Luciano froze in place while he talked about the next part. “After Prince Linden left, everything got worse. Father was raging. He was so angry that I thought that he would hit me again. But in the middle of him yelling at me, a switch flipped in him, and he suddenly got extremely happy. He said something about Cedar and Your Majesty killing each other. In that case, one of you would be dead, and the other heir would be viewed as a murderer or so weakened that we could finish them. But then Sefare's fall began. Your Majesty should know best about how his crimes got revealed, and my father was scared of being dragged down with him. A single comment about what had happened to some merchant families might have caused my father to be charged with murder. So, he prepared something to clean up this mess, as he phrased it. I only found out what that meant when Sefare died in front of our eyes.” His hold on his cup tightened a little as he gazed downward. “We weren't really that close. But we were old acquaintances, and knowing that my father killed him is...”

Theodore interrupted him in an indifferent tone. “Sefare is alive, by the way. We managed to save him, but we need him to stay hidden until the trial.”

Luciano jolted his head up again. He blinked a few times while he tried to process what he was told. “He is alive?” He paused for a moment before fully realizing what this meant. His eyes widened. “What?” He only noticed that he had raised his voice afterward and quickly forced himself to be quieter again. “I sincerely apologize for that, but... Sefare is really alive?”

Blanche nodded and quickly replied. “He is. You could even meet him if you wanted to. He will be spared the death sentence for targeting the emperor and will be sent into exile if he can help during the trial.” At least officially. “I think he is fine, but he seemed a bit tired in general.”

The emperor ran his fingers through his lover's hair while speaking up. “We can talk about that later. Please move on with the story.”

Luciano still looked completely confused, but he nodded and complied after just a moment of hesitation. “The next problem was already the last thing I really noticed. After the audience here and a short argument with Cedar after, my father was beyond furious. I would say that I never saw him angrier than on that day. That was the day he came up with his plan for Rebecca's party too.” He finished his cup of tea before setting it on the table. Now he didn't have anything to grab anymore, so he balled his fists again as he glanced up at the concubine. “At first, he just complained to me about how you allegedly disrespected him. I just listened, smiled and nodded to make him calm down, but I shouldn't have done that. He told himself that I agreed with him and started talking about how we needed to teach you a lesson. Then he suddenly began laughing in that disturbing manner again.”

Blanche could tell that the important part would follow now. She didn't dare make a sound and just tried to get the best overview of Claude's motivations, if that sadistic bastard had even had any.

Luciano let out a shaky breath and forced himself to continue. “I tried to leave at that point, but he just stood in front of me and started saying random things that made me question whether he was thinking clearly. He began blabbering about an aphrodisiac and how the baby party would be the perfect spot to use it. That this would not only be his revenge but also that it would gain us a tremendous advantage because I could skip over the whole part about gaining your trust. I seriously got scared then and made the mistake of asking him what he was referring to.” It was pretty obvious that Luciano wasn't lying when he said that. He actually looked like he was terrified, and the fact that his father had been a hidden psychopath made that very understandable. “Then he told me, and I was even more scared. But he didn't care for my horrified expression and kept naming different arguments for why this would be good.”

Leonard spoke up without looking away from his book. “We need to hear those. Be specific please.”

Luciano nodded and began explaining, even though his expression looked pained. “Aside from him gaining personal satisfaction at the prospect of a person, which he deemed his greatest enemy all of a sudden, suffering, he had some other disgusting reasons as well. He said that we could use this to make the conflict between Your Majesty and Cedar escalate. He proposed framing Cedar for drugging Lady Blanche, which would have ensured that you would crush him. The other option would have been blackmailing Lady Blanche. Then Father could ask her to do anything so that we'd keep it a secret to keep you from leaving her.”

Theodore narrowed his eyes at that. “Your father is awfully stupid for someone that plots so much. I wouldn't have left Blanche if I had found out about that. My immediate response would have been to burn your household to the ground. That wouldn't have done you any good.” He tried to act like he was only slightly angry, but the wrath that was boiling directly below the surface of his facade was undeniable.

Blanche cuddled against him and moved his hand to her head so that he could pat her. Hopefully, that would help with distracting him a bit.

Luciano seemed to slowly become less dejected and more disgusted with his father as he replied. “I am aware. I said that too, and Father didn't listen. He just continued to explain why his plan was so good. His favorite reason was the worst one. Even if he was completely blinded by power, he understood that I could never become emperor if people didn't see me as a legitimate ruler. Me being related to the dowager empress is a very weak argument that could barely give me an advantage over Lord Duremont in case that both heirs to the throne were dead. So, my father came to the conclusion that I should adopt Your Majesty's child and claim to temporarily take over until it was born. In the best scenario, for my father at least, that child would actually be mine, but even if it wasn't, the Vasquez family would be known as the royal one then.”

With that information, the remaining puzzle pieces finally made sense. That was why Duke Vasquez had put so much effort into drugging the emperor's concubine.

Blanche did her best to ignore the growing urge to throw up and spoke up. “So, he concluded that me being the mother of said child would raise the odds of people believing that it was Theo's.”

Luciano nodded while keeping his eyes lowered onto the ground. “He said that we would kill His Majesty soon after and that this wasn't an issue. He wanted to focus on the foundation of his plan. He told me that it didn't matter much if you were already pregnant at that point or whether-” He cut himself off and shook his head. Until now, he had given his best to keep his composure, but he didn't manage to hide how devastated he was thanks to Claude's words. “He said worse things than you can imagine. He didn't just want to go through with his plan, he wanted to do it in the most sadistic way possible. I almost threw up then because I could barely believe that my own father would actually propose something like this.” He swallowed before continuing while balling his fists on his lap. “Then he asked me whether I was fine. I said that I wasn't. He took that as a sign to explain how I didn't have to feel bad since I could just keep you in some way. As a mistress, a secondary wife or as a trophy empress that had no real power but whose existence would make the commoners like me more. After all, an empress that was a commoner could show that I didn't look down on them, and one could have presented this as some sort of fairy tale romance to the public. If the woman that loved the previous emperor supports the new one, it must mean that he is capable. Something like that.” He paused for a moment to compose himself by taking a few deep breaths.

Blanche didn't even try to rush him. She understood how traumatizing this had been for Luciano too, so she would give him all the time he needed even when she wanted to hear more. So, she stayed quiet. After a short pause, she realized that it would take much longer this time though. Blanche doubted that it would help much, but she tried to calm Luciano down a bit when she realized that he pressed his hands in front of his face and struggled to breathe. “That...sounds quite unpleasant. I can't imagine that your father would truly wish for me to become empress after he called me arrogant so often.”

Luciano took a bit longer to compose himself enough to speak, but even then, he was still visibly shaken and kept averting his eyes as he replied. “My father probably just proposed all of that because it would give him a chance to see you suffer on a daily basis. I have no idea why he was that insistent on hurting you, but...” Once again, he stopped. Only a single second was enough to change his mood, and he continued with much more anger in his voice. “Actually, I think I know why. Because he is a psychopathic, sadistic bastard that needs to have absolute control over anyone and anything so that he can feel satisfaction. And I couldn't hold back for a moment and told him that. He got angry again, at me this time. He said things that were supposed to encourage me to do it, and I refuse to repeat them.” He shivered at that thought, which immediately wiped away Luciano's anger and only left behind exhaustion and disappointment as well as dejection and disgust. “I obviously still refused. Even when he said that our family depended on this, I said that we should find another way. Then he told me that he would throw me out of the house. I reminded him that he needed an heir and that my stores were enough to keep me, Mother and Rebecca in safe living conditions. At that moment, he understood what he could use to threaten me. He said that an accident would happen to my little sister if I didn't listen to him.”

That bastard. It shouldn't have been surprising, but it was still sickening.

Blanche gritted her teeth as she held back a few insults and replied as calmly as she could. “It is horrible that your father would threaten you with his own family members. I wish I could say that he was lying to upset you, but...”

Luciano closed his eyes for a moment. Then he weakly nodded. “I seriously believe that he would be capable of something like that. He already made comments about silencing her when she was crying too much, and I... I couldn't risk it. No matter how much it disgusted me, and still does, I told him that I would do it.” He swallowed, still keeping his eyes closed as if he hoped to avoid the shame he felt like that. “Luckily, Father believed me without questioning whether I truly had the intention of obeying. He just assumed that I would listen to him as always and moved forward with preparing his plan. I tried to get involved to find out what exactly he was doing, but he just interpreted that as me being eager to help him. In the end, he even told me to go buy the medicine and explained that he wanted to use a member of the Besseta family so that he could just frame them in an emergency. You know what his plan looked like because he realized it without any issues. I don't think there were any deviations until Cedar showed up and Your Majesty called for my father.”

Theodore was silent for a moment. He scanned the other man with a cold gaze before speaking up. “Then I would like to ask something. Surely, you didn't plan on going through with it just to please your father. What did you try to do? How did you want to keep him from harming your sister as soon as he found out that you didn't listen?”

Luciano made eye contact with him and replied in a voice that made it obvious that he was doing his best to calm down. “Do you remember that I warned you? At first, I wanted to avoid Lady Blanche drinking that medicine completely. If she just didn't consume anything at our house, there would be no way for my father to blame me for the failure in some way. I would have dealt with him a bit later then. But I had no idea that you knew about that plan.” He gazed at the concubine while resuming. “When I realized that you may have drunk something, I panicked. But then I couldn't do much but follow my father. I tried to argue with him a couple of times, but of course, that remained unsuccessful. So, I acted like I was going along with it. I wanted to bring you to a guest room and lock the door so that my father couldn't come in.” His gaze wandered to the emperor again. “Then I would have sent a maid whom I trust to get Your Majesty. I knew that you would be furious, so I could have ensured that my father would be arrested. Then I would only have needed to bring the documents to the court, and he would have been put in prison until the end of his life so that he couldn't hurt Rebecca or my mother. That worked out more or less. I didn't expect Cedar to suddenly appear, and I certainly didn't expect that the dowager empress would be as wretched as my father.”

Theodore's expression just became grimmer, but he tried to keep his voice calm. “You should have expected it. That woman is insane. She would set fire to the entire world if she knew that it would hurt me.”

Luciano's face scrunched up as he hurt that. “I...should have expected that. With how she always treated even Cedar, whom she clings to so much...” The thought dejected him quite a bit. He looked down for a moment before slowly lifting his head and making eye contact with the concubine. “But we should stick to the main topic. Like I said, I hadn't expected Camille to get involved. If I had known that, I wouldn't have left.” He glanced at Theodore again. “But at that moment, I just thought that it was the perfect chance to inform Your Majesty. While I wanted to return to the ballroom to search for you, you stopped me though. You were so furious that I got pretty scared. For a second, I thought that you would kill me.”

Theodore didn't seem to be especially worried about that assumption and just gave Luciano a rather cold look. “I considered it. The only reason I let you live is that you didn't listen to your father. Otherwise, you would have bled out in that very hallway.”

Blanche watched the two men for a few seconds and inwardly sighed at the threatening aura her lover seemed to give off. Luciano was here to testify, so it would be better not to intimidate him. She stayed quiet for a bit, but when no one said anything, she spoke up. “I thank you for your attempts to help me. You couldn't have known that the dowager empress would be that horrible. We didn't either. But it's good that you were still a bit skeptical when it came to Cedar.”

Luciano gave her a little smile, but he looked rather nervous. “There is absolutely no need to thank me for any of that. Cedar isn't really...the type to hurt people for fun even if you don't believe me here. I was just scared of the whole situation escalating because he suddenly was involved too. But to be honest, I didn't really do much to steer against such an escalation at all. If I had been a bit more careful or brave, I might have been able to prevent that incident entirely, which should have been my goal. Instead, I prioritized my family's health and risked you getting hurt. I should have immediately come here and told you and His Majesty about that plan, but I was worried. About my father finding out about it and about you not believing that I am not on my father's side. I am just happy that His Majesty noticed that I wasn't going to attack you so that he didn't get rid of me in that hallway.”

Theodore stroked over his lover's hair in a manner that made it seem like he was distracting himself while replying. “You owe that to Leon. He eavesdropped on you and held me back from attacking you immediately. But since you at least didn't have the intention of harming my angel, I managed to calm myself down. I was only seconds away from slaughtering your father after he said those things to her though.”

Luciano grimaced upon remembering that scene. “I understand that. I am grateful that you did not do that though. Putting him on trial is the much better option.”

Leonard chimed in and looked up from his book. “Definitively. After all, I'm the person that is in charge of making him testify. Believe me, he will favor an execution within a few weeks. But enough about that. Tell us about your father's office.”

Luciano clearly didn't like hearing about his father being tortured, but he couldn't change anything about this. He pressed his mouth into a line before nodding. “Yes. I originally planned on bringing proof to you, but as you noticed, I didn't need to retrieve anything because you searched the mansion yourself. My father stores most documents in his office on the big shelf to the right. From the stores' papers to contracts and certificates. Everything legal should be there, and some of the notes should contain clues regarding tax evasion and less severe crimes, if you can even call them that. For some reason, he didn't even see the need to falsify the finances there, probably because he thought that no one would investigate a duke. So, he just stored everything there, no matter how often different people and business partners told him-” Luciano stopped himself and just sighed. “But that is not important. It's just another proof of him not caring about others' opinions. The most important documents should be inside the small storage room next to the office. The door is always locked, and the key is hidden at a different place each time. I was only inside thrice when my father took me with him to discuss his extremely dangerous plans. There, he stored contracts with assassins and stories about the blue poison which he wished to use on Lady Blanche. He also has a notebook with all the people that owe him and the ones he bribed along with what he promised. If you have that, you can immediately search for everyone that helped him. Aside from that, the leftovers of that poison and some other drugs should be there as well. I am rather sure that you will find evidence for everything he's done in his office.”

Leon stopped writing and lifted his head. “You mean the book with the brown leather cover? Along with the glass containers with all the little poison vials? We found those already. Thank you for the information though.”

Luciano seemed a bit surprised at that. “I see. I should have expected that you would be fast. The investigation must be over since you allowed us to continue living in our house. I still need to thank you for that too. I fear that I'm not going to be able to repay you for that though.” He lowered his gaze for a moment as a dejected expression appeared on his face. “But I will definitely do my best to testify if you need me as an additional witness. Is there anything that you still need me to explain?”

Theodore's expression was still as cold as before. It seemed like he wasn't angry at Luciano but couldn't keep himself from fuming either way. Still, he held back as much as possible and attempted to stay calm. “Not really. You can pay us back by supporting us as soon as you become the duke. Right now, we probably don't need your testimony either. The evidence speaks for itself, and Leon will make the criminal in question confess. So, we can spare you the fate of needing to testify against your own father. The only reason we asked you was that we didn't comprehend how this plan was supposed to make you emperor. I just wanted to understand what that maniac was thinking. And I wanted to test you a bit as well. It is calming to hear that you aren't denying that you knew about that plan before.”

Luciano hurriedly replied. “I wouldn't lie about this. It's undeniable that my reaction wasn't the appropriate one, and I sincerely regret that. But I was scared and didn't see another way. That is why I am also fine with testifying against my father if it's necessary. Of course, I'm happy if I don't have to, but I will still do everything in my power to ensure that he is convicted of his crimes. Not just because I worry about him harming my mother and sister in some way but also because he deserves to pay for his deeds.” Those words carried a certain finality with them, but Luciano's expression revealed that his conviction was accompanied by guilt and concern for the future. This man didn't look like he would just forget what his father had done. He would probably suffer because of that for a long time.

Blanche had to admit that she had more sympathy than she should. She watched him for a moment before replying in a soft voice, attempting to calm him despite not being too close to this man at all. “But Theo said that you don't have to testify, so you don't need to worry about how you will feel while doing it. You can just lean back and let the trial finish. In the meantime, you can focus on your stores and prepare to take over the dukedom. Of course, you will need to spend time with your family too. So, forget about this trial for the time being.”

Theodore squeezed her waist before adding something. “Don't forget about the appeal though. You need to ask for permission to become the next duke formally, or people will know that I got involved for your family's sake. Understood?”

Luciano nodded. “I already read a bit about it. I will write the letter soon and ask for an audience. Until then, I will have prepared all the necessary documents and bring them along with me.”

The emperor showed a faint smile at that. “Good. You work quickly. That will be needed in the future if you want to erase the stigma of the Vasquez family being criminals. Certainly, it could also help if you pledge your loyalty to the ruler of Artias. Manipulating rumors is much easier than you might believe. If you choose the right side, they will be beneficial for you, and you will be protected. If you choose the wrong one, you will be burned to the ground. Keep that in mind. You may return home now.”

The threat didn't even create a reaction this time.

Luciano's response followed immediately as he was fully calm. “I already made that choice weeks ago. I said that I didn't want to be emperor, not just because I don't want to rule but because I also don't want any more power. I am good with business, but being a duke is stressful enough. As long as my family is safe, I am content with my position. I certainly won't do anything to gain more power. So, there is no need for me to go against a competent ruler. I will take my leave now.” He stood up and bowed to the emperor once more.

Blanche wanted to raise to her feet too, but Theodore's arm kept her seated. Theoretically, this was fine since her rank was higher as a member of the royal family and because Luciano wouldn't complain either way. Still, she felt a bit impolite to simply stay on the sofa while a guest left. So, she chose to at least bid him farewell in a polite way. “We wish you a relaxing journey home, Lord Vasquez. May you and your family stay safe and healthy. Please greet your mother and Rebecca.”

Luciano bowed his head once again and gave her a little smile. “Thank you. I will make sure to greet them even if I doubt that Rebecca will understand much of it. I wish you a wonderful night, Your Majesty and Lady Blanche.” Then he turned to the secretary. “I wish you good night as well, Lord Astame.”

Leonard closed his notebook and put it aside to stand up, which meant that at least one person here was polite. “Goodbye, Lord Vasquez. I wish you a calm night and an uneventful way back home.”

Luciano nodded at that before he walked over to the door with the secretary accompanying him. He opened the door and stepped outside after a short look back at the couple before he disappeared behind the wall.

Blanche thought that it was over now and that she could sort her thoughts with Theodore, but she was interrupted as she turned to him.

Only a second later, Leon came back inside and closed the door. “Lady Duremont is waiting in front of the room. She would like to talk to the both of you.”

Oh. That could become interesting too.