Page 55 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

“Ted always believed in giving back,” said longtime associate Gerald Whitmore. “He understood that true success meant lifting others up along the way.”

Cavill’s legacy lives on through his son, Maxwell Cavill, who has continued the family tradition of innovation and excellence as CEO of Synthera.

As we mark this solemn anniversary, we remember Theodore Cavill not just as a businessman, but as a husband, a father, and a man who left an indelible mark on our community.

He will always be missed.

I set the paper down.

My hands are shaking. I flatten them against the desk, pressing hard until my knuckles go white.

“Max—” Finn starts.

“Lifting others up along the way.” The words come out like venom, dripping with contempt I can barely contain. “A man who left an indelible mark on our community.”

“I know.”

“They have no idea.” I look up at him, and I can feel the rage burning behind my eyes, hot and bright. “They have no fucking idea what he was really like.”

Finn doesn’t flinch. He’s seen me like this before. “No. They don’t.”

“His beloved wife.” I laugh, and the sound is ugly, broken. “He treated her like property. Like a possession. And when she tried to have her own thoughts, her own opinions—” I break off, my throat closing around the words.

“Hey.” Finn moves closer, perching on the edge of my desk. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just bullshit written by people who never knew him.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” I shove the paper away from me. “Everyone thinks they knew him. Everyone thinks he was this great man, this loving husband and father—and nobody—nobody knows the truth.”

“We know.”

“And what good does that do?” I push back from my desk, standing abruptly. The chair rolls back and hits the window with a dull thud. “He’s been dead for twelve years and he’s still winning. Still controlling the narrative. Still being celebrated while she⁠—”

My voice cracks.

Finn is quiet for a moment. “While she what?”

“While she’s forgotten.” I turn to face the window, staring out at the grounds without really seeing them. “The article barely mentions her. ‘Along with his beloved wife.’ Like she was an accessory. Like she didn’t matter.”

“She mattered to you.”

“She was the only thing that mattered.” The words come out rough, scraped raw from somewhere deep in my chest. “And now she’s just a footnote in his fucking legacy.”

I can still see her face. My mother, young and beautiful and so achingly sad. The way she used to look out the window at nothing, her eyes distant, her fingers twisting in her lap. The way she flinched when she heard his footsteps in the hall.

“Your mother is delicate,” my father used to say. “She needs firm guidance. It’s for her own good.”

Firm guidance. That’s what he called it when he controlled every aspect of her life. What she wore, who she spoke to, how she spent her time. When he isolated her from her family, her friends, anyone who might have helped her see the prison she was living in.

She was an omega. In my father’s world, that meant she was his to command.

“Max.” Finn’s voice pulls me back. “Look at me.”

I turn. He’s still sitting on the edge of my desk, his blue eyes steady on mine.

“Your mother would be proud of you,” he says. “You know that, right? Everything you’ve built here. Everything Synthera stands for. That’s her legacy. Not his.”

“Is it?” The question comes out more bitter than I intend. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like his name is still the one on everyone’s lips.”

“Fuck his name.” Finn’s voice sharpens. “You tore down his house. You built something new where it stood. Something that helps people, that helps omegas, in ways he never would have allowed.” He pauses. “That’s not nothing, Max. That’s everything.”