BOUND BY HER DESIRE

CHAPTER FIVE

JULIAN'S POV

The footage had no sound.

I watched it six times slowly. I watch the footage carefully before I react. That is the discipline. That has always been the discipline. Observe before responding.

On the screen, in grainy courtyard footage angled from forty feet, a boy sits down beside Clara in a lecture hall and says something that makes her laugh. I do not have audio. Her face lit up in a way I can not explain. I have his hands brushing her when he returns a dropped pen, and I have the particular, unhurried, confident boy who has never for once been told that some doors are not his to work through. I have never for once thought to myself that finding someone would be as difficult as it is. I spent five good hours, yet I could not find any tangible evidence that could be used against Roland. I could not access his phones.

Everything concerning him seems hidden, he must really be a smart boy. I admire him for that. I became tired and I was getting confused. I felt defeated for the first time walking end to end in my office with a glass of red wine.

I have never been this stressed, I said inwardly, but coming from a twenty-two-year-old little boy. I have gone through all his socials. I could not get even a single photo of him or his parents.

Placing my head on the table, I did not realize when I had dozed off. By the time I woke up, it was already 11: 59 pm, and I needed to find evidence before morning.

I took my jacket, my car key. Yes, I wanted to drive myself. I already got his address. I drove down to his house, I got to his place at exactly 1:00 and by then he was just returning from the club. I came down from the car and walked down to where I pointed my gun at him.

“Who do we have here?” He chuckled. The fact that he wasn’t afraid of the gun pointed at him said a lot more than the actual words that have left his mouth so far. Or maybe he was just good at hiding it. This wasn't going to be easy, and I didn't have any intention of smelling his blood or shooting his brain out on the street. At least not until I found out who he was and why he was suddenly after my little kitten.

I just wanted his phone, that was all.

“It wouldn't be good if such brains get to be splattered on the floor at such a young age. It won't be nice news for your mother, "I said casually, slapping the shotgun and silencer on my other palm while I stared at him. His stance widened, which I noticed as a defensive move, though he still had that cocky annoying sweet smile on his face. I must say he was definitely charming and pleasing to the eye. He was a potential competitor against me when it came to Clara. What the hell was I thinking? I shouldn't be seeing my Clara in that way. Well, you should have thought of that when you went full face on her p***y the other day.

“What do you want?” he asked, still sounding cocky and proud. Maybe because he knew he was a potential threat to me when it came to Clara's, or maybe he knew something I didn't know about her. But either way, I wanted to wipe that smile from his face. This was not what I expected when I came scouting for him.

“I just need your phones,” I said as nonchalantly as I could. He didn't need to know that my curiosity about him was increasing by the second. Suddenly a strong urge to get out of here overwhelmed me. What the f**k was going on? My eyes scanned the crowd for threat but found none.

“Yo, we don't roll like that here,” he said, taking a step backward. I clicked the safety on the gun and pointed at him a second time. He stared at me, a silent battle of who would give up first and it definitely wouldn't be me. He laughed and got closer to gunpoint. “Is that all you want from me?” he asked, searching my eyes.

“Do you have something else of use to offer me? I asked, raising my eyebrows. He laughed maniacally. Who the f**k laughs with a gun pointed at them? Well, I just met one.

“OK, if that's what you want, you can have them.” He put his hands into his pocket, bringing out two phones. An iPhone 17 pro Max and a Samsung A10. And I walked away.

“But I need to warn you,” he said, turning back while my gun still pointed at him. “ Those things are as useless as the gun in your hand at this moment. You won't find what you're looking for there. Don't say I didn't warn you.” He turned back and kept walking. I set my hands on the trigger and let out a bullet. It went sizzling in the air, moving to its target. Phew, the air whooshed, as the clay pot 2 inches away from Roland cracked into pieces. He turned and let out a chuckle and moved ahead.

Immediately, I drove off before the police could arrive, getting to the office by 3:00. I was already tired but at least I felt a little satisfied. Closing the phone wouldn't be an issue. While still thinking, a message pops up. Roland, twenty-two years old. Economics major, middling GPA, parents in Connecticut with a marketing firm and a mortgage. I discovered within eleven minutes of opening his name on screen. Marco finds me still at the desk past midnight, sleeves rolled, jacket off. The particular stillness in my hands that he has learned means something specific is being decided.

“Boss.”

“His phone,” I say, without looking up. “I want it cloned by morning.” Marco does not ask whose phone. He has seen the footage already.“That is a college kid,” Marcos says carefully. “Did I ask for your assessment of the target?” It is not a question. My voice does not rise. It never rises. Marcos jaw works once. “No, boss.”

“By morning.”

He leaves. I sat alone with the footage running on. Clara laughed repeatedly, and I would love to know what he said to her that made her laugh so hard. By six a.m. I had Roland's entire digital life arranged in front of me like a hand of cards I had already decided how to play. He is a play boy. I saw messages to three different girls, casual and interchangeable; the same line is recycled with minor variations. Hey, are you free this weekend? You look great today. I also found a group chat where he was described by his own friends. A search history that tells me more about his character than four years of transcripts could. Finally, I found a thread that mattered at 6:40, a message to a friend from three weeks ago, before Clara ever entered his orbit, casually offering to source an exam answer key for a sophomore to his economy study group, payment arranged through an app, the whole mundane transactions he never for once considered it might surface anywhere outside that chat.

It surfaces now.

The email to the Dean of Academic Integrity came out at 7:15 routed through three services that do not trace back to anything resembling my name, attached with screenshots that are real, unaltered, and devastatingly out of context, true enough to survive scrutiny, selective enough to ensure only one conclusion is possible. By nine, Roland had been called into a meeting he did not understand the shape of. He is already explaining himself to a disciplinary panel that has already, functionally, made a decision.

By two, I received the confirmation I was waiting for: emergency suspension pending format review, academic record flagged, scholarship funding, frozen effective immediately. Ruin does not necessarily require violence. Sometimes it only requires patience, access and the complete absence of a conscience standing by the way.

I just spent the last nine hours dismantling a boy's future because he made her laugh in a lecture hall.

I read the confirmation twice. I felt satisfied.

I tell myself this is protection.

I tell myself a great many things.

It is the part I can not stop turning over.