Chapter 569
Athena’s fingers clenched the hem of her skirt so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
A raging fire burned in Athena’s chest, scorching her throat dry.
Athena ground her teeth and said to Nicolas, “I won’t stand by and watch her die.”
Nicolas thought Athena had finally relented, and his heart eased. Before he could even smile, Athena continued coldly, “I will send every last person who hurt Grandfather to prison. I cannot forgive them on his behalf, nor for the more than one hundred members of the Monson family.
“The day I risked my life walking out of the duke’s estate over those blades, I’d already repaid any debt to all of you. Don’t you dare speak to me of favors anymore. That woman doesn’t deserve to be called my mother, and I refuse to acknowledge her as such.”
Athena suddenly looked up, her gaze, like daggers of ice beneath her lashes. Her voice turned glacial. “You brought this ruin upon yourselves. This is nothing but retribution.”
Nicolas stared at Athena in shock, as if he were looking at a monster.
Nicolas pleaded, “But you’re my sister, Athena. Mother may have made countless mistakes, but she was only trying to protect herself and us. I’m not asking for anything else. Just say a few kind words to spare her life. Is that really too much to ask?”
Nicolas roared in anguish. He knew that Eloise’s crimes were grave enough to warrant her execution.
Nicolas wasn’t asking for Eloise’s freedom. He only begged Athena to show mercy and spare Eloise’s life.
But Athena wouldn’t even grant this mercy. Nicolas felt that her heart was truly made of stone.
Athena glared at Nicolas, her voice trembling with anger. “Why should the entire Monson family pay for her crimes? Do you even realize how many died on the road to exile? There were children. Some were even babies who were not yet two years old. How utterly innocent those people were!
“You care for your mother, but weren’t their lives just as precious? Tell me, Nicolas. Who’s truly the heartless one here?”
Athena scoffed coldly, her heart hammering so violently it threatened to burst through her ribs.
She said, “When it comes to cruelty, every last one of you in the duke’s estate outdoes vipers a hundred fold. I survived by sheer dumb luck, not because you ever showed me mercy. Would you dare claim that if I had stayed in that estate, you would have ever spared me?”
Nicolas stared at Athena in stunned silence, utterly speechless.
Nicolas’s eyes darted around frantically. A strained, unconvincing reply escaped his throat as he forced out, “You’re my sister, Athena. How could I ever wish you dead?”
Athena scoffed coldly, her lips curling into a mocking smile. “Do you honestly believe that?”
He thought, ‘Wasn’t it precisely because Athena had hurt Willow that I exiled her to the military camp in the first place?
For three whole years, I turned a blind eye and abandoned Athena to her fate,
Athens loaths us with every fiber of her being.
but I couicht (just leave like this. What about my mother? What about the duke’s e
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