Being watched
1087 Words
Third party's pov
The next day liam immediately hold a press conference in his company.
In a hall, a press conference was going on. The press conference hall was silent in the way only crowds could be packed, breathless, waiting to be told how to feel.
Cameras lined the room like unblinking eyes. Red lights flickered on, one after another, until the space felt hot, suffocating. The emblem of the police department hung behind the podium, severe and official. Beside it stood Liam Hartmann, dressed in black, his tie knotted precisely, his posture rigid with restraint.
He looked like grief.
The chief of police stepped forward first. His voice was steady, practiced. He spoke of searches conducted, of tides and currents, of the unforgiving nature of the cliffs. He spoke of evidence found and evidence absent and then, the conclusions.
“After extensive investigation,” the chief said, “we regret to announce that Ms. Ember Voss is presumed deceased.”
A murmur rippled through the room.
“She is believed to have jumped from the cliff on the night of-”
Liam lowered his head then, just enough for the cameras to catch the movement. His hands clenched slowly, deliberately, as if the words had struck him anew.
“-and no evidence of foul play has been found.”
The sentence landed like a gavel.
The chief stepped back. “Mr. Hartmann will now say a few words.”
This was the moment.
Liam approached the podium. The room leaned toward him. He placed both hands on the wood, grounding himself, and waited three full seconds before looking up. When he did, his eyes were glassy, rimmed red, not from tears, but from careful irritation he had induced earlier that morning. A trick learned long ago.
“My fiancée,” he began, and paused.
A collective inhale.
“My Ember.”
He swallowed, cameras clicked.
“She was light,” he said softly. “She was warmth, she believed in people even when they gave her every reason not to.”
A tear slipped free, what a perfect timing.
“I have replayed that night a thousand times,” he continued. “I have asked myself what I could have done differently. What I missed, what signs I failed to see.”
His voice broke, just slightly.
“She was struggling,” Liam said. “She hid it well. Ember always did, she didn’t want to burden anyone.”
He looked down, shaking his head, grief painted across his features. “I wish she had told me, I wish she had trusted me enough to stay.”
The lie slid out smoothly, silk over steel.
“She chose the cliff,” he said. “She chose to leave this world.”
Gasps whispered through the room.
“She deceived us,” Liam went on, carefully. “Not out of cruelty but out of pain. Ember thought she was protecting the people she loved by disappearing.”
He pressed his lips together, as if holding back something unbearable. “I loved her. God, I loved her. I would have done anything to save her.”
Flashbulbs burst like lightning.
“I will carry this loss for the rest of my life,” he said. “I will honor her memory. I will live in a way that would make her proud.”
The room was heavy now, drowning in sympathy.
Liam lifted his gaze to the audience, meeting the eyes of reporters, officials, strangers. He saw belief and pity there, he saw the world swallowing his version of the truth without question.
And then something shifted.
At the far edge of the room, partially obscured by a pillar, someone stood very still.
He was sure the person is not a reporter, a police or even staff but dressed all black as if hiding something.
Liam’s breath hitched.
The person’s eyes met his, they were so dark, focused and unforgiving.
Recognition sparked not clear but sharp enough to sting. A cold line slid down liam spine, his hand tightened on the podium.
No, he thought. Impossible.
The face was partially hidden by shadow, the posture was unremarkably but the eyes didnt look at him with curiosity or sympathy.
They looked at him like they were counting.
For a fraction of a second, the room vanished. There was only that gaze, steady and piercing, cutting through his performance as if it were glass.
Liam’s rehearsed composure faltered. He blinked trying to regaincomposure.
The moment stretched, thin as wire.
Then a flash went off nearby. A reporter shifted andomeone coughed.
When Liam looked again
The space was empty and the figure was gone.
His pulse spiked.
He forced himself to continue. “I ask for privacy,” he finished, voice firm again. “For myself, and for her family.”
Applause rose, soft and respectful. The chief stepped back in, offering a hand. Liam shook it automatically, his smile fixed, his mind racing.
Who was that?
As the conference concluded, officers escorted him off the stage. Questions were shouted. Names called. Liam responded with nods and brief acknowledgments, moving like a man underwater.
The image of those eyes burned behind his own.
Back in the waiting room, Emma was there instantly, her arms wrapping around him, her voice low and soothing. “You were incredible,” she murmured. “They believe you completely.”
Liam nodded, distracted. “Did you see anyone unusual out there?”
Emma frowned slightly. “Unusual?”
“Someone near the back, watching.”
She glanced toward the doors, then back at him. “No, everyone was press or police.”
He didn’t answer. His gaze drifted to the darkened hallway beyond the room, as if expecting something to step out of it.
Emma squeezed his hand. “It’s over now,” she said. “She’s gone. The world has moved on.”
Liam swallowed.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
But as they left the building, cameras flashing once more, unease clung to him like a second skin. He told himself it was nerves. Residual adrenaline
That look.
Not shock, not confusion, not mourning.
It had been recognition.
And somewhere, deep beneath the applause and sympathy, a thin crack opened in Liam Hartmann’s certainty.
Ember Voss was dead, the police had said so and the world had accepted it.
So why, for the first time since the cliff, did he feel watched?
He could not wait for the burial to hold.
- Writer
