They Called Me the Family Outcast, I Sent Them to Trial Chapter 10
The guards stormed the armory and pinned everyone to the ground.
The Commission turned the livestream back on so the Five Families could watch them being disarmed.
The same people who had been blaming me just minutes earlier immediately started begging.
“Miss Moretti, Viola tricked us, that’s all!”
“Taking the armory was Matteo’s idea! Please, spare us!”
Some of them rushed to hand over their chat logs and claimed they had only been following the crowd.
I holstered my gun.
“Nobody forced you to skip registration.
“And nobody forced you to threaten the entire Family by taking over an armory.
“The rules don’t change just because you shout loud enough.”
Viola threw herself down beside Matteo.
“You were engaged to Elena! Go beg her!”
Matteo shoved her away.
“If you hadn’t pretended to be the Chairman’s daughter, none of this would have happened to me!”
“You’re the one who led everyone into the armory!” Viola shrieked.
“And you’re the one who threatened to blow it up!”
They started screaming at each other, and seconds later, they were fighting.
After the guards pulled them apart, Matteo crawled to my feet.
“Elena, I was tricked. She fooled me, that’s all.
“We loved each other once. Put in a good word for me, and I’ll do whatever you want for the rest of my life.”
I took a step back.
“To please her, you put a gun to my head, logged into my account, and tried to withdraw me from the evacuation list.
“Now that you know she can’t save you, you suddenly remember that we were in love?
“Three years ago, I took a bullet for you. And you paid me back by putting a gun to my head, again and again.”
Matteo’s fingers clawed at the floor.
“You could have saved me!”
“In my last life, I did save you.”
I looked at him and spoke slowly. “And you killed me for it. You got my father killed too.
“In this life, you made your own choices. Now live with them.”
He didn’t understand what I meant. He kept crying and shouting as the guards dragged him away.
As Viola passed me, she glared at me.
“If you had told everyone who you were from the start, they never would have believed me!”
“So it’s my fault that you tied?!
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. The guards led her away.
That night, every member who had completed registration was moved to the new safe house.
Those who hadn’t registered lost the Family’s protection.
The next day, the FBI began arresting the unregistered members one by one under their real names.
By the time the old base was raided, the evacuation convoy had long since left.
A month later, the federal court announced its verdicts.
Tony was sentenced to prison for impersonating the Chairman of the Commission and obstructing an emergency evacuation.
The Commission credentials he had flaunted became the most prominent entry on his conviction record.
Viola got life in prison for spreading false evacuation information and aiding the armory takeover.
In court, she still insisted she had only said a few words.
In open court, the judge played the full footage of Viola inciting the crowd to skip registration and later telling them to take the
armory.
No one felt sorry for her anymore.
Matteo was sentenced to life as well, for breaking into my account, threatening me at gunpoint, leading the armed takeover of the armory, and attempting to blow it up.
Before sentencing, he kept asking to see me, insisting that if I would just forgive him, everything could go back to the way it was.
I never went.
The other participants were tried on charges reflecting their individual actions.
Those who hadn’t entered the armory escaped the harshest sentences, but they were still expelled from the Family for refusing to register and attacking an evacuee.
The official registration they had mocked would have taken only ten minutes
Instead, they chose a shortcut and gambled away their identities, their freedom, and their futures.
After the crisis, my father didn’t give me a higher position just because I was his daughter.
The Commission reviewed how I’d handled the registration appeal, released the evidence to the public, and retaken the armory. Only then did they formally appoint me commander of the Moretti family strike team.
The words “Chairman’s daughter” appeared nowhere in my appointment letter.
Instead, it listed every mission I’d completed during those three years and every decision I’d made during the crisis.
I took off the engagement ring Matteo had given me and dropped it into the furnace.
I watched until the metal melted away and nothing was left.
My father is alive.
And my life is only just beginning.
