Chapter 11
Roland’s fall caused noise.
Expected.
Three older captains accused me of rewriting history for an ex-fiancée.
I invited them into my father’s study.
Open door.
No theatrics.
Silas repeated what he heard.
They questioned him.
Hard.
He enjoyed it.
Then I showed the burned names.
One captain stared at my father’s name longest.
“That doesn’t prove Roland did it.”
“No.”
Good.
I did not need to turn belief into command.
“Then decide based on all of it.”
They did.
Slowly.
One remained unconvinced.
Fine.
He lost no role for disagreement.
That mattered.
Eventually Roland himself made the strongest case against Roland.
At a family dinner, he said Cassian would have betrayed us eventually anyway.
Silence.
There.
The logic of preemptive guilt.
Punish someone for the future you imagine.
People heard it.
Whatever loyalty remained around him weakened.
He retired to Florida six months later.
No exile.
No dramatic punishment.
May you like
Just a man who had once shaped Ashcombe slowly becoming irrelevant.
Sometimes that is enough.
