CHAPTER 22: WHEN EVERYTHING FALLS APART

Alex was in his apartment sipping coffee, looking around and thinking he should probably find a better place. With the money Victoria had been giving him, he could afford it now.

He felt a little like a sugar baby, but honestly? He didn’t mind.

The system buzzed with a notification.

He glanced at it absently, but surprisingly Victoria’s emotional dependency had jumped from 94% to 99% in the matter of minutes.

"What the hell?" He set down his coffee, frowning at the screen.

For days, that number had been stuck. Now it was climbing like she was having some kind of breakdown.

Before he could process it further, someone started pounding on his door.

Not knocking. Battering.

His heart jumped. Seven missed calls lit up his phone screen, all from Victoria.

The pounding came again, desperate and violent.

Alex ran to the door.

____

Victoria couldn’t breathe.

The drive should have taken twenty minutes. She’d done it in eight, running lights and nearly hitting a pedestrian, but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down, couldn’t think about anything except getting to him.

James knew. James fucking knew and didn’t care.

And Sophia—God, what kind of monster did I raise?

The thoughts kept spinning, each one cutting deeper than the last.

Her fists hit his door until her knuckles started bleeding.

The door flew open.

Alex stood there, shirt unbuttoned, eyes wide with alarm. The sight of him, whole, breathing, safe... nearly dropped her to her knees.

"Victoria, what..."

She crashed into him.

Alex stumbled backward as she grabbed at his shirt, his shoulders, anything to prove he was real. Her makeup streaked across his chest. Her breath came in broken gasps.

"I know," she choked out against his neck. "I know what she did to you. I know about Blackwood Universiry. I know everything and I’m...Alex, I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry."

His coffee mug hit the floor and shattered.

Alex went completely still in her arms.

"What are you saying...?"

Victoria pulled back, her hands shaking as she touched his face. Her eyes were wild, desperate.

"My husband knew. He’s known this whole time. Called it a ’minor scuffle’ while you..." Her voice broke. "While you were alone in a hospital because of my daughter."

Alex felt the world tilt sideways.

She knew.

Victoria knew what Sophia had done to him, and she was here, tearing herself apart over it.

"How long?" His voice sounded strangled. "How long have you known?"

"Twenty minutes." Victoria’s grip on his face tightened. "Twenty minutes and I can’t think straight. Twenty minutes and I feel like I’m drowning."

Something cracked open in Alex’s chest.

For almost a month, he’d carried this alone. The humiliation, the pain, the way everyone looked at him afterward... like he’d deserved it for trying to climb too high.

Now Victoria Blackwood was falling apart because someone had hurt him.

"Victoria..."

"Tell me." The words came out fierce, desperate. "Tell me what they did to you. All of it. I need to know what I was too blind to see."

Alex stared at her face and saw something that made his throat tight. This wasn’t pity. This wasn’t curiosity.

This was a woman ready to burn everything down for him.

"You don’t want this story," he whispered.

"I need it." Victoria’s eyes burned into his. "I need to know who my daughter really is. Please, Alex."

Alex looked at her, this powerful woman coming apart because his pain had become unbearable to her, and felt something shift between them.

She wasn’t just choosing him.

She was choosing him over everything.

"Okay," he said quietly, his hands covering hers. "But Victoria... once you hear this, you can’t unhear it."

Victoria’s jaw set.

"Good," she said. "I’m tired of being blind."

____

He led her to the couch, moving carefully like she might shatter. Victoria’s hands found his face again, thumbs tracing the exhaustion under his eyes.

"Tell me what happened," she whispered.

Alex went still under her touch. She watched him retreat behind his eyes... that wall she’d glimpsed but never understood.

"Alex." Her voice was barely audible. "Don’t hide from me. Not now."

He looked away, jaw working. When he finally spoke, his voice was hollow.

"Sophia invited me to the party. It was supposed to be a date. At least... I thought it was."

Victoria felt something cold settle in her stomach.

Alex gave a bitter laugh. "I even bought her a ring. Worked double shifts for weeks to afford it. Nothing expensive, but it was real. I thought... I thought she might say yes if I proposed."

Victoria’s throat tightened.

"But when I gave it to her, she laughed." His voice went flat. "Loud. Like she’d been waiting for this moment. Like it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen."

Victoria’s hands fell to her lap.

"Then her friends appeared. They were all watching. Grinning. Everyone was in on it except me. Turns out it was a bet. A game to see how far the scholarship kid would go before he figured it out."

"No..." Victoria whispered.

"She told me herself," Alex continued, staring at the wall. "Said I was pathetic for thinking someone like her could ever want someone like me. Said I should have known better."

He wasn’t crying. Somehow that made it worse.

"Maybe she was right. Maybe I was delusional. My friends tried to warn me, said something felt off. But I thought they were just jealous. I thought what we had was real."

Victoria felt like she was going to be sick.

"And then Marcus and his friends decided to teach me a lesson. Right there in front of everyone. Like I was some animal that had wandered into the wrong neighborhood."

"Oh God..."

"They didn’t stop until I was on the ground." His voice was matter-of-fact, like he was reading from a report. "People watched. Some filmed it. Then I woke up in the hospital three days later. Alone."

Victoria’s vision blurred.

"No one came," Alex added quietly. "No calls. No visitors. Just me and the medical bills."

She shook her head, not wanting to hear more but needing to know.

"And Sophia?"

Alex met her eyes, and there was nothing there. No anger, no hurt. Just emptiness.

"She blocked me on everything. Told people I’d gone crazy. That I tried to force myself on her and Marcus saved her from a psycho."

The silence stretched between them.

Victoria’s mouth opened, but what could she say? That she was sorry? That she didn’t know?

Her daughter had done this.

Her sweet, spoiled daughter had orchestrated someone’s destruction for entertainment.

"I didn’t know," she finally managed.

Alex nodded. "I didn’t tell you to make you feel guilty."

"But I do," she said, her voice breaking. "I feel like I failed you. Both of you. In completely different ways."

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, not caring that her makeup was ruined.

"I should have seen what she was becoming," she whispered. "I should have done something."

The weight of it settled over them both, the impossible cruelty of coincidence, the way love had grown in the shadow of violence, the price of willful blindness finally coming due.

Victoria looked at Alex, closely, and saw not just the man she’d fallen for, but the boy her family had tried to break.

He was still here. Still whole, somehow.

Still capable of love despite everything they’d done to him.

That might have been the most devastating part of all.

_____

Victoria’s composure finally shattered completely.

The sobs came in waves, deep and wrenching, twenty-two years of buried guilt and fresh horror pouring out of her all at once. She doubled over, hands pressed to her face, her whole body shaking with the force of it.

"I’m sorry," she gasped between sobs. "I’m so sorry, Alex. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you. I’m sorry I raised her to think people like you were disposable. I’m sorry I was too blind to see what she was becoming."

Alex didn’t say anything. He just pulled her against his chest, his arms wrapping around her as she fell apart in his lap.

"I should have known," she whispered into his shirt, her voice muffled and broken. "A mother should know when her child is capable of that kind of cruelty."

"Victoria..." His voice was gentle, his hand stroking her hair.

"She destroyed you for fun," Victoria choked out. "And I funded it. I paid for her parties, her clothes, her whole fucking life while she was... " Another sob cut her off.

Alex held her tighter, feeling her tears soak through his shirt. This powerful woman who commanded boardrooms and political circles was completely undone in his arms, grieving for him and for the daughter she thought she knew.

Her sobs gradually grew quieter, exhaustion taking hold. The emotional toll of the day... the revelation, the drive, the confession, the guilt... finally caught up with her. Her grip on his shirt loosened as her breathing became deeper, more even.

Alex realized she was falling asleep against him, her face still streaked with tears.

He didn’t move. Didn’t dare disturb this fragile peace they’d found in the wreckage of everything they thought they knew. Outside, the world continued spinning... James was probably wondering where his wife was, Sophia was probably at some party, the campaign was probably collapsing without its perfect political couple.

But here, holding the woman who’d chosen him over everything, Alex finally felt like he could breathe again.

Victoria Blackwood had fallen asleep sobbing in his arms, and somehow, in this moment of complete devastation, they’d never been closer.