CHAPTER 127: A VILLAIN

The poison case was reopened that morning.

Aveline agreed to visit the station. She confirmed that she had seen Dr. Elias Hawthorne at Sterling Villa when she was leaving in Damien’s car, and asked them to check the dash camera footage.

The investigators didn’t need more. Elias was taken in for further questioning. His denial didn’t last long. They showed him photos of him giving hefty cash to the vendor for selling him lead without mentioning it in the log. The man finally broke when asked about his suspicious cash flow.

But Aveline didn’t wait around to see it. She had scheduled meetings and a search for her first client.

It was evening when she visited the prison, following Scarlett’s instructions.

The prison gates loomed ahead, their iron bars casting long shadows in the fading light. Guards checked her identification twice before escorting her through a series of locked doors, each one clanging shut behind her with finality.

The visitor’s room smelled of disinfectant and despair, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like trapped insects.

Sitting in the visiting room, Aveline turned when the door opened. Walter, the former housekeeper of the Sterling villa, walked in slowly. He looked older, his hair greyer and his body thinner, the prison uniform hung loose on his shrinking frame.

When Walter saw her, shame crawled up his throat before words could. He couldn’t meet her eyes even when he sat across from her.

"I’m sorry, Mrs. Ashford." He never got a chance to apologize to her before.

"We are divorced," she said plainly.

He raised his head in shock, but his face brightened, as if he were pleased to hear it.

Before he looked away from her, she continued, "Elias Hawthorne has been caught. Damien is detained too." She paused before asking, "Will you tell the truth?"

He didn’t deny it. Just looked down at his hands. "The truth doesn’t feed a man, Miss Laurent."

"No," she replied. "But it sets him free." Walter didn’t have to serve so many years behind bars.

"I’m not forgiving you for what you did to me, but you don’t have to take the fall for somebody else. Somebody who cared about nobody but himself."

Walter opened his mouth to say something, but closed it. He quietly listened as she told him what Damien had planned after the divorce, what he had done to others.

By the time she finished, Walter simply said, "I’ll think about it, Ms. Laurent."

That was enough for now.

...

Aveline stepped out of the building, the prison gates closing behind her with a deep metallic thud. She walked without looking back as darkness swallowed the last traces of daylight, and streetlights began to flicker on.

She had spent nearly half an hour speaking with Walter, the man who had once brought her warm soup on cold mornings, who now looked a decade older in that uniform. The man who had poisoned her under Damien’s orders and stayed silent about it until now.

He hadn’t begged her to forgive him. He hadn’t denied anything. But his silence would cost him too much.

She paused by the curb, tugging her coat against the cold breeze. She was about to cross the road to the parking lot when a black car pulled up beside her.

The passenger door opened, and Alaric stepped out. He wasn’t in a suit today. No tie, no cufflinks. Just his watch and his presence.

His gaze stayed on her face. She smiled at the sight of him, with a hint of mischievousness in it, but the pinkness at the tip of her nose revealed she was cold.

He quietly grabbed his overcoat from the car and draped it over her shoulders as he heard her tease, "What an honor to have an eligible bachelor at my service."

Before her regression, Damien had held that title. Now, she couldn’t believe Alaric had stolen it.

"Sunshine, are you running PR for me?" he asked. Because how else would she know about the media before it happened?

"What if I am?" she asked back playfully.

He didn’t reply, only looked at her a moment longer before speaking. "Get in. I’ve made dinner reservations."

She hesitated. "Alaric..."

"Don’t worry," he cut her off. "We’re not celebrating anything. Just eating." He had seen that look on her face while she stood in the wind.

She smiled faintly, passed her car key to Ezra, and slid into the passenger seat.

The door closed. She didn’t bother asking how he had come in person when he took the driver’s seat.

Hearing her quietness, he glanced at her for a moment and asked, "Did he speak?"

"No," she said. "He’s protecting someone who doesn’t care about him." There was unspoken heaviness in her words that he had seen in her eyes.

Alaric didn’t ask more.

They drove in silence for a while. The road ahead stretched out like a story no one wanted to finish. Aveline’s eyes remained fixed outside, but Alaric’s voice broke the quiet.

"Do you know why Walter is staying quiet?" he asked.

She didn’t answer. Damien wasn’t in any condition to threaten Walter. So she couldn’t understand what scared him.

He didn’t wait for her response. "He wasn’t scared of what Damien would do to him. He was scared of what Damien had already become."

The words hung in the air for a moment before Alaric added, "He wasn’t always like this."

Aveline didn’t move.

Alaric adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, unable to believe he was talking about Damien.

"Damien was just another rich kid once. Grew up in a family where everyone only cared about legacy. Everyone, his grandfather, parents, uncle, even the housemaids, kept telling him, ’You’re the heir. You’ll carry the name. The company will be yours.’

Though he took pride in it, it wasn’t a compliment. It was pressure, like wearing a crown too heavy for his head. The company became his obsession, not a gift."

Aveline turned slightly toward him, silent.

"Then Maxwell Ashford screwed up," Alaric said flatly. "A chain of bad decisions, shady deals. The market turned against them. Within a year, Ashford Holdings didn’t belong to the Ashfords anymore. It was in the hands of shareholders."

He paused, glancing at Aveline. "We were still in school when it happened. They had to cut corners just to pay his tuition. No more drivers. No more club memberships. He started skipping field trips and events, said he was sick, but I knew he wasn’t. And the other kids noticed."

He glanced at the rear view mirror, then back at the road. "One day, the truth got out. Some rich kid found out about the Ashford mess, and that was it. The same teenagers who used to treat Damien like royalty started mocking him, bullying him, and pushing him in the hallways. They laughed when he flinched, calling him a bankrupt heir. Ash-fraud."

He slowed the car near a turn and exhaled, bitter. "It broke something in him."

Aveline looked out the window now. Her voice was low. "So he chose this path?"

"No," Alaric said. "He stopped chasing approval. He swore he would get the company back, his company. And he did everything to get there. He worked hard, day and night, and made smart choices.

But somewhere down the road... shortcuts looked better than sacrifice. Power became easier than patience."

Stopping the car at a red light, Alaric looked at her now. "He didn’t just want success, Sunshine. He wanted domination. He didn’t just want to rise. he wanted the world that humiliated him to kneel."

Silence settled in again. Alaric let her process it. Walter had been through all of this with Damien. Though Damien didn’t care for Walter, the latter was still loyal to him.

"And now?" she asked softly.

Alaric’s gaze didn’t shift from her. He hadn’t told her all this to create sympathy for Damien. He just wanted the truth out there. "Now he’s dragging everyone down with him."

The light turned green. They moved forward.

Aveline rested her head lightly against the seat. She wasn’t sorry for Damien. She never would be. But some part of her understood the boy he used to be... and the man he chose to become.

He was never supposed to be a villain. But when he became one, he made sure to play the part too well.

"Neither was I supposed to be a villain. But I would become one to protect what’s mine," she swore.

Alaric didn’t speak immediately. His fingers curled a little tighter around the steering wheel, not from discomfort, but from understanding.

As the traffic thinned and city lights blinked through the windshield, Aveline finally exhaled.

When he finally glanced at her, she was leaning back, the warmth of his coat still clinging to her shoulders.

He looked ahead, then said quietly, "You want to skip dinner?"

She blinked, surprised. "You made a reservation."

"I can cancel it."

She paused. "What if I’m actually hungry?"

He looked ahead, then said softly, "Then let’s grab some dessert for you."

That made her smile, small but real.

Something loosened in her chest. Not because things were better, but because he didn’t ask her to pretend they were.