Make Them Regret It Chapter 36
“They spoiled me. They gave me anything I wanted. I said Blythe was in my way, so they took her Core, they beat her, they locked people up for me.”
“So why am I the only one being punished?”
At last, she asked the question she had been building toward.
No one in the tribunal hall answered her.
Every word she spoke was an attempt to shift blame, and every word also confirmed her own guilt.
If my father and the others had not handed her the knife, she could never have hurt so many people.
But she was the one who added the lines about Blackwood. The supplies were intercepted on her order. The three men carried her keycard and threw the acid.
No one was innocent.
The elders laid out the old files, one by one.
The testimony from the maid and the hired men matched the confessions perfectly.
When they came to the stolen document case, one elder frowned.
“This case had no evidence beyond a document of questionable origin. The punishment was carried out hastily and without due process.”
The legal adviser from that time rose to his feet.
“That was my failing.”
He removed the cufflink that marked his rank and placed it on the table.
I said nothing in his defense.
When those thirty lashes fell on me, dozens of people had stood by and watched. Not one of them had been willing to investigate further.
One admission of negligence could not erase the scars.
The elder looked at me.
“Blythe Romano, do you have anything to add?”
I set my dagger on the table.
The sheath struck the wood with a soft, definitive sound.
“In the matter of the stolen document, my conviction is to be revoked.”
“As for the Core, the whipping, and the chapel, each person will answer for their own actions.”
“No harsher sentence because they are my family. No lighter sentence because they regret it.”
My father finally looked up at me.
There were tears in his eyes, but he still nodded.
“That is how it should be.”