Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!-Chapter 504: Annabelle’s Vigil

Annabelle stepped forward, her heels striking the marble like punctuation marks. She didn’t walk like a girl. She walked like judgment in lipstick.

"If your plan was to torch your bloodline and get kicked in front of three blood dynasties," she said smoothly, "if you were aiming for public humiliation on a divine scale, then congratulations, ten out of ten. Really. That was art."

Aleric paled visibly.

She glanced at Dominic. "You should be proud. Most families implode privately. But you? You made it a gala event."

Then she turned back to Aleric, circling him like a wolf might circle something bleeding but too pitiful to bite.

Dominic’s jaw clenched. Aleric looked like he wanted to melt into the floor.

She paced around them slowly, like a lioness circling prey she didn’t need to kill—just mock.

"The Ashfords used to be the family that bought senators like snacks. Now you can’t even finance a snack. That’s what we call a generational plot twist."

She turned to the younger Ashford, circling like a jaguar circling a rabbit that hadn’t realized it was already dead. "You really thought Tessa was going to marry you?" she asked, voice almost sweet. "That any of this was going to work? You thought she’d trade him"—she tilted her chin toward Parker, who hadn’t even flinched this whole time—"for someone who can’t even take a kick without folding like lawn furniture?"

Aleric’s knuckles went white.

Annabelle leaned in, whispering like she was peeling off skin with silk gloves. "You know what hurts more than the kick? That she didn’t even look back when I did it. You were that forgettable."

He swallowed, but the lump in his throat wouldn’t go down.

Aleric inhaled sharply, eyes darting like a trapped animal, but she held up a hand.

"No. Shh. You don’t get to speak. Not tonight." Her gaze glittered with something ancient and cruel. "You thought wealth, pedigree, and empty threats would win her? She was already taken—by someone so far above you, it would take a telescope and two lifetimes for you to even see him."

She stepped back.

"Tessa doesn’t like Parker. She doesn’t want him. She’s devoted to him. You don’t get it because you’ve never meant something that much to anyone in your life—not even your father. But she? She’d kneel in a warzone for him and call it holy ground. She follows him like he’s not just a man—but something closer to a myth."

Her eyes landed on Bella—clinging near Parker with obsessive grip. "See that annoyingly beautiful girl Bella there, she clings to him like he’s her last breath. But Tessa?" She smiled faintly. "Tessa follows like she’s already died for him once and would do it again."

Dominic turned away, unable to look at his son. The shame in his expression was biblical.

Then, quieter—just for the Ashfords—Annabelle leaned in one last time.

"You’re lucky, both of you," Annabelle whispered, and somehow her voice felt colder than Parker’s silence. "Because Parker doesn’t need to end you to win. He already did."

Aleric’s breath caught. Dominic’s jaw clenched hard enough to crack bone. But she wasn’t done.

She leaned closer—too close, her words threading straight into marrow.

"And you’re going to survive tonight..."

She paused, smile curling at the edge like a sickle.

"...which is exactly what makes it tragic."

Another pause. One that tasted like ash.

"No one will save you. Not your name. Not your money. Not even the dark thing you bargained with to make this happen." Her voice dropped to something cruel and holy. "You invited judgment. And it came wearing a smile."

Then she stepped back.

"You’re not surviving this. Not really."

And with that, she turned and walked away—no flourish, no laughter—just silent, final gravity.

She left behind a father watching his dynasty hemorrhage, a son trying not to collapse, and both too shaken to realize they’d already been marked. The silence they stood in now wasn’t stillness.

It was the breath before the execution.

They weren’t just ruined.

They were already dead.

Only the moment of death had yet to catch up.

They stood alone now. The ballroom was nearly empty to them—just a few distant echoes of retreating footsteps and the soft hush of closing doors. The lights had dimmed, and the Ashford name no longer lit the walls with pride but flickered like a dying star.

Dominic didn’t speak for a long time. Just stared ahead, hands trembling as he slowly sat on the edge of a ruined chair that no longer looked like it belonged to a king.

Aleric stood nearby, motionless. Pale. Humiliated.

Finally, his father spoke—quietly. No venom. No fury. Just a voice worn thin.

"You know, when you were born... I thought I’d built this empire way too vast for you to ever fall from."

Aleric didn’t answer.

"I thought I was handing you the keys to a dynasty. That all you’d need to do was smile, shake hands, and hold onto the crown."

He exhaled. It sounded like giving up.

"But you looked at a throne... and tried to use it like a weapon."

Dominic rubbed his hands together slowly, almost like he was trying to warm them against a fire that had long gone out.

"I taught you to be ruthless. Efficient. I thought that was enough. I never taught you reverence. Or respect. Or fear."

"And maybe... maybe that’s why you never saw what Parker really was."

Aleric winced, but still said nothing. He couldn’t.

Dominic finally looked at him. His eyes were glassy—not from tears, but from the sting of a man who finally saw the cost of all his wrong lessons.

"He didn’t destroy us with fury, Aleric. He did it with silence. With timing. With mercy."

He laughed softly. Bitter. Small.

"Do you know how terrifying mercy is when it comes from someone who doesn’t need to offer it?"

Aleric blinked. "I didn’t mean for it to end like this."

Dominic stood slowly. Straightened his cuffs even though no one would ever fear those sleeves again.

Were they even going to survive tonight?

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A/N: I thought I should remind you, next up is going to be a character-building arc for Annabelle, it’s going to be a bit long with like four Chapters but it’s worth reading.

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