“‘Father’? Please!” Falman shot back. “You and I don’t share even a drop of blood. Sure, you took me in, but I never once thought of you as my father.”
Falman’s cold voice was like a slap to the face. For a moment, his father just stood there, not understanding what’d been said. But the second it clicked, the older man exploded into a screaming tirade, attacking both Falman and Falman’s mother with every insult he could think of. Even the viscount and the knights winced as they listened to it.
And the longer Falman stayed silent, the more his father’s rant spiraled out of control until...
“Shut up.”
“Argh!”
Falman drove a front kick right into his father’s face, leaving him with a bloody nose. The old man tried to shout something back, but one glance at Falman’s face shut him right up. Instead, he turned to the viscount and the knights, trying to paint Falman as the villain here, but...
“Oh? Finally quieted down, have you?” the viscount said. “Your words were so vile I had to cover my ears and look away. By the way, what’s with the nosebleed?” Viscount Abyss didn’t even try to hide the fact that he’d been ignoring it all. “Anyway, take him away, guards. You can patch him up once he’s in a cell.”
At the viscount’s order, the knights yanked Falman’s father up to his feet and dragged him out of the room. Even as they pulled him away, the old man kept shouting something. Perhaps because of the nosebleed, none of it was clear enough for the viscount to understand.
“Falman, I’m not going to praise what you did, but I understand. If you need a minute to cool off, we can wait.”
“I’m fine. Let’s go.”
Even though Falman was technically on the viscount’s side, he was still a key witness to all this, so the knights brought him to their headquarters as well.
“Thanks for all your help yesterday, Viscount Abyss,” I said.
“Oh, it was nothing at all. I barely did anything. Falman and Lady Primera’s subordinates did all the heavy lifting.”
Viscount Abyss had come by the Sanga estate to give his official report on everything that had gone down at Gloriosa Trading Company the day before. He started off addressing Albert, but after that, all his attention was on Primera. Albert was definitely pouting about that. From the corner of my eye, I could already spot three familiar figures lying in wait to pounce and tease him, so today was shaping up to be another chaotic day.
As I listened in on the conversation between Primera and the viscount, I learned that Falman’s father had been given two choices—either be shipped off to the mines as a criminal slave or be exiled after officially cutting ties with the Gloriosa Trading Company and the family. He’d apparently fought hard, but in the end, he’d chosen exile. Some of the viscount’s men would come in a few days to escort him to an undisclosed location.
As for Falman, while he hadn’t directly taken part in his father’s crimes, he had admitted to knowing about them and helping cover them up. Still, since he’d come forward and cooperated with the arrest—along with agreeing to compensate the victims—they had cut him some slack. His punishment ended up being several years of community service under the viscount’s supervision. The compensation would come from Falman’s personal assets, with the Gloriosa Trading Company covering the rest.
The reason his father had gotten exiled after having been stripped of all his rights and assets while Falman had been sentenced to years of service was simple—his father had way too many enemies. That guy would be a walking target for the rest of his life, constantly looking over his shoulder, wondering when someone would come for payback. That fear was part of his punishment.
Falman, on the other hand, was different. Making him pay restitution and putting him to work doing community service sent a message that he was making amends. Attacking him would be seen as an insult to both Viscount Abyss and the Sanga family since they had approved the arrangement. Sure, there was always a chance someone might come after him anyway, but compared to his old man, Falman was under the protection of nobles. Besides, if someone really wanted revenge, they’d get a heck of a lot more satisfaction going after the father. Falman knew that too, and from what the viscount had said, he’d already made peace with that possibility.
As for the reason Falman hated his father so much, well, that tied back to his mother and his real father.
Falman’s birth father had died in an accident right before marrying his mom. But the truth was that the so-called accident had been arranged by his fake father—the guy who had married his mom after that incident.
To keep things clear, let’s call them Real Dad and Fake Dad.
A few days after Real Dad had been killed, Fake Dad had forced himself on Falman’s mom, and that was how Falman had come to be. Except...Falman wasn’t Fake Dad’s kid after all. He really was Real Dad’s son.
Of course, Fake Dad hadn’t known any of that. All he knew was that he’d stop by a few times a year to visit Falman’s mother whenever he felt like it. And every time he saw Falman, he had gotten the idea in his head that the kid looked more and more like him. (Actually, they didn’t look anything alike at all.) Still, Fake Dad had treated Falman better than his actual sons, meaning Daniel and Henri, which had driven a wedge between the brothers.
Falman’s mom had been desperate to protect the baby growing in her stomach and did whatever Fake Dad told her to—despite her absolutely despising him. But one night, while Fake Dad had been completely drunk, he had let something slip, and she’d found out the truth. From that moment on, her hatred for him had burned brighter than anything.