keep replaying just a single discordant note.

“She chose him… always him.“ I muttered with a gruffly tone.

Suddenly, I stand, knocking the piano bench over in frustration and my hands clutched a crumpled photo — it was Jessica's.

My obsession is almost religious now — not lust, but something worse but I ignored it.

I stared at the snow as it poured even a memory of one winter day. The flashback spools like a broken film;

I was 18, when I stood over my mother's body. She lay still, overdosed? Not fed? I never got a clear answer but her note was addressed to David and it broke me.

He took her love and she took his dearly while I was tossed aside like an irrelevant tool that only mattered when you desperately needed him. He took everything. So I've sworn to take everything from him.

The world sees me as the villain whose job is to antagonize the forces of who is assumed to be the good guy. But where is my justice? Where is my happy ending?

I'm fine with being the villain in David's story. It's the least I can do after all the pains he caused me. If he has forgotten about the pain that mother faced before dying, I will remind him that while he healed from it as if nothing happened, the pain is the only thing I have left of her.

But no matter what I try to do, everything seemed to fail. What was I going to do to ensure that my objectives stuck and they were successful? Playing the good guy has never worked. Perhaps, I'm not ruthless enough to get the task done?

I walked away from the window and now, I stood before a walk line with red threaded maps and photographs — David, Jessica and… the gallery.

I picked up my lighter and torched the picture starting from David's left eye. I could torch his face over and over again. I totally got engulfed in what I was doing to the point where I almost didn't realize that the fire was burning me.

I tossed it into the trash can beside me and I washed as his smiles fade into ashes. I picked up Jessica's picture next. She decided to make herself an enemy. She was going to burn a long with David.

On lighting her picture, something dawned on me. I blew the fire away saving what was left of the image. Jessica wasn't quite done in the picture. She was the only way I could get to reach him.

But as I sat in my silent solitude, all the memories of my mother circled around me.

David.

He was her favorite. The golden boy with the best personality any parent obsessed with perfection could ever get. He was the lie she paraded around in parties showing to influential and affluent people and I was the truth to be concealed.

He took everything. Her attention. Her comfort. Her final words without even realizing it. That note that mother addressed to him pierced like a hook to a fish. Not a single sentence for me. Not even a goodbye. Only silence. While David enjoyed himself in wherever he was at that time.

And now he thinks he can live in peace, grow in power, build an empire with Jessica by his side. He thinks the past is dead and buried.

But I remember. I always remember and I never forget.

I turned back toward the wall where the red-thread map stared at me like a web of sins. Photographs, receipts, surveillance captures. I’d been watching for months. David’s movements, his deals, his allies. And Jessica. The gallery opening, the charity gala, the little white dress she wore when she smiled at him like he was her savior.

I ground my teeth.

He doesn’t deserve her.

But she doesn’t deserve mercy either.

I lit the lighter again, watching the flame dance. David’s picture was already ash, smoldering in the metal trash bin, a hollow echo of satisfaction curling in my chest. But it was not ever enough. Not yet. Jessica’s image stared up at me from my palm, edges blackened. Her smile still survived. Her eyes still tried to make me feel something soft.

I spat on the floor.

“No more mercy!” I knocked the table over.

The world thinks monsters are born. They’re wrong. Monsters are made, fed only with the scraps of what others leave behind.

I was forged in the coldness the house presented.

They made me this.

And I will make them suffer.

He built his life on illusion. And I would tear it apart brick by brick, canvas by canvas.

But I wouldn’t kill them quickly. That would be too kind. No… I’d dismantle the so called joy they cherish. I will unravel their peace and corrupt their love.

Let him watch Jessica fall out of reach. Let her see him fail. Let them rot in the same pit they dug for me. And let him feel the pain of being betrayed by someone he loves.

And when it was over, when I have won and my motives are executed to the fullest and there is nothing left to burn, I’d make them remember my name.

The forgotten son.

The ruined heir.

The monster who never sleeps.

I moved to the bar cart in the corner and poured myself a glass of red wine, about to toast to no more constant failures.

“To vengeance.” I whispered, clinking the glass against the mirror as I smiled at my other half ready for the next phase. . “And to the end of happy endings.”

I downed the drink in a single, bitter swallow. Then I took the last remaining photograph of Jessica, tucked it in a velvet box, and slid it into my co

at with care. She wasn’t done yet in becoming the perfect bait. Not by a long shot.