Chapter 244: Judgment After War 2

Chapter 244: Judgment After War 2
Elara Campbell’s POV
Alistair attended despite still healing from the wound that should have killed him. He sat stiffly, one hand pressed against his side, his face pale and merciless. Patrick stood behind him, not because Alistair needed guarding, but because Jasper deserved to see the man who caught him alive. The evidence was not vague. That mattered.
Copies of Samuel’s forged letter were entered first. Then the handwriting tools Jasper’s people had used to imitate Samuel’s hand. Payment records from Dorian’s shells followed. Victor’s surveillance from the nightclub showed movement patterns, intercepted messages and the way they had watched routes into my life. Thrall testimony placed Jasper’s faction between vampire handlers and hunter equipment.
Dorian’s records named him as intermediary. The recovered file on Langdon proved Jasper facilitated the meeting that led to his murder and then buried the trail under false rogue activity. Alpha Phelix stood through that part without speaking. His silence was worse than shouting. When Jasper smiled once, Patrick leaned forward and said, “Try that again.”
Jasper did not. Alistair’s testimony finished him. Not emotionally. Legally.
He named the laws Jasper had broken, the recognised hunter families he had disgraced, the forbidden tools he had sold into vampire hands and the rogue cells that had grown under his protection. Then he helped dismantle them piece by piece. Safe houses. Supply rooms. Names.
Hidden apprentices. False licences. Apothecaries that had handled the poison used against my mother. The hunter order did not cleanse itself in one trial. But Alistair began cutting rot with the same cold discipline he once used to preserve law.
That, I understood. Samuel received guarded protection. Not freedom. Not trust. Protection.
He was too valuable to leave exposed and too guilty to be welcomed. Jaxson placed him in a protected property outside the estate, watched by men Samuel could not bribe and cared for by staff who had no reason to pity him into foolishness. He would not be handed to hunters, vampires or angry political factions. He would not disappear into some convenient punishment that allowed everyone to avoid the harder work of living with what he had done. I visited him once after I could walk unaided.
Jaxson asked if I wanted him with me. I said no. He accepted it. That was how I knew the old cage had truly broken.
Samuel looked smaller when I entered the protected sitting room. He rose too quickly, then stopped as if unsure whether a father had the right to stand for the daughter he had sold. “Elara,” he said.
“Sit,” I replied.
He sat. I remained standing for a moment because I needed to. Then I took the chair opposite him. He looked at my face, my neck where Jaxson’s mark rested, my hands that no longer hid what they were. His eyes filled with grief.
“You look like Helena when you are angry,” Samuel said.
“I am not here to comfort you with memories of my mother.”
He lowered his gaze. “No. Of course.”
I folded my hands in my lap. “I understand why you were afraid,” I said.
His head lifted. I saw hope flash across his face, and I hated it because it was too hungry. “Understanding does not undo the sale,” I said.
The hope died. Good. Cruel, perhaps. But true.
“You gambled with my body and freedom,” I continued. “You placed me under Jaxson’s claim because you trusted his territorial nature, not his kindness. You could not guarantee I would be safe, and I was not safe. I was caged. Whipped.
Starved. Terrified. I miscarried in a house I was dragged into because of your decision.”
Samuel’s face crumpled. “I know,” he whispered.
“No,” I said. “You know the words. You will live with the meaning for years if you want any place near my life.”
He nodded, crying silently now. I looked down at my hands. “My wedding will happen when I choose. If I choose. And you will not walk me down the aisle.”
He flinched. I let him. “You already gave me away once without consent,” I said. “You will not stand beside me and pretend the second time is a father’s honour.”
Samuel covered his mouth with one shaking hand. “I understand,” he said.
“I do not know if you do,” I replied. “But you will have time to learn.”
He looked at me through tears. “May I write to you?”
I thought about saying no. A clean cut would have been easier. But easy had never made anything whole.
“You may write,” I said. “I may not answer.”
He nodded. “That is more than I deserve.”
“Yes,” I said.
Then I left. I did not cry until I was outside. Tobias remained with Jaxson. Not because Kael sent him away. Not because Malric refused him again.
Because Jaxson chose it. Their repair was slow, ugly and incomplete. Some mornings Tobias sat with him in the garden and both men spoke like strangers who shared blood and too much history. Other days, Jaxson would not see him at all. Tobias accepted those days without complaint.