After Him Chapter 7

After that, Jameson developed severe PTSD.

During military briefings, he'd quietly ask the empty seat beside him: "Emma, what do you think of this deployment?"

Returning to their former quarters on base, he'd see phantom images of Emma busy in the kitchen, rush over only to touch cold air.

He'd curl up on the couch clutching Emma's favorite sweater to fall asleep, or drive alone in the middle of the night to the border outpost they'd visited, that small-town bookstore, that birch forest, sitting until dawn.

The once decisive, iron-willed Major was now just a shell hollowed out by regret.

He started carrying Emma's "urn" everywhere—placing it beside him during tactical planning, setting out an extra place setting across from him in the mess hall, even talking to "her" quietly at base reception events, oblivious to others around him.

Whispers of "Major Carter's lost it" spread quietly through the ranks. Several training exercises with command errors forced higher-ups to intervene. Military psychologists tried multiple times to help—he forcefully refused them all.

Meanwhile, Jameson's revenge against the Hayes family entered its final phase.

Under his full pressure, the Hayes family lost all military supply contracts, family businesses were shut down entirely for "safety inspection failures," and bank accounts were frozen for "suspected violations."

In less than a month, the once-prominent Hayes family declared bankruptcy.

Then he dragged Riley, nearly starved to death, to the border safe house where Emma had been tortured, ordering his subordinates to repay whipping, electric shocks, food and water deprivation—every torture doubled.

When Riley's psyche completely shattered and she lost her grip on reality, Jameson handed all evidence to a military tribunal.

Ultimately, Riley was sent to a maximum-security military psychiatric facility for life due to severe mental illness and multiple verified crimes.

After completing his revenge, Jameson's pain only deepened.

At a high-level military strategy conference, he—a lead unit commander—publicly confessed: "I stand here as a guilty man. I failed the organization that trained me, and more importantly, I failed my wife, Emma. I was blind and foolish, trusted evil, and with my own hands killed the person I loved most."

Then he voluntarily resigned his position as Major and suspended all military duties.

The assembled officers were stunned, but he simply saluted with perfect form, turned, and walked away.

Public confession couldn't ease his suffering.

One stormy night, he went alone into the safe house where Emma had been imprisoned and tortured.

Fire instantly engulfed him.

He drank high-proof whiskey, and in his haze seemed to see Emma's trembling figure: "Emma... I'm coming to be with you..."

If a patrol hadn't discovered him in time, he would have died there.

After regaining consciousness, he even used a shard of broken mirror to cut his wrist, wanting to experience the pain Emma had endured. That vicious scar became his permanent wound.

After that, Jameson became a regular at the cemetery.

He erected a cenotaph for Emma there.

Rain or shine, he'd go to carefully wipe the headstone clean, replace the white daisies with fresh ones, talk to the cold stone about base happenings, speaking all his longing and regret.

He destroyed everything connected to Riley, living with only memories of Emma, existing in a black-and-white world that contained only her.