Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 257: Falling Apart

After telling Ines everything about what Sienna had done, the drugs, the locked room, the attempted assault on Arkai, the attack at the cemetery and the threat to the family’s reputation, Ines fell into heaps of tears and sobs.

Her carefully maintained composure shattered completely. She crumpled in her chair, her hands covering her face, her shoulders shaking with the force of her grief.

The sounds that escaped her were raw. Now, she was merely a mother whose understanding of her child had just been destroyed.

Cecilia watched her calmly.

She knew this woman had enabled Sienna’s behavior, perhaps since childhood. Had never said no. Had never set boundaries. Had never taught her daughter that the world didn’t revolve around her wants and whims.

But there were plenty of children raised that way who didn’t become what Sienna had become. They made mistakes, yes, some serious, some less so. But drugging and attempted rape?

That required something more than mere indulgence. Something her parents didn’t do.

Cecilia turned to Arkai. Narrowed her eyes.

Could it be... because this man was just too magnificent?

Well. Arkai himself might argue that he couldn’t be compared to Oathran, but this man was also a five-star love interest according to the System. They were magnificent in equal measure.

In Cecilia’s heart too.

"I was testing Sienna after my confrontation with her at the cemetery." Cecilia’s voice cut through Ines’s sobs. "Knowing I had a recording that could destroy her and this family’s reputation, she still made the Patriarch go against me. That proves my point."

"B-but..." Ines’s voice was wrecked, broken. "But having her be a nun... never letting her marry... that’s still... still too cruel..."

She looked up, tears streaming down her face, hope and desperation warring in her eyes.

"I know she made mistakes... but she can fix it... she can change...! I promise she will change!"

Cecilia shook her head slowly.

"Do you want to risk this family’s reputation after knowing what happened? Do you want to risk her destroying herself and everyone around her?"

"I just don’t believe she’s irredeemable like you said!" Ines snapped, a flash of her earlier fire breaking through the grief.

"Of course not." Cecilia said gently. "She might not be irredeemable. That’s why we’re sending her to another school alone. Our people will monitor her without her knowledge and see what kind of behavior she shows when no one’s watching."

She smiled and tilted her head at Ines.

"Mother-in-law." Her voice dropped, intimate and dangerous. "You won’t tell her our plan to monitor her without her knowing, right? You know we’ll find out if you do." A pause. "Because we’ll be monitoring you too."

After all, she still needed to test everyone.

She knew nothing about the Dawnoros before Arkai. Nothing about Ines, and she still had doubts about August. In this world, she would only ever believe her own husbands.

Ines stared at her, disbelief and outrage twisting her features.

"How dare you?! I am the lady of the hou—"

"I will immediately replace you as the lady of the house if you make mistakes, Mother-in-law."

Cecilia looked deep into her eyes. Held them.

"Please."

She pressed.

"Make mistakes."

***

The night deepened around Winter’s Keep, pressing against the stone walls with cold so absolute it seemed to have weight. Snow fell in thicker and thicker curtains, each flake adding to the blankets already burying the world.

By midnight, a full winter storm had descended. The kind that howled around towers and rattled windows and made even the hardiest northerners grateful for solid walls and roaring fires.

It was in the heart of this storm that Sienna’s unconscious body was brought back into the keep.

The guards carried her between them, her white dress now soaked and frozen, her skin pale as the snow itself. Frost clung to her lashes, her hair, the delicate embroidery of the pigeon at her breast.

She looked like a doll left out in the cold. Beautiful, yet fragile and broken.

Ines burst into tears the moment she saw her.

She rushed forward, her hands fluttering over her daughter’s frozen form, wanting to touch, to hold, to fix, but afraid of causing more harm. Her sobs echoed through the great hall, mingling with the howl of the wind outside.

But then she looked up.

August stood there, his face carved from the same ice that coated the world beyond these walls. Stern. Unforgiving. As absolute as ever.

Ines’s cries faltered. Slowed. Ceased.

August’s voice, when it came, was quiet enough to cut through the storm’s fury.

"A psychologist will be assigned to her." He looked at his step-daughter’s frozen form, at the mess she had made of herself, at the shame she had brought upon his house. "Self-harm from a Dawnoro..." A sneer curled his lip. "So this is how far we’ve fallen."

He turned and left without another word.

Cecilia watched everything from the shadows.

In the silence that followed August’s departure, she observed Ines carefully. The woman’s tears had stopped. Her shoulders, still shaking with residual sobs, slowly steadied.

She looked at her only daughter and for the first time, something other than blind love flickered in her eyes.

She’s learning, Cecilia thought. Finally.

August, for all his coldness, for all his brutal pragmatism, had done exactly what needed to be done. He had drawn a line. Had shown Ines that enabling Sienna’s behavior was no longer an option. Had demonstrated, in his own crass way, that family meant more than indulging every whim.

It wasn’t gentle or kind. But it was right in this scenario.

Cecilia looked up at Arkai.

His face held nothing but sadness, deep and quiet. The sadness of a man watching his family tear itself apart. Of someone who had hoped for better and been disappointed. Of a brother who still, despite everything, loved the girl who had tried to destroy him.

She gently grasped his hand.

Ines followed Sienna’s unconscious body to be treated, and August disappeared into the keep to regret his life. And after everyone left, Cecilia smiled at Arkai and pulled him away from the great hall.

"Fiancé." Her voice was warm, teasing. "Don’t you think you should please me? So I won’t second-guess my decision to be your fiancée?"