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Righteous Damage

By Nico James Veper

Josh Atkinson, a wheelchair-using Careers Advisor, enrols on a counselling diploma course, he's been sent by his employer. He meets Lorna Romanetti, magnetic, manipulative, and brilliant; whose charismatic presence begins to distort the group dynamics. Lorna sets her sights on Caroline, the polished but emotionally unstable participant, drawing Josh into an erotic and psychological alliance. At first, Josh is captivated: by Lorna's intellect, her mystery, her control. But soon, he becomes her instrument or has he become complicit?

Together, they isolate Caroline, exploiting her insecurities and pushing her toward professional and personal collapse. Josh believes he's helping Lorna expose hypocrisy; in truth, he's deepening the damage. As Caroline unravels, Josh begins to question whether he's liberator or accomplice, too late to stop what's coming.

But Lorna's revenge runs deeper than Josh understands.

After Caroline is disgraced and gone, Lorna targets a darker network: Stephen Locke, her retired probation officer with a history of coercive control and his old colleague, Elliot Drexler, whose name appears on multiple survivor forums. What began as personal catharsis becomes a campaign of exposure. Lorna uses old contacts, her sexuality, and strategic whispers to unravel the protective veil around these men.

Josh, now confused emotionally but besotted, watches as Lorna transforms into something less like a victim and more like a vigilante. Drexler becomes the final mirror: a man who once protected predators now sweating under Lorna's gaze. The climax unfolds violently, intimately, a confrontation charged with grief, revelation, and blood. Lorna exacts her revenge but, in the process, accidentally and tragically shoots and kills Josh. When the dust settles, Lorna disappears into flame and myth, leaving Josh and her perpetrators dead and sends a cryptic postcard months later, from far away, to a friend that reads: Still haunted. Still standing. Love, L.

Righteous Damage is an erotic psychological thriller about seduction, complicity, and control. Told through the emotionally unreliable lens of a man both in love and in denial, it asks: how far can you be manipulated before you're culpable and what happens when the one pulling the strings vanishes?

Nico James Vesper writes provocative psychological thrillers that blur the line between obsession and control. With a voice that is both intimate and unflinching, Nico explores the darker impulses of love, power, and vulnerability through characters who seduce and self-destruct in equal measure.

Fascinated by morally ambiguous relationships and the emotional damage we invite into our lives, Nico's work is as much about the thrill of surrender as it is about the cost of it.

Righteous Damage is their debut novel.