Chapter Twenty Six

T he old Victorian house stood before me like a forgotten relic, its windows dark and hollow, its peeling paint the only sign of the years that had passed. The cursed mansion of Willow Crest. The place that had haunted my every thought for as long as I could remember. Its decaying walls held more secrets than I could have ever imagined, and with every step I took toward it, I could feel the weight of those secrets pressing on my chest, suffocating me.

I hadn’t meant to come back here, not like this. But the pieces of the puzzle had been falling into place one by one, and there was no turning back now. The haunting of this place, the rumors of ghosts, of curses, they were just that—rumors. I had always thought there was something more to it, something I couldn’t understand. But now, as I stood in the overgrown garden, I knew the truth was far darker than any folklore could ever explain.

I had followed the clues, piecing together every odd thing I’d witnessed since Amir and I had come to Willow Crest. The odd occurrences. The strange happenings. The whispers in the dark. All of it. It all pointed to one person. One person who was more than just a victim of this house—he was the orchestrator of the madness.

Ace.

But Ace wasn’t just a man tormented by the death of his sister. He was a man torn apart by his own mind. The realization hit me like a slap to the face.

I hadn’t understood it before. The way he was there but really wasn’t. Always watching. Always lurking. He had been in our lives long before I truly knew who he was. I thought I was dealing with someone unknown or someone who was broken by grief after hearing the story from Ro. But Ace was hiding something much more dangerous. Something that had turned him into a monster.

I pulled open the heavy front door, the creaking of the hinges echoing in the quiet night air. I wasn’t sure why I was still here in this forsaken place. Maybe it was the desperate need to understand how things had spiraled so horribly out of control.

I moved cautiously through the dimly lit halls from the peeking light of the sunset, my hand resting on the worn banister, feeling the cold wood beneath my fingertips. The air in the house was thick with dust, the kind of dust that seemed to cling to every surface, every corner.

There had been rumors about Willow Crest being cursed, about the deaths that surrounded it, but none of it made sense to me until now. The pieces were finally in place. It wasn’t the house that was cursed. It wasn’t the spirits of the past that haunted us.

It was Ace.

Darius had stumbled across a journal that day, buried deep in one of the mansion's forgotten rooms, a dusty thing filled with scribbled notes and disjointed thoughts by a little boy. He brought it as a hope to gather evidence but what we never understood or we all ignored was right in front of us.

The handwriting was familiar, that’s what Darius said when Ace left us that day after my accident, though he couldn’t place where he had seen it before. But as I read again, after Willow’s letter, the truth began to unfold before me, piece by agonizing piece.

The first part of the journal had been written years ago, before Amir ever entered the picture. It was Ace’s account of his life, then his torment. His mind had fractured from the constant abuse, the bullying, and the trauma of losing his sister, Willow.

Willow had been his anchor, the person he clung to in a world that had torn him apart. When she died, Ace had cracked. The death of his sister, the one person he thought he couldn’t live without, had shattered him.

But what I didn’t know—what none of us had known—was that Ace hadn’t died that night. He had been saved. His family, desperate to protect him from his tormentors, had changed his identity. They had sent him away to California to start fresh. But the trauma had never left him. It had festered beneath the surface, waiting to burst.

And then there was Amir.

Amir, with his striking resemblance to Tyson—the boy who had tormented Ace for years. Amir was the trigger. He reminded Ace of everything he hated about himself, everything he had lost. That was why Ace had come back to Willow Crest. That was why he had been so obsessed with Amir from the moment we arrived.

I turned the corner and froze.

Ace was standing in the dim light of the hallway, his back to me, his silhouette framed by the cracked wallpaper and broken windows. But there was something about him. Something off. His posture was rigid, tense, like he was holding onto a fragile thread of control.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. No one was supposed to know, I’d visit this place.

Dread crawled up my spine.

“Amery,” he said, his voice a rasp that sent a chill down my spine. He didn’t turn around, but I could feel his presence as though he were right next to me. “You’ve been digging. You shouldn’t have.”

I swallowed, my heart pounding in my chest. The truth was out now, and I was staring it in the face. The Ace we knew, the one who had been around Darius and the MC, the one who had appeared kind and loyal, was nothing but a mask.

“I know what you’ve done,” I said, my voice steady despite the turmoil raging inside of me. “I know what you’ve been hiding.”

He finally turned, and I saw it then—the confusion in his eyes. The fractured look of someone who had been torn apart by his own mind. He was sick, in more ways than one. His trauma had warped him, had turned him into something unrecognizable. And the truth about his sister’s death had driven him to the brink of madness.

“I had to do it,” Ace whispered, his voice cracking. “I couldn’t let him go. Not after everything he did.”

I took a step toward him, my breath shallow. “Who? Amir?”

“No…” His voice faltered. “Tyson. He never stopped hurting me. He was always there, always in my head, even after he was gone. And when I saw Amir, when I saw his face… it broke me all over again. I had to make him pay.”

His words were twisted, painful. But the worst part? I understood. I understood the desperation, the feeling of wanting revenge, of wanting to make someone else feel the pain that had consumed you. But what Ace had done was monstrous. He had created a nightmare for Amir, for everyone around him.

“And your father?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “He was in on it, wasn’t he? He never let you go. He helped you keep this… this lie alive.”

Ace’s eyes widened, and for a moment, I saw a flash of something—something darker, something broken.

“My father... after Willow died… he went mad. He couldn’t let her go either. He made me promise to keep her alive in whatever way I could. So, I did. I became her. I became Willow.”

The words hung in the air like a death sentence, a twisted confession of the insanity that had consumed him. He had been living a lie for so long, had built his entire existence around the death of his sister, around revenge, around a madness that had taken him far beyond the point of no return.

“Everything you’ve done… it’s been for nothing,” I said softly, my voice heavy with sorrow. “None of this was real. The curse, the hauntings… it was all you. All of it. You’re the one who’s haunted this place.”

Ace’s face contorted with pain, and for the first time, I saw the full extent of his brokenness. “I couldn’t let her go,” he whispered, his voice filled with desperation. “I couldn’t let anyone forget.”

I took a step back, the weight of his words sinking in. The truth had come too late. It was over. But the damage had already been done.

Amir has suffered for something he never did.

Ace’s father took the fall for him. The culprit was punished.

The silence stretched out between us like a heavy fog, thick with the weight of everything Ace had just revealed. His words hung in the air, a chilling truth that twisted my stomach into knots. I stared at him, not knowing how to respond, not knowing how to process what he had just confessed.

For so long, I had wondered what had been happening in this house, why the ghosts and the hauntings felt so real, why the curse seemed to wrap around us like an invisible chain. But now I understood—it wasn’t ghosts that haunted this mansion or Willow Crest. It was Ace.

He stood there, trembling, his eyes wide and frantic, as though the truth had finally overwhelmed him. There was something tragic in his expression, something fragile. And yet, under all of that, there was a dangerous kind of clarity.

“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “I just… I just wanted to make it stop. I wanted to make the pain go away.” His hands clenched into fists at his sides, as if trying to hold back the fury of years of torment. "But I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop it. Not from the moment I saw Amir. He looked just like him, and it was like everything started again. Tyson. The bullying. The pain. The rage." His voice cracked. "I couldn’t breathe without wanting revenge.”

I felt a pang of sympathy, he looked just like willow despite his brown eyes, but it quickly turned to horror. He was an image of the pain that me, and my husband suffered. He wasn’t just blaming Amir, not just blaming Tyson anymore. He was blaming himself, too.

“You’re lost, Ace,” I said softly, the words catching in my throat. I had no idea how to reach him now. The man who stood before me had fractured so deeply, so completely, that I wasn’t sure there was anyone left to save.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, his eyes vacant as if pleading for something, anything, to make sense of the chaos he’d created.

But I didn’t know how to fix him, and I didn’t think he knew how to fix himself either. He had become a puppet of his past, trapped by the shadow of his own grief and rage. His trauma had driven him to destroy everything around him, and now, standing here in the ruins of his own madness, I wasn’t sure there was any way out.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, trying one last time to reach him for the sake of his dead sister who begged to be forgiven. “You don’t have to hurt Amir. You don’t have to live this lie anymore.”

His eyes snapped to mine, and for a fleeting moment, I saw a glimmer of the Ace I read in the diary, the little boy—the boy who had once been so full of promise, of life. But it was quickly replaced by something darker, something twisted by years of pain and deceit.

“I have to,” he said, his voice low, almost pleading. “You don’t understand. I can’t let it go. I can’t let her go.”

I took a step forward, feeling the conversation and perspective was manifested between us into a physical wall. "Willow’s gone, Ace. You need to let her rest. You need to let yourself rest."

The words felt futile, like I was trying to force water into a cracked vessel. Ace had been drowning for so long that even when he had the chance to surface, he couldn't take the breath he needed.

Then, unexpectedly, he took a step back, his face twisting into something almost unrecognizable. A sudden wild look came into his eyes—something violent, desperate. "No," he said through clenched teeth. "You don’t get it. No one ever get it."

Both of us froze, hearing crunch of leaf just behind me. I frantically moved to watch the person and then his face emerged. Darius was red in anger, his eye fixed on Ace.

Both the men looked at each other, but then Ace took another step back.

I froze as he turned away, the desperation crackling in the air like static. “Ace… please,” I said, my voice shaky now. The fear I had been suppressing crept up my spine. This wasn’t just about Amir anymore. It was about everything Ace had buried beneath the weight of his trauma, everything he had tried—and failed—to suppress. He was no longer just a victim of his past. He was now a man willing to destroy anything that stood in the way of his twisted version of justice.

Our first night in the mansion marked the beginning of his scheme. Ace stealthily injected Amir with a hallucinogenic substance that distorted his perception. He then enhanced Amir's strange visions with the vintage ring that belonged to his sister. While Amir might never recall the specifics of the woman, he glimpsed in the painting that evening, his subconscious would. Gradually, through manipulation and the influence of drugs, he crafted his clever strategy, all in pursuit of revenge.

He set out to find a girl who bore a striking resemblance to his deceased sister, orchestrating a deceitful plan in collaboration with his brother-in-law, Elijah Montgomery, and his father. They fabricated documents to falsely declare her death, altering the date to the previous year.

He used the cursed folklore. He used the rumors, the fears, and the belief people had.

While the real Willow had already died years ago. And she begged me to never reveal the truth about her impersonating herself as someone else to him. I will hold that secret for the sake of a dead person.

“Stop it Ace. Just fucking surrender.” Darius deadpanned.

"I can't," he muttered, his hands pulling at his hair in frustration. "I can't stop it. I can't stop her. I can't stop Willow ."

I stepped back, my instincts screaming at me to get away.

“You’re not her, Ace,” Darius said softly, sounding so much in pain, my heart breaking for him. “You never were. You’re you .”

Ace turned toward Darius suddenly, eyes wide with something almost manic. "You don't understand!" His voice raised, panic and rage bleeding through. "I became her. I had to. To protect her. To protect myself!"

I shook my head, stepping back. “You can’t protect anyone by pretending to be someone else, Ace.”

The rage faded from his face, replaced by something emptier, something lost. His shoulders sagged as if all the fight had drained out of him in that one moment. “I tried to be something I’m not… but I couldn’t,” he said softly, his voice breaking. “And now… now, I’ve lost everything.”

It was then that I saw it—saw the true depth of his torment. I hadn’t just been standing in front of a man whose mind had shattered; I was standing in front of a broken soul, one so twisted by grief and guilt that he couldn’t even remember who he was anymore.

I knew then that this wasn’t just about Amir. This wasn’t even just about Willow Crest. This was about a man whose entire identity had been lost to the ghosts of his past.

"Why Amir?" I asked, my voice quieter now, trying to make sense of it all. "Why take it out on him if you knew he wasn’t Tyson?"

His expression turned distant, like he was slipping away again into his fractured mind. "Because he's Tyson. He looks like him. He feels like him. He reminds me of everything I lost."

I felt a sharp pang in my chest. Tyson. The ghost of Ace’s torment. The one thing that had driven him to madness. "You can’t hurt Amir to fix yourself, Ace. It won’t bring Willow back."

Ace's eyes flickered, a flash of something almost human behind them, but then it was gone. "I don’t know how else to stop it. I don’t know how to live without it."

There was a heavy silence as I stood there together with Darius, the truth of what we had just uncovered pressing down on us, leaving us unable to move.

I knew I couldn’t fix this. Ace needed help. He needed real help, more than I could offer. But even I knew, I was just here for my husband who slept in the hospital. Resting from his surgery.

Maybe it wasn’t him who was the monster. It was all of us. I was no better, even I was hounding him for my own selfish reasons.

I turned, slowly, making my way toward the door, but just before I reached it, I looked back at him. He was still standing in the same place, his shoulders hunched, his eyes lost to whatever darkness haunted him.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. But even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t enough. He was already too far gone.

I stepped out of mansion and into the subtle glow or peculiar orangish light from the sunset casting a pretty hue but however the world was beautiful to look, some people’s lives just knew how sunsets mean there was night and nothing beyond that existed for them.

With the weight of what I had uncovered settling heavily in my chest, I looked at Reese who unexpectedly seemed to have followed me, it is no surprise, Darius was here too. After all, they too knew the truth. There was no escaping this house, no escaping its curse. Because the curse wasn’t in the walls.

“It was Tyson’s fault, but Amir chose to not pursue anymore. He chose to forgive, Willow, and Ace. Why?” I questioned Reese, it was difficult to understand because Amir would’ve never forgiven anyone who hurt me, then why this time, but she shrugged with a small smile, letting the silence bear my answer.