Chapter 55
Chapter 55
KAT’S POV
My throat tightens the moment Percy says those words. The air in the room feels colder suddenly, like someone opened a window I didn’t see.
I’m still standing there in nothing but his shirt, his shirt that still smells like him.
“Percy, listen to me,” I say. “I am justified. After everything they—”
My sentence dies because Percy’s phone lights up again. Another vibration. Then another. He frowns, grabs the device from the nightstand, and his expression shifts as he reads the screen. His eyebrows pull together in disbelief, then outrage, then something heavier something that makes my chest clench.
“What is it?” I ask quietly.
He doesn’t answer right away. He reads. His jaw locks. His fingers tighten around the phone like he wants to crush it.
Finally he looks at me.
“It’s from Matt.”
My blood freezes. “What?”
Percy clears his throat harshly, then reads the text out loud.
“‘Percy you don’t know half the story. Kat OWNS the betting company Paula was gambling through. She went bankrupt and Kat forced her to work for her to pay back the debt. Kat has her running errands like a servant. She planned it. Ask her if I’m lying.’”
He lowers the phone slowly, staring at me like I’m a stranger he just discovered hiding in his closet.
“Kat,” he says in a low voice, “tell me this is a lie.”
The silence becomes a knife.
I swallow hard. My heart feels like it’s beating in my throat, loud, panicked, humiliating.
“It’s true,” I whisper. “But Percy, listen—”
His face changes instantly. There are a lot of emotions in his eyes -hurt, horror and disappointment
“Oh my God,” he breathes, stepping back from me like I burned him. “This is… Kat, this is sick.”
“Sick?” My chest caves. “No. No, don’t say it like that. You don’t know the whole—”
“This is twisted,” Percy says louder. “She’s my sister. My family. And you, what, trapped her? Manipulated her? Used her punishment as your entertainment?”
“It wasn’t entertainment!” I shout back. I felt heat rushing up my neck. “I was hurt! I was betrayed! I needed—”
“Control?” he snaps. “So you decide to destroy someone else’s life to get a sense of it?”
“I didn’t destroy her life!”
“You humiliated her!”
“She humiliated me first!”
He stares at me like he doesn’t recognize who I am.
“So what?” he says quietly. “That makes all of this okay?”
“No,” I whisper. I was breathless, shaking. “Not okay. But justified.”
Percy lets out humorless laugh. “Justified. Wow.”
His sarcasm cuts deeper than any insult.
I try again. “You don’t understand—”
“No,” he says, pointing at me,. “Don’t say that. Don’t you ever say that to me. You think I don’t know pain? You think I don’t know betrayal? I was in a toxic, abusive marriage, Kat. I lost everything because of Brittany. Everything. So don’t stand there and act like your pain is the only pain that matters.”
I flinch. The anger in his voice is new.
“That’s not what I meant,” I say. “Percy, I’m not minimizing you. I’m—”
“But you hid this.” His voice breaks in the middle. “You did all of this behind my back. And worse, you used my family in your revenge game.”
I wrap my arms around myself. My chest aches. “I didn’t plan for it like that. It wasn’t personal—”
“She’s my sister,” he reminds me. “Everything involving her is personal.”
I take a step toward him. “Percy-”
“Stop.” He holds up a hand. “Just stop. I can’t think. I can’t even look at you right now.”
Something inside me finally cracks.
“Maybe this was a mistake from the beginning,” I whisper. My voice is full of hurt and fury I can’t contain anymore. “Maybe we shouldn’t try to make this work.”
Percy looks like I slapped him.
His face softens for a split second. Something wounded flashes in his eyes. But I can’t look at it. I can’t breathe.
Before he can say another word, I turn and storm into the bathroom, slamming the door so hard the frame rattles.
The moment I’m alone, all the strength leaves my body. I slide down the cool tiles, knees up, arms wrapped around them. I’m shaking so badly I can barely hold myself together.
My phone is still in my hand. Melissa’s livestream is still ongoing.
I tap it with a shaking thumb.
The screen lights up with Melissa’s face. Her face is red, blotchy, mascara smeared, hair wild. She looks unstable. She looks theatrical. She looks like she knows exactly what she’s doing.
“Do you SEE?” Melissa sobs dramatically to the thousands of viewers. “Kat ruined my life! She stole everything from me! She turned Paula into her slave! She’s manipulative! She’s dangerous! She’s obsessed with revenge!”
Comments fly across the screen.
“Kat is psycho.”
“Who does that to someone’s family???”
“Team Melissa forever.”
“She needs help.”
“This is scary.”
My stomach twists so violently I almost gag.
Do they all think I’m a monster?
Does Percy think it now too?
My breathing becomes fast, shallow, humiliating.
I can’t stop the spiral.
I open my contacts and call my PR crisis team with trembling fingers.
They answer on the first ring.
“Kat? We’re seeing everything,” my head strategist says/
“I need it fixed,” I choke out. “I need – please - fix this.”
“We’re on it,” another team member says. “We’ve already started scrubbing the trending tags. We’re preparing a counter-statement. We’re tracking who leaked the photos of Paula. Melissa’s meltdown actually works in your favor—she looks unstable.”
“Good,” I whisper, even though nothing about this feels good. “Just do whatever you have to. Make it stop.”
“We will,” the strategist says firmly. “Hang tight.”
When I end the call, the silence is unbearable.
I stand shakily and move toward the mirror.
The reflection that looks back at me barely resembles me. My hair is a mess. My shoulders are shaking.
I look broken.
The kind of broken I promised I would never be again.
My voice comes out small, cracking as I whisper to myself:
“Am I a bad person?”
Another notification buzzes. Then another. Then three more.
More lives. More comments. More chaos.
My stomach twists.
I sink back down onto the tile floor, hugging my knees again, burying my face against them.
I feel alone. Exposed. Terrified.
And somewhere through the wall, Percy is still in the bedroom—hurt because of me.