Chapter 96

Chapter 96
Unknown POV 

16 years later

I watch them as they step out of their big, immaculate house—Diego, Landon, and their sixteen‑year‑old son, Lawson. All three dressed as if they walked out of a magazine spread. Even from here, tucked low in the bushes near their gate, I can hear their laughter drifting across the morning air. Warm. Easy. Familiar.

Security never comes past the gate unless someone approaches. I won’t be approaching. Not yet. So I sit and watch, the way I’ve done for months now.

My eyes linger on the boy. Lawson. Sixteen, confident, loved. You can see it in the way he moves—shoulders relaxed, smile unguarded, like the world has never once tried to break him. I wonder, briefly, if he’s impressionable. If he could be turned against them the way I’ve turned myself. But no. They’ve wrapped him in too much love for that. He knows exactly where he belongs.

So that won’t be my way in.

But maybe he can be useful in another way. I’ll have to think about that longer.

Good thing I got my diploma because that just earned me a brand new job that I start next week. I'm going to be a mail clerk in Diego's company, even though he won't realize who I am because I have a different last name.

The car rolls down the long driveway toward the gate. They always leave in the same direction, which is why this spot is perfect. Predictable. Safe. I’ve been watching them since I turned eighteen—since the day the foster system spit me out with a trash bag of clothes and a “good luck.”

Sixteen years of bouncing between strangers’ houses, and a few months sleeping in bus stations, washing up in gas station bathrooms. Sixteen years of being forgotten. Overlooked. Unwanted.

And all because of them.

I rise from my crouch and slip out of the neighborhood, the manicured lawns and perfect hedges making my stomach twist. Their world is too polished. Too untouched. Too far from the one I grew up in. I head for the bus stop, ready to leave their world behind for a while. I have an appointment at this clothing bank that donates work clothes to youth.

Soon, I catch the bus to the train station, ride a few stops, then get off and walk to the clothing bank tucked inside a nondescript building. It’s a different world in there: racks of donated clothes line the walls like a secondhand department store. A woman greets me with a warm smile.

“You can pick out three full outfits and two pairs of shoes. Two belts, socks, and underwear as well.”

I nod, grateful even if I don’t show it. I sift through the racks, choosing shirts and pants that look close to my size. She calls out that I can try them on, so I grab a couple of pairs of shoes and head to the fitting room.

The clothes fit better than anything I’ve worn in years. Seeing myself in the mirror—clean lines, proper fit—almost startles me. I’d forgotten what it felt like to look… put together. Like someone who belongs somewhere.

I fold everything neatly and gather the rest. At the desk, the woman writes down my name and tells me I can come back every six months until I’m twenty‑one. No charge. No judgment.

I thank her quietly and leave with the bag in hand.

Time to head back to the college dorm I’ve been staying in. A guy I met at the gym offered me his spare bed—no strings attached, just company. He acts tough around others, but alone, he speaks softly and is considerate. He’s even made sure I’ve eaten. Given me a place to sleep. I’ll pay him back when I get my first paycheck.

The dorm has been the first place in years where I didn’t have to sleep with one eye open. A place where I could think. Plan.

I unlock the door and step into the dim room. It’s not big, but it’s not small either, and it’s clean, warm, and half mine for now. I cross to the desk I’ve claimed and pull open the drawer.

Inside is the key that I received when I turned eighteen. I don't know what it unlocks. Then there's the notebook.

The one where I’ve written every thought, every memory, every plan. The one place where the truth lives unfiltered. Also, the diary of my father, little snippets of his life, and how it would end. He wrote about that before he passed.

I flip it open, staring at the pages filled with the ways I’ve imagined making Diego and Landon feel even a fraction of what I felt—loss, abandonment, the hollow ache of being left behind.

They’re the reason I spent sixteen years in the system. The reason I grew up without a family, without safety, without love. The reason I learned to survive instead of live.

They took everything from me.

And I intend to make them pay for that.

The only thing I keep coming back to is their son.

I see no other way to make them understand the kind of loss that hollowed me out all these years. My mother died first, then my father, and with them went every thread tying me to a life that might have been different. There was no one left to claim me, no distant relatives stepping forward, no safety net waiting to catch me. So the system took me in—cold hands, colder walls—and I suffered for it.

I grew up learning what love looked like only from the outside. I could recognize it in the way other kids were held, spoken to, and protected. I could see it in the softness of their parents’ eyes, in the way they were shielded from the world’s sharp edges. I knew love existed because I watched it happen to everyone but me.

But knowing something exists and feeling it are two different worlds.

And I’ve never crossed into the one where love lives.

So yes—they have to pay. Maybe with blood, maybe with violence, but for sure with the truth. With the consequences of knowing what they did. With the unraveling of the perfect life they built on the ashes of mine. They took everything from me—family, safety, childhood—and left me to grow up in poverty and neglect, unloved and unseen.

They built their empire while I learned to survive.

Now it’s my turn to take something back.



Hey guys! That's the end of the story. Thank you for reading this far. I really appreciated all the interaction you guys gave! Thank you all so much!
Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, and wishing you all a very Happy and prosperous New Year!
Hope to see you all in my next book, coming early next year, Fated for Sure. Another omegaverse tale that's a spinoff of my book, Like No Other. Thanks again, guys, it's been fun!