Roman and Julienne's heart desire
Chapter 76: The Shadow That Moves

Chapter 76: The Shadow That Moves

Roman stood alone in the private study.

He pressed the phone to his ear.

His reflection stared back at him in the dark glass of the towering window—a shadow with sharp eyes and a clenched jaw.

"Erase every trace," he said quietly, his voice heavy with iron. "And I want noise—loud, positive noise. Paint her a saint. A warrior. A woman of worth. Make them eat their words."

A brief pause. Then the voice on the other end answered firmly, "Already in motion."

Roman exhaled slowly, the breath hissing from his nose like steam from a sealed valve.

"Track the upload source. Trace it to the bone. I want the name, the motive, the device, the time. And if they used a burner, I want the exact location the moment they clicked send."

Another pause. Then: "Yes, sir."

He ended the call with a flick of his thumb and set the phone down on the desk.

He didn’t sigh. He didn’t blink. He just stood there, hands clasped behind his back, the light tracing the clean line of his cheekbone.

A muscle ticked in his jaw—but otherwise, he was still.

’ It’s not enough to love her,’ he thought. ’ I have to shield her from a world too cruel to understand who she really is.’

It began with a single tweet.

From an anonymous account known across the internet for debunking doctored media and exposing lies others were too afraid to touch.

"This ’Julie’ scandal? The photo’s fake. We ran a full metadata analysis.

Timestamp conflict. Shadows don’t align. Lighting’s off. That’s not a real image."

The post lingered in the digital void for exactly thirteen seconds before it started to blow up.

Retweets: 8,002.

Likes: 22,460.

Shares: Still climbing.

Soon, others joined in. Another voice chimed in—a supposed former classmate, posting with a grainy photo of a high school lunchroom.

"Y’all dragging her like you know her. I do. She once gave me her food when I had none. Sat with the kids nobody else wanted. You may hate her, but she’s better than most of you."

That one got screenshotted, reposted, and added to TikTok videos with dramatic music. It hit people harder than anyone expected.

And then a sharp, sarcastic tweet went viral in the middle of the firestorm:

"You saw a few seconds of a video and thought you were God. Sit down. The man in that clip looked at her like she was the air he breathed."

It echoed like a thunderclap across platforms.

Then came the hashtag:

#JusticeForJulie

No one knew who started it.

But by 3:46 AM, it had gone nuclear.

TikTok creators jumped on it—voices of young women, older women, queer voices, scholars, analysts—everyone was saying something.

Pixel breakdowns flooded the timeline, with close-ups, metadata overlays, and digital pointer arrows circling details the average eye missed.

On Instagram, influencers used their aesthetic templates to post slides:

Slide 1: A blurred screenshot of the video.

Slide 2: The overedited photo.

Slide 3: "This is what violation of dignity looks like."

Slide 4: "Let her speak. Let her heal. Let her be."

Some duets captured Julie’s trembling in the original video, her tears. Her pain.

The sharp way she flinched when Roman touched her hand—only to melt into his hold a second later.

No words were needed on some videos—just slow, aching piano music and the caption:

"Whoever she is... she didn’t deserve this."

And behind it all?

None of it was accidental.

Roman had moved the pieces from the shadows.

He hadn’t made a call under his name.

Hadn’t signed a wire transfer.

Hadn’t whispered a word to anyone in the mansion.

Not Lisa.

Not even Julie.

But all across the globe, his quiet army stirred into motion.

A hundred faceless accounts, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a singular message:

"Defend her. Tell the world who she is—even if you don’t know her."

And so, they did.

They told the world she was kind.

They told the world she was real.

They told the world she was worth protecting.

And for once, the internet listened.

****

Rachel stirred beneath the silk sheets, her brow pinched in sleep.

A sudden pressure in her bladder tugged her into waking, and with a groggy groan, she sat up.

Yawning, she slipped her feet into slippers and shuffled toward the bathroom.

On her way back, she reached for her phone, the blue screen instantly searing her half-lidded gaze.

She squinted.

12 new notifications.

6 tags.

2 DMs.

And... nothing about Julie.

Her eyes sharpened. Heart suddenly alert.

Rachel clicked into the tagged post. Her pulse ticked higher.

Then—

"Media Unavailable."

She blinked.

Clicked again.

"This image has been removed for violating our policy."

The room felt too cold suddenly.

"What...?" she murmured.

She clicked her notifications again. The image—gone. The comments—gone. The hashtags? #JusticeForJulie was trending now.

Her stomach dropped.

"No. No. No. No—no—NO!" Her scream tore through the silence.

The phone slipped from her grip and crashed to the marble floor, the screen fracturing like a spiderweb of rage.

But she didn’t even flinch. She was too busy pacing, storming up and down the bedroom like a panther trapped in a cage.

"Who the hell took it down!?" she shouted, grabbing at her hair.

Her throat burned. Her fingers dug into her scalp as she clutched fistfuls of her own hair.

That picture—the one she’d edited, polished, posted in the dead of night—it was supposed to destroy Julie. It was supposed to make her unlovable. Shameful. Alone.

But instead?

Instead the internet... had rallied behind her.

Her enemies had turned into her defenders. Her shame had become someone else’s battle cry.

And worse—they’d erased her work.

Her breath was ragged now. Chest rising and falling like she’d run a marathon she hadn’t trained for.

Rachel stood frozen in front of the mirror. Her reflection looked back at her—haunted, mascara-streaked, lips trembling.

A girl who had always known how to play dirty... but suddenly didn’t know how to fight fair.

"It has to be him..." she whispered, voice nearly a growl.

"Roman Thompson."

She spat the name like venom.

Of course it was him. The way he looked at Julie in that video? That wasn’t the gaze of a man caught in a mistake.

It was the gaze of a man willing to burn the world for her.

She turned her head slowly, eyes narrowing at her reflection.

"He’s protecting her."

She backed away from the mirror like it had betrayed her. Her feet hit the foot of the bed, and she collapsed onto it, still clutching her shattered phone.

Unknown to Rachel, as the cracks spread across the screen, her name had already been logged.

A ping had sounded on a device across the city—an encrypted laptop inside a surveillance room Roman owned but never spoke about.

A single tag:

"Suspected source. Under investigation."

The wolves had caught her scent.

Now, they stalked silently, waiting for their master’s signal.

Rachel didn’t know it yet—but the storm she’d unleashed wasn’t over.

It had only just begun.

****

The soft glow of Julie’s phone illuminated her pale face like moonlight on water.

Her lashes, still damp from restless crying, cast long shadows across her cheeks.

The room was silent save for the faint rustle of bedsheets and the occasional buzz of incoming notifications.

She blinked at the screen, confused.

The image—the vile, doctored picture that had haunted her like a living ghost—was gone.

She sat up slowly, her breath caught halfway in her throat. Her trembling fingers tapped again, refreshed the page, scrolled, tapped again—

"Content unavailable."

"Image removed for violating community standards."

It was true. It was really gone.

Julie let out a shaking breath, like someone who had just surfaced from drowning.

It didn’t make sense. Just hours ago, the internet had declared her guilty without trial.

Now, the very crowd that once hurled digital stones was pulling down the gallows they built for her.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Another notification buzzed.

This time, a private message:

"You don’t know me, but I’m proud of you. You’ve been wronged. Stay strong."

Then another:

"We see the truth now. Don’t let them break you."

Julie covered her mouth with one hand, overwhelmed.

Her chest tightened as the pressure she’d carried all day began to splinter like old ice under sunlight.

Tears returned—but these were different.

They weren’t born of humiliation.

They were soft. Quiet. Healing.

Then—she heard it. The soft creak of her bedroom door.

Her breath caught.

She turned her head, just in time to see Roman step through the shadows, silent as ever.

He hadn’t meant for her to see him. His steps were tentative, like he only planned to peek in and leave.

But once their eyes met—he didn’t turn away.

Julie stared, blinking back fresh emotion.

Roman shut the door behind him with a gentle click, the sound oddly grounding in the stillness.

For a long heartbeat, neither said a word.

Roman’s eyes scanned her face—those storm-soft eyes that had seen too much of the world and still found something to protect.

"You’re awake," he said finally, voice low.

"I couldn’t sleep," she murmured. Her throat felt like it was wrapped in cotton.

Roman took a few slow steps closer. The warmth of his presence filled the room like a quiet fire.

"I saw everything," she said again, her voice barely a whisper. "The posts... the tweets... everything. It’s changing. Roman—it’s all changing."

She looked at him with something between awe and confusion.

"I don’t understand," she said. "How? Why would anyone suddenly believe in me? Just hours ago I was—"

She stopped, unable to say the word.

Roman reached her, then sat gently at the edge of the bed.

The mattress dipped under his weight, tilting slightly toward him like even gravity knew where it belonged.

"You were wronged," he said simply. "And the world owes you the truth."

Julie laughed softly, but it wasn’t amused. It was hollow. Exhausted.

"But the world doesn’t work like that, Roman. People don’t just change their minds out of nowhere."

Roman tilted his head, a slow smirk forming on his lips.

"Maybe not," he said. "But sometimes... they’re nudged."

Her eyes narrowed playfully, even as a tear slid down her cheek. "So it was you."

He said nothing.

Julie’s chest ached. She wanted to be angry at him—for doing so much without telling her.

For pulling strings behind the scenes. But how could she be?

She was only still breathing because of those invisible threads.

"I don’t even know what to say," she whispered.

"You don’t have to say anything," Roman murmured, his voice like velvet brushed against skin. "Just know that you’re not alone."

He reached out, gently taking her hand. His thumb brushed along her knuckles, tracing each one as if memorizing them.

"You don’t have to fight this by yourself anymore."

Julie lowered her eyes, her voice thick with emotion. "I’ve always fought alone, Roman. I didn’t know how not to."

Roman leaned forward, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. His fingertips lingered, warm against her skin.

"You don’t have to learn all at once," he whispered. "Just... start with trusting me."

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and glassy. "What if I don’t deserve you?"

Roman leaned closer, just until his forehead touched hers.

"Then we’re both undeserving," he whispered, "because I still wonder what I ever did to deserve you."

Julie’s lips parted, but the words died in her throat. His presence—the gentleness, the ferocity, the calm—was overwhelming.

It swallowed her whole.

Roman pulled back just slightly and studied her expression.

Then, lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed her knuckles softly.

"You’re mine to protect," he said again.

A pause.

"And nothing—nothing—is going to touch you while I’m alive."

Julie closed her eyes, another tear slipping free. But this one... tasted like comfort.

"Thank you," she breathed.

Roman smiled, just barely.

"You should sleep," he said, his tone coaxing now. "It’s over. For now. And tomorrow... you’ll wake up to a different world."

Julie blinked slowly, her hand still in his. "And you?"

Roman stood. "I’ll be nearby. There’s still a little fire to put out."

She nodded, watching him walk to the door.

Just before opening it, Roman paused.

The light from the hallway edged around his silhouette like a halo of shadow and flame.

"Let them keep talking," he said. "Let them keep guessing. But you... just smile."

Then he stepped out and closed the door behind him, soft as a whisper.

Julie exhaled and leaned back into the pillows, Roman’s warmth still lingering beside her like a ghost.

The storm had not passed completely. But the eye had settled above her.

And for the first time in days... she felt peace.