She Was the Treasure All Along novel Chapter 817

Baldwin knew with absolute certainty that if his family was convicted of treason, it meant the death penalty.

After being dragged out of the mine and loaded into the transport vehicle heading for the military prison, he continuously apologized to Lucian, begging for forgiveness for abandoning him. "We had no choice! We were forced!"

Realizing she was headed for the executioner, tears streamed down Joanna's face. "No, no, Lucian! I am your mother! The one who brought you into this world! You can't just let them execute your own mother!"

Channing sobbed uncontrollably. "Lucian, please! Give me a chance to turn over a new leaf! Just give me one chance!"

Sitting across from them, Lucian's face was an emotionless mask.

No matter what they said, he didn't give them the time of day.

Unable to hold back any longer, Joanna's pathetic pleading twisted into vicious condemnation. "You ungrateful bastard! You'd murder your own mother! People like you are going straight to hell!"

Lucian finally looked her dead in the eye. "An irresponsible mother like you belongs in hell long before I do."

"I told you, I was forced!" Joanna shrieked. "I had no choice!"

"No choice?" A thoroughly icy smirk touched Lucian's lips. His words cut like glass, completely merciless. "Abandoning your infant son... was that 'no choice'? Ignoring me for thirty years... was that 'no choice'? Colluding with foreign enemies, betraying your country, and murdering your own people... was all of that 'no choice' too?"

He leaned forward slightly. The suffocating pressure of a seasoned battlefield commander filled the cramped vehicle, making it hard to breathe.

"Every single one of your 'choices' was built on the blood, loyalty, and lives of others. Using 'I had no choice' as an excuse is an insult to the people who truly faced absolute despair but never broke their oaths."

Cold sweat beaded on Baldwin's forehead. He tried one last desperate angle. "Lucian, blood is thicker than water. We're still family. You can petition the higher-ups, let us work off our crimes..."

"Family?" Lucian cut him off. For a fraction of a second, an ocean of deeply repressed pain bled into his voice, only to be instantly frozen over. "When you abandoned me without a second thought, when Grandpa had to shoulder the family's burdens alone just to raise me... when I was clawing my way up in the military, bleeding out on the front lines, where was my family?"

His gaze finally settled on Joanna's pale, trembling face.

"The moment you chose to work for Ares and point your guns at your own country, you ceased to be my family. You are nothing but criminals who endangered national security."

"As for the death penalty..." Lucian leaned back against the seat, his expression returning to absolute indifference, as if stating a fact that had nothing to do with him. "That is the law's just verdict for your crimes. I have no right to intervene, and I never will."

Luna kept looking around left and right, staring at nothing in particular, until Tanur called out, "Baby."

It pulled her back. The wealthy, middle-aged man standing a few feet away opened his arms wide. "Come here, let Daddy look at you."

Luna walked over on somewhat unsteady feet and fell into her father's embrace.

Her body was warm, and she hugged him just like she always did, but Tanur's sharp instincts picked up on something wrong. Her arms felt rigid, and her shoulders trembled imperceptibly. Those eyes, usually so full of spoiled arrogance, were clouded over and unfocused.

"My little princess, you've been through so much," Tanur patted her back, his voice thick with affection. But his eyes shot over her shoulder, piercing Yale Nash like daggers.

"Luna, tell Daddy, did they hurt you? Don't be afraid. You're home now. No one will ever touch a hair on your head again."

Luna shivered lightly in his arms and mumbled a faint "Yeah." She rested her head heavily on his shoulder but didn't say another word.

Her brain felt like it was being pricked simultaneously by thousands of tiny needles. A continuous, low-frequency ringing made it impossible to focus. The candlelight, her father's face, even Yale's silhouette would randomly distort and glitch in her vision, like a television losing signal.