Chapter 248: Her Cruel Punishment
Catherine was beyond shocked.
As a prince raised within the strict customs of the Kingdom, Maximilian would have known exactly what cremation meant.
He had burned her?
And then followed her into the fire himself?
It was unthinkable.
Even traitors born into the royal family were spared cremation. Their blood alone guaranteed them that final dignity. No matter how grave their crimes, they were laid to rest according to tradition. Cremation was reserved for the worst criminals, for those considered beyond redemption.
How could Maximilian possibly do such a thing?
Then, suddenly, Catherine remembered the pain in Maximilian’s face not long ago.
What you asked me to do...
Her breath caught.
Memory returned with merciless clarity.
As she lay dying in Maximilian’s arms, after learning that it had been Dorian who had poisoned her, after realizing that the man holding her was dying alongside her...
She had asked him for one final thing.
"Burn me. I don’t want him touching my body."
Catherine released a shaky breath she had not realized she had been holding.
Yes.
She had asked for it.
She had known exactly what it meant. She had understood the taboo, the cruelty, the spiritual consequences their people believed in.
And still, she had asked it of him.
She had demanded that the man who loved her more than his own life betray everything he had been taught since birth. She had asked him to defile her body, to condemn both their souls according to the faith they had been raised to believe in.
She had asked him to betray his conscience.
And Maximilian had done it.
Without hesitation.
Without breaking his promise.
A painful warmth spread through her chest.
Perhaps he had been afraid she would wander alone in the afterlife. Perhaps he could not bear the thought of her soul being restless and abandoned.
Perhaps that was why he had followed her into the flames.
That man...
Her Maximilian.
What can I ever do for you, Maximilian?
Pain and joy twisted together inside her, so tightly intertwined that she could no longer distinguish one from the other. Her chest constricted beneath the weight of it, her breathing turning uneven as emotions long buried surged to the surface.
She wanted to cry.
She wanted to throw herself into his arms and apologize for everything.
All this time, whenever Maximilian remembered their deaths in their previous life, she had believed his pain came from watching her die.
Now she understood.
Watching her die had not been the end of his suffering.
She had selfishly forced him to carry her corpse to the pyre. She had made him set the flames himself.
As though watching her wither away had not been punishment enough. As though witnessing her final agony had not scarred him deeply enough. As though the guilt he carried had not already consumed him for an entire lifetime.
She had driven the knife even deeper.
And still...
In this life, Maximilian had accepted every ounce of hatred she had hurled at him. He had endured her accusations, her coldness, her cruelty, all for a crime he had never committed, silently and patiently, as though he believed he deserved it.
Yes, Maximilian had betrayed her once. But he had already paid for that betrayal a thousand times over in their previous life itself.
And Catherine had made him pay again in this one.
Suddenly, she could not bear it anymore.
But Catherine knew this was not the place to show her emotions.
She leaned closer, allowing her eyes to redden.
Dorian studied her quietly.
Catherine wanted to scream. She wanted to claw at his face, to demand how he could sit there smiling after everything he had done. She wanted to tell him that Maximilian had loved her more purely in death than Dorian ever had in life.
But she swallowed every bit of it.
There was a reason she was here today.
And she could not afford to break on the very first day.
"You’ve endured this grief for so long," she said, her voice trembling just enough to sound sincere. "It’s a good thing he won’t come between us anymore in this life."
Because I’m going to end you myself.
"Yes," Dorian said, smiling at her. "He won’t."
Catherine said nothing after that.
For the remainder of the drive, she sat in silence, forcing herself to breathe evenly and compose her thoughts.
The look of satisfaction on Dorian’s face when he had heard that Maximilian was dead burned itself into her memory. It filled her with a rage so intense that she could scarcely contain it.
But rage alone would not destroy Dorian.
Patience would.
She would strip him of every source of pride. She would take away everything he believed belonged to him. She would make him experience loss, helplessness, and despair.
Only then would she allow him to die.
Just wait, Dorian.
-----
Timothy stared at the photograph on his phone.
It was a picture of him sitting in his car, his daughter asleep in his arms.
A soft smile curved his lips.
Just yesterday, he had been blocked by none other than Catherine Preston.
He had been on his way to meet an informant in a location carefully chosen for its lack of surveillance cameras. The meeting had been arranged in absolute secrecy.
Yet somehow, Catherine had known. He had been prepared to question her, to demand how she had discovered his whereabouts.
But every question had died in his throat the moment he saw what she was carrying.
A baby car seat.
And inside it... His daughter.
"Amelia knows?" he had asked immediately, his voice hoarse. "Did she change her mind?"
Catherine had said nothing. Instead, she had quietly climbed into the passenger seat. She had helped him lift the baby out of her seat and carefully placed the little girl in his arms.
Timothy had found himself unable to speak.
Only tears came.
Patiently, Catherine had shown him how to hold the bottle properly and how to support the baby’s head while feeding her.
And for the next thirty minutes, the world had ceased to exist.
There had only been Charlotte.
Her round cheeks... The tiny noises she made while drinking... The softness of her chubby fingers curling around his own... The sleepy little smiles she gave him.
His baby.
His daughter.
His blood.
Thirty minutes of pure bliss.
Then, as Catherine secured Charlotte back into the car seat, she had spoken.
"Maximilian is dead."
Timothy had stared at her.
"Dead? But I heard—"
"Maximilian is dead," Catherine repeated calmly.
She said nothing else. She did not need to.
Timothy knew Catherine Preston. He knew how deeply she loved Maximilian. He knew who had hurt him.
More importantly, he had negotiated with kings, ministers, and foreign governments for decades.
He understood unspoken terms when he heard them.
He could spend time with Charlotte. He could continue being part of his daughter’s life. But only if everyone—including Fitzgerald—believed that Maximilian Whitmore was dead.
He would have to lie to his own brother.
A Rathbourne did not betray family. Fitzgerald was family.
But Charlotte...
Wasn’t she family too? Wasn’t she his own flesh and blood?
Which blood was he supposed to choose?
It should not have been a difficult decision.
Yet it was.
Because Timothy had spent his entire life believing that loyalty to family came above everything else.
Now, for the first time, he was forced to ask himself a painful question.
Did that loyalty extend only upward—to parents, siblings, and ancestors?
Or did it also extend downward—to his child?
In the end, instinct won. His paternal instinct.
"What are you smiling at?"
Timothy nearly dropped his phone.
He looked up to find Fitzgerald standing beside him.