Julian’s POV
The roar of my father’s voice still echoed in my ears, a punishing sound that made my skin crawl. Every word Richard had spat at me, calling me incompetent, useless, had added to my self-loathing. I wanted to be alone and drown in the dark until the shame stopped burning.
But Catherine wouldn’t let me. She stood there, her eyes flashing with a defiance that matched the anger in my blood. When she threw my own command back at me, refusing to move, something cut through my alcohol-induced haze. My anger suddenly felt misdirected.
I looked at her standing in the middle of my messy, smoke-filled room. She wasn’t the one who had humiliated me. She was the only person who had ever tried to stand between me and that monster.
My shoulders slumped, the defensive posture I’d held since childhood finally failing me.
"I’m sorry," my voice cracked in a mutter. I lowered my head, staring at the amber liquid in my glass. "I shouldn’t have yelled at you."
Catherine didn’t soften immediately. She crossed her arms and tilted her chin up. "You’re going to have to do a lot more than just saying sorry before I forgive you for that, Julian," she said, though the edge in her voice was beginning to fray.
I looked up at her, and suddenly, the weight of everything became too much. My throat tightened. The mask I wore every day, the one that projected cold indifference and Vaughn-family steel, shattered.
The first tear escaped before I could stop it, hot and stinging, and then it turned into drops of tears. I felt like a child again, trapped in the back of a black car, watching the world move on while I was stuck in a nightmare. I didn’t care about the alcohol or the cigarettes anymore. I just felt broken.
Catherine’s expression transformed instantly. The defiance vanished, replaced by a look of empathy. She moved across the room in a blur, and before I could even draw a breath, I was out of my seat. I didn’t think; I just lunged toward her, burying my face against her neck as I let out a choked, broken sob.
She caught me, her arms wrapping around me. She squeezed me hard, her hands rubbing my back as if she could physically pull the pain out of my bones.
"I hate him," I choked out, the words muffled against her skin. "I hate him so much, Catherine. I wish I had never come back."
"I know," she whispered, her voice a soothing balm. "I understand exactly how you feel, Julian."
I pulled back then, my face wet and my chest heaving. I looked at her, searching her eyes. "No," I said, shaking my head. "You don’t understand. You can’t understand. You only see the man who yells and insults me but you don’t know all I’ve been through in his hands."
I took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to steady my racing heart. I walked back to the edge of the bed and sat down, my legs feeling like lead. Catherine followed me closely. She didn’t sit; she dropped to her knees on the floor in front of me, taking my shaking hands in hers.
I shut my eyes tight, the memory of the past rising. I felt the phantom heat against my skin, a pain that never truly went away, no matter how many years passed.
"Those scars," I whispered, as my voice trembled. "The ones you saw on my back... the ones I refused to talk about."
I opened my eyes and looked at her. Her gaze was fixed on mine, her face pale.
"They were inflicted on me by him. By my father," I said, the truth finally breaking through.
Catherine’s eyes widened, her pupils dilating in a look of pure shock. Her hands tightened around mine for a second before she let out a horrified gasp. She let go of my hands and stood up abruptly, only to sit down on the bed right beside me, her body hovering close.
"What?" she breathed, the word a tiny, shattered sound. "No..."
I swallowed hard. "It started after my mother disappeared," I began, the words coming out in a flat, hollow drone. "Everyone was told she just left. That she chose to move on with another man and abandoned us but that was a lie. I knew the truth. I was young, but I wasn’t blind. I saw him throw her out. I heard him tell her that if she ever tried to contact us, he’d make sure she ended up in a ditch."
I felt Catherine’s hand move to her mouth, her eyes welling with fresh tears.
"I couldn’t keep quiet," I continued. "I was a kid, and I loved her. Every time someone mentioned how ’unfortunate’ it was that she left, I would scream the truth. I told the staff, I told the neighbors, I told anyone who would listen that he was the one who sent her away. I called him a liar to his face."
I paused, the memory of that day as vivid as if it were happening right now.
"He finally snapped. He caught me telling one of his political advisors the truth in the hallway. He didn’t yell then. He just smiled, apologized to the guest, and dragged me upstairs by my hair. He locked me up in a small room in the old wing. He told me that if I liked stories so much, he’d give me something real to write about."
I looked down at my hands, my vision blurring. "He hit me for hours. Not with his hands, he didn’t want to bruise his knuckles. He used a belt and a cane and when he wasn’t satisfied, he picked up an iron. Plugged it into the socket..."
Catherine let out a small, choked sob, but I couldn’t stop. I needed to expose everything I had passed through.
"He pinned me down on the floor," I whispered. "And held the hot iron against my back, over and over again. I screamed until my throat was raw and couldn’t make a sound anymore. He kept doing it, telling me that every scar would be a reminder of what happens to boys who tell lies about their fathers. I fainted from the pain."
Catherine was shaking now, her hand gripping my shoulder so hard. "Julian... oh, God, Julian."
"When I woke up," I said, my voice dropping to a near-whisper, "I wasn’t in a hospital. I was in a mental asylum. He had used his influence to have me committed. He told everyone that I had suffered a psychotic break after my mom left. He told them I was self-harming, that I had burned myself in a fit of madness. He kept me there for months. I spent months surrounded by people who were truly lost, while he played the grieving, burdened father to the public."
I looked at Catherine, and the horror on her face was absolute.
"He broke me there," I admitted. "By the time I came home, I knew the rules. If I stayed quiet, I stayed out of the asylum. If I played the part of the perfect son, I didn’t get the iron. I became the cold, distant Vaughn everyone expected, because the alternative was too terrifying to endure."
Catherine was silent for a long time, her chest heaving as she processed it all. Then, she stood up, her eyes burning with sudden anger.
"He’s a bastard," she dragged, her words dripping with a hatred I’d never heard from her before. "He’s a sick, twisted bastard. Julian, we can’t let him get away with this. We have to expose him. We can tell the truth about what he did to you, what he did to your mother—"
She started to turn toward the door, her movement fueled by raw anger.
"No!" I shouted, lashing out and grabbing her hand, pulling her back toward me. I shook my head frantically, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"Catherine, stop! You don’t understand."
She looked back at me, defiance clearly written on her face. "What? What don’t I understand? He’s a criminal, an abuser, Julian! He belongs in a cell, not a Senate seat!"
"He is Richard Vaughn," I said, my voice trembling with the weight of my fear. "He doesn’t just have money; he has power. He owns the police in this district. He has judges in his pocket. He has a team of fixers who can make people disappear as easily as he made my mother disappear. If we try to expose him without any proof that he can’t bury, he won’t just win, he’ll destroy us."
I looked her dead in the eye, my grip on her hand desperate. "He’ll send me back to that asylum, and he’ll find a way to make sure you never see the light of day again. He is dangerous, Catherine. More dangerous than anyone you’ve ever met."