The Farming Saint in the Starry Wasteland (Elizabeth Schofield) novel Chapter 423

Chapter 423 His Darkness

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“You make a mess, you offend the wrong people, and you put it all on my son?” Dilfus’s voice rose higher with every word. “Do you have any idea what happens to him if that charge sticks? Those farm people are not the kind you cross lightly. He’s twenty–five years old. What’s he supposed to do with his life after this?”

“Dilfus.” Maverick spoke at last, his voice rough, every trace of deference stripped away. “I didn’t have a choice. When pressure comes down from above, someone has to be responsible.

“So you made that someone my son?” Dilfus stared at him.

Maverick laughed.

It stopped everyone in the room cold.

Not a bitter laugh, not a resigned one. It was something sharper, something self–righteous and faintly contemptuous.

“Dilfus, think about what you’re saying.” Maverick raised a hand and rubbed at his still–burning cheek, his tone going flat and unhurried. “Scapier is my brother–in–law. He’s been under my wing for three years, but what has he actually done? He can’t file documents. He can’t take meeting notes. He can’t format a basic memo. How many times did I have the secretarial team sit down and walk him through it? More than I could care to count! Did it ever take?”

In the corner, Scapier’s head snapped up. His eyes were still red, but the bewildered look on his face had shifted into something closer to disbelief.

“…” He opened his mouth.

“Don’t.” Maverick didn’t spare him so much as a glance and kept his eyes on Dilfus. “Dilfus, you know yourself he hasn’t been useful to me, not once in three years. But it’s worse than just being useless. He creates problems. I’ve carried him for three years. Salary, benefits, and every mess he walked into, I was the one cleaning it up. Every single time.”

Dilfus’s face went to stone. “You…”

“So now?” Maverick cut across him, his voice lifting slightly. “Now I need someone to absorb the impact. He understands nothing, which makes him the most convenient candidate available. Isn’t that the one thing he’s actually good for?”

The living room went dead quiet for a moment.

Joan stared at her husband as though she were looking at a stranger who’d taken his shape.

Marge pressed a hand to her chest, swaying on her feet, and grabbed the back of the couch to steady herself.

Scapier’s eyes went wider and wider, his face locked in fury, every word he might have said stuck somewhere behind his teeth.

“Maverick!” Dilfus’s voice came through his teeth like something forced through a narrow crack. “Are you even listening to yourself?”

“I’m telling you the truth.” Maverick held the old man’s gaze without flinching. The slap mark on his cheek was still livid, but his expression had gone completely cold. “Dilfus, don’t just come at me. Ask yourself honestly. If it weren’t for me, would Scapier have lasted three years at the Interstellar Route Authority? With what he’s got, what job could he actually hold down out there? I carried him. I covered for him. And this is how it evens out. What exactly is wrong with that?”

“Evens out?” Dilfus was shaking so hard the words barely held together. “You make my son take the fall and you call that evening

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12:33 pm

A

Chapter 423 His Darkness

Fout

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“What would you prefer?” The impatience in Maverick’s voice was naked and unashamed. “Dilfus, you worked in the system. You know better than I do how this works. When something goes wrong, someone pays for it. If it’s not me, it’s him, or it’s someone else. I chose him. What’s the problem?”

He paused, then let out a short, cold sound that passed for a laugh. “And honestly, he’s always been useless. If he can finally be useful for something, he should count himself fortunate.”

“Maverick!”

Dilfus roared the name and snatched the cup from the coffee table, arm already swinging back.

Joan screamed and threw herself between them. Marge lunged and grabbed her husband’s arm, and the room collapsed into chaos.

The cup never flew. Joan wrestled it away, though the tea sloshed out and spread across the floor in a dark stain.

Dilfus was pressed back onto the couch by his wife and daughter, breathing in ragged, heaving pulls, his face drained to a horrible white.

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