Clean Verdict, Dirty Truth

"Monica was barely laid to rest yet, and you showed up dressed like that to see her. You stood in front of her grave and said, 'For everyone's reputation, let's just pretend nothing ever happened.' Sandra, you make me sick."

For a split second, the live chat froze.

Then it completely exploded.

[What the hell? She cheated with the guy?]

[This is too much. My brain just overheated. A wife who's a judge with a school bully boy toy? This is insane!]

[Wait. The more I listen, the more it sounds like Bradley is telling the truth. That woman's been acting the whole time.]

[If this is real, it's beyond disgusting. Monica isn't even gone yet, and the wife and the killer… I can't even think about it.]

Sandra's face flushed bright red.

"Bradley, stop slandering me! You're crazy! You've been blinded by hatred!"

I didn't bother responding. I pulled out my phone and projected a heart rate monitor app onto the corner of the livestream.

The line representing Eric's pulse was dropping, slow and steady, heading straight into danger.

"Look. Your buddy's heart rate is about to hit a critical level. Give it another 30 minutes. Even a miracle won't save him then."

I picked up the claw hammer and casually measured it above Eric's head.

Then, I issued my final ultimatum.

"I'll say this one last time. Release every angle, every unedited second of the full footage. Otherwise, this hammer comes down on his skull next."

After that, I cut the call with the police.

Standing was getting tiring.

I dragged a broken chair someone had abandoned on the rooftop, sat down, and closed my eyes.

My thoughts drifted back to the past, without me even realizing it.

After what happened to Monica, I nearly lost my mind.

I never believed she killed herself.

I used every connection I had. I even paid a small fortune to a top-tier hacker friend.

That was how I dug the deleted original surveillance footage out of hard drives the school had wiped again and again.

The video showed Eric leading a group of people as they cornered Monica in an empty art room.

It showed them laughing as they stomped on the prosthetic legs that carried all her hope, crushing them piece by piece.

It showed them pouring paint across the floor and forcing my proud little sister to lie flat and lick it clean, just to recover a worthless fragment of her leg.

Back then, I was stupid enough to hand the flash drive containing the full footage to the person I trusted most: my wife, the presiding judge of the family court.

I believed she would give Monica justice.

But the night before the hearing, Eric cried and dropped to his knees in front of Sandra, begging her to save him.

The next day, Sandra came to me, looking exhausted.

She told me the flash drive had suffered an "accidental" physical failure. The data was completely unrecoverable.

She tried to persuade me.

"Bradley, he's still just a kid. Don't ruin his whole life. And about Monica… You should let it go. Let her soul rest in peace."

Let her soul rest in peace…

I snapped my eyes open. The regret had kept me from sleeping more than a few hours in the past month.

Just then, Sandra's voice rose again from below.

Through the megaphone, it came trembling, cracked, completely broken.

"Fine. I'll give it to you. I'll give you everything! Bradley, you win. Just don't hurt him. I'm coming up now. I'll bring you the backup video."