("Sometimes, vengeance isn't about destruction. It's about watching someone live with their guilt.")
---
The third one was supposed to be different.
Liam had never touched her. Not in the same way.
But he had watched.
He had watched while others took. While others ruined.
He was the son of Ava—the woman who had sold her soul for survival, the woman who had never once thought of her child. And Liam had grown to believe he was untouchable. He was the prince of the town, the one who had inherited everything without ever lifting a finger.
But unlike the others, he had never touched her.
Yet in Lucia's eyes, that made him no better.
Because he was the one who had watched.
---
Lucia found him on the balcony of his mansion, staring out at the village below. The moonlight cast long shadows over his face, highlighting the self-satisfied expression that had once made him feel untouchable. He was still young, still too proud. But he didn't see her coming.
It was only when she spoke that he froze.
> "You didn't think I'd remember, did you?"
Liam turned, his face betraying surprise.
> "Lucia? What… what are you doing here?"
She didn't answer immediately. She took a single step forward, her eyes never leaving his.
> "You think you're different, don't you?" She tilted her head slightly. "You think because you never touched me, never laid a finger on me, that you're innocent. But you're not."
Liam laughed nervously, trying to step back, but she was already too close. The air between them was thick, suffocating.
> "I— I never did anything to you, Lucia. I just watched. That's it. You don't need to do this." His voice faltered as she took another step forward. "I was just… I was just a boy. I didn't know."
Her expression softened for the briefest of moments, almost like a shadow of pity, but the edge of her voice stayed razor-sharp.
> "You let it happen. You saw it, and you didn't care. You laughed while they took me. You smiled while I screamed."
He swallowed hard, backing away, fear beginning to take root in his chest. "I didn't know how to stop it. I was just a boy. What was I supposed to do?"
Lucia's eyes locked onto his. The room felt impossibly small now.
> "You could have spoken. You could have screamed. You could have saved me."
But he hadn't. He had watched.
And in that moment, she realized something—he wasn't a monster. He wasn't like the others.
He was just a boy who had been raised with too much power and not enough heart. A boy who had learned the wrong lessons from the world.
---
For the first time since she had started this journey, Lucia's anger faltered.
She took a slow breath, her hand trembling as she reached out and gently pressed her fingers against his cheek.
> "You never understood, did you? You thought if you didn't touch me, it wouldn't count. But it does. It always does."
Liam flinched at the touch, but she didn't pull away. Her voice softened.
> "I came here to break you. To make you feel everything I felt. But instead…" She hesitated. "I see that you already know what it feels like to be empty. To have never been loved. To be a shadow of the person you could have been."
---
Liam looked up at her, his face a mixture of confusion and pain. For the first time, he saw her, not the broken girl he'd watched from the shadows, but the woman standing in front of him—still whole, still fierce, still alive.
And in that moment, he realized how much he had underestimated her. Underestimated the depth of her strength.
> "You never touched me," she repeated, but this time, it wasn't anger in her voice. It was something else.
Pity.
> "You didn't take my body," she whispered. "But you stole my soul."
Liam's eyes filled with tears, the weight of her words sinking in. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.
---
Lucia took a step back, her hand falling to her side. For the first time, she looked at him not with hatred, but with a quiet sorrow.
> "I could destroy you. I could make you beg for mercy. But what would that do? You've already destroyed yourself."
She turned to leave, but before she stepped away, she said one last thing:
> "You're nothing but a boy. And you'll never be a man until you learn what it means to feel what you've made others feel."
---
As Lucia walked away from the balcony, she could hear him behind her—soft sobs, gasping breaths. She didn't turn back.
He would live with his shame. With his guilt. With the echo of her words ringing in his ears for the rest of his life.
---
The villagers would soon find him, a broken boy, trembling on his knees in the mansion. They would whisper about what had happened, but no one would truly understand. He wasn't dead. He wasn't broken by force.
But he would never escape the torment in his heart.
---
Lucia didn't need to destroy him.
The guilt would do that for her.
---