Bastien blinked back tears at the nightmarish memory. As the reality that his uncle had just slaughtered his entire family slowly sank in, he’d stood there in the processing center unable to move or breathe, watching the monitors as the news mercilessly played gory images of his parents’ remains without regard for the fact that those were human beings with family members who loved them. That the news agencies were banking ratings off the tragedy of his life.
God, he hated them all for their lack of compassion. Their lack of human decency that they wrapped up in their lies, and masks of moral superiority and hypocrisy as they condemned him for something he hadn’t done.
Not a single one of them had bothered to contact him to learn the truth. Yet they all lied, saying they’d tried, when they knew better.
Fucking, feckless pieces of lying shit.
It’d been a full hour later that a cold, heartless interrogator had gutted him with the news that he was being charged with every one of their deaths.
Bastien had kept waiting for someone to come forward with the truth and spare him his hell. Surely to the gods, someone else had to know better. Had to see what was so obvious!
And yet they didn’t. Rather, the blind fools rushed to protect the liar who sought them out and played the victim for them all. They listened to the lies and swallowed them whole, while painting Bastien as the monster he’d never been.
The full reality that they could honestly think for one moment he would be guilty of such savagery hadn’t entered the realm of his belief system.
Not until that first interrogator had come in and started torturing him for a confession. A confession he still refused to give them. They could cut all the pieces off his body they wanted, he’d never admit to something he hadn’t done.
He was innocent! He was the victim and yet those gullible, idiot sharks danced to Barnabas’s tune. They all surrounded Bastien, tearing at his flesh to dig the wounds in ever deeper.
No one believed him. Everyone was so convinced of his guilt that no attorney in the Nine Worlds would even agree to representation. Not a single relative would take his calls or speak his name.
Every friend had abandoned him.
Just like now. The hatred in the Overseer’s eyes as she glared at him from her seat seared him to the marrow of his bones.
I didn’t do this.
But Alura’s testimony of lies gave him no reprieve. All it did was solidify his guilt in the minds of everyone who heard her. “I gave a report to his uncle that I thought Bastien might try something. Had I known it would cost Jackson his life, too … that Bastien would cut his throat to keep him silent, I would never have said a word.”
The prosecutor shook her head. “Were you not afraid for your own life, dear?”
Alura sobbed. “Of course I was! I was petrified every minute I was married to him. It’s why I kept a separate residence. Why my zusa refused to marry him when he asked her, and why his own zusa had to be his wingman. No one else could handle him. And you see what it got Lil. He’s prone to violent rages. You never know when he’s going to explode. Any little thing could set him off!”
Bastien ground his teeth at her utter nonsense. How could anyone believe her?
Yet as he glanced around at the faces in the crowd, he realized he was alone in this. No one was on his side.
No one.
It defied reason that anyone could believe her ridiculous bullshit given what everyone knew about him. Given all he’d done that refuted it. He felt so betrayed by all of them. How could they not see the truth?
Or worse, that they knew the truth and were too cowardly to speak it. Because they feared coming under fire for defending him.
That thought sickened him the most. Because he’d never failed to come to the defense of his friends. His parents had bred him for loyalty. You stand up for others, especially when they need you. Friends and family didn’t abandon each other.
Yet none of them seemed to have a molecule of it in them.
In the end, he had no choice but to listen to his unwanted wife malign him in front of a universe who knew exactly what kind of liar she was. They had seen it countless times.
How convenient that in this they thought she’d finally found some kind of human decency and conscience when she’d never shown any before.
And three weeks later, after no one, not even his uncle Aros, had come to his defense, he was hauled before the Overseer for the verdict.
Ever elegant and refined, Alia had her gray hair coiled around her head in the kind of intricate style his mother had favored. It made him wonder if the Overseer had done it for that reason. If her intent had been to cut him to the bone with the loss of his family.
“Have you anything to say for yourself, boy?” Her voice was cold and brittle.
“I’m innocent, Your Grace. I could never harm my family. I swear, I didn’t do this!”
She rolled her eyes. “Bastien Aros Cabarro, given the amount of evidence presented and the brutality of your actions, and reluctance to show remorse, you are hereby stripped of all title and standing, and found guilty of eight counts of premeditated homicide and sentenced to death. May whatever god or gods you worship have mercy on your rotten soul.”
Those words hit him like a sledgehammer to his gut. Never had he felt so alone. Not one single member of his family was here.
Or so he thought.