---- Chapter 22 Haylie Camacho POV: The video arrived on my phone with no message. It was from an unknown number. | watched it, my face impassive. Jeremy, his face a mask of cold fury, whipping a screaming Joselin. Jeremy, confronting his father, his voice dripping with venom as he declared the end of the Glass empire. | deleted it. An hour later, there was a knock on my door. It was Jeremy. He looked like he had walked through fire, his clothes singed, his face smudged with soot. But his eyes... his eyes were clear. "| did it," he said, his voice raw. "They' re gone. | destroyed everything. For you." | looked at him, at this man who had burned down his own world in a desperate, last-ditch attempt at redemption. And | felt... nothing. "And what do you want from me, Jeremy?" | asked, my voice quiet. "A medal? A thank you?" Pain flashed in his eyes. "l want you to know that I' m sorry. | want... | want you to come back." ---- | laughed, a soft, pitying sound. "You think that by destroying them, you' ve fixed this? You think that makes up for everything?" | shook my head. "You were the one who held the knife, Jeremy. They just told you where to stab." He flinched as if I' d physically struck him. He took the bloody whip from one of his men and held it out to me. "Then punish me," he whispered, his voice breaking. "Do it. Make me pay. Whatever it takes." | looked at the whip, then at his face. | saw the desperate hope in his eyes. He thought this was a transaction. Pain for forgiveness. | took the whip from his hand. He closed his eyes, bracing himself. | let it fall to the floor with a soft thud. "No," | said. "l' m not like you. I'm not cruel." | looked him straight in the eye, my voice firm, final. "We are done. | will never forgive you. Not because | can' t, but because you don' t deserve it. Now get out of my life. And stay out." | turned my back on him and walked away, not looking back as the man | once loved finally, completely, broke.