He Kissed His First Love in Front of My BLIND Eyes-Until I Watched Him Burn Chapter 07

He Kissed His First Love in Front of My BLIND Eyes-Until I Watched Him Burn Chapter 07

“Cameron,” I said, voice flat. “I found Sierra.”

His whole body locked up. His eyes flew wide.

“Where is she?”

“In a… very ‘nice’ place.” I pulled my hand free and pulled up a video on my phone.

The video showed a filthy, stinking cage.

Sierra was locked inside like an animal. Hair a mess, face smeared with dirt, her expensive Chanel suit

torn to shreds.

She huddled in the corner, eyes full of terror.

Outside the cage, a big thug with a scarred face held a wet whip. He cracked it over her again and again.

Every hit, she screamed.

Just like the video she’d shown me of Nugget’s “training.”

“You…” Cameron’s lips trembled. He stared at me like he’d never seen me before. “You did this?”

“Yeah.” I smiled, no shame. “What goes around comes around, right? She loved watching animals get

‘trained.’ So I figured she’d appreciate a firsthand experience.”

“You’re insane!” Cameron lunged at me, but he was too sick. He coughed violently and collapsed back

onto the bed.

“Insane?” I leaned down, put my lips next to his ear, and whispered so only he could hear. “Cameron. I

can see.”

His pupils shrank to pinpricks.

The blood drained from his face in real time.

He stared into my eyes-the eyes he thought were forever empty.

But there was no blankness now. No innocence. Only cold, clear certainty.

“When…?” His voice shook.

“When you kicked me down the stairs and told me to be your good little wife, no dog, no life, just waiting for you?”

“Or when you swapped my vitamins for sleeping pills, so I’d just fade away in that attic?”

“Or when you put your arm around Sierra and laughed that a blind girl doesn’t even know when the sun’s

up?”

him.

Every word made him whiter.

Every crime he thought I didn’t know-the ones he’d laughed about-now became a blade, slicing into

“No… that’s not possible…” He was talking to himself, like he couldn’t accept it.

“Anything’s possible.” I straightened up, looking down at him. “Cameron, you thought you were the one pulling strings. But you’re just the monkey in the cage.”

“Three years. I saw everything. Every time you hurt me. Humiliated me. Every time Sierra schemed and

smirked. I saw it all.”

“I was just waiting. For the chance to throw all of you into hell.”

I watched him break. It felt sick and good at the same time.

“Sierra… what did you do to her?” he rasped, grasping for his last scrap of hope.

“I didn’t do anything.” I shrugged. “I just sent her where she belongs. Oh, by the way-the guy who runs

that training camp? My dad put him in prison for animal abuse. He has a special… interest in pretty women.”

The last light in Cameron’s eyes died.

He slumped, boneless, on the bed. Staring at nothing. “Crazy… you’re crazy…”

I enjoyed the view long enough, then turned to leave.

At the door, I stopped and looked back and smiled.

“Oh. One more thing.”

“That Van Gogh ‘Starry Night’ in your study? Fake.”

“The ‘Heart of the Ocean’ diamond in your safe? Also fake.”

“All those limited edition bags and jewelry you gave Sierra? High-end counterfeits I had made.”

“The real stuff-plus my mother’s inheritance-already moved out.”

“Cameron. Everything you were proud of. Your money. Your status. Your love story. It was all a joke

from the start.”

I didn’t look back.

Behind me, a sound-like an animal being gutted.

Beautiful.

The Hawthorne empire collapsed.

The evidence was solid. Cameron’s father was taken straight from the ICU. Life sentence.

Hawthorne Group was seized. Bankruptcy. Liquidation.

Overnight, Crestwood’s first family turned to dust.

When Cameron got out of the hospital, he had nothing.

Mansion seized. Accounts frozen. He was a pariah.

He went looking for Sierra.

At that remote training camp.

When he found her, she’d already lost her mind.

Covered in bruises, barely dressed, she screamed and crawled into corners at the sight of anyone. “Don’t

hit me… I’ll be good… I promise…”

life.

Cameron tried to take her away. But when she saw him, she went feral-scratching, biting.

He got thrown out by the camp owner, the guy my father had put away, and beaten within an inch of his

He lay in a filthy alley, broken, not moving.

Landon told me all this.

He said Cameron wanders the streets now like a ghost.

Doesn’t eat. Doesn’t drink. Doesn’t talk. Just walks.

Walks everywhere they used to go. My old family house. The hotel where they got engaged. The

apartment where he pushed me off the balcony. The mansion where he kept me in the attic.

And finally, the burned shell of the ballroom. He sits there from dawn till dark.

“He’s looking for something,” Landon said.

I know what he’s looking for.

That guide rope.

The short piece that survived the fire-the one I carved his crimes into.

After the fire, the rope was given to him as a “keepsake.”

The fabric burned away, but the metal clip-the one I’d marked with braille-remained.

[October 3, 2020, rain. You gave Nugget away.]

[January 15, 2021, sun. You first spiked my pills.]

[June 9, 2022, cloudy. You pushed me down the stairs for Sierra.]

Every single thing he did to me. Recorded.

Three years of me suffering in the dark.

The rope was his confession. His own hand had delivered it to me.

“Sloane…” Landon hesitated on the phone. “Do you want to see him one last time?”

“Last time?”

“He doesn’t have long. The doctors say his body’s done. He’s running on fumes.”