Pampered By My Three Brothers: The Return Of The Neglected Heiress - Chapter 461

Chapter 461: Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.
“I caused someone’s death.”

A long and thick silence filled the room as everyone stared at Charles with mixed emotions. Atlas, especially, was shocked upon hearing this.

“What?” Atlas scoffed in disbelief. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard.

“It was back when I was in the military,” Charles explained, before providing the full details.

During Charles’s last mission — a joint operation involving skilled soldiers — a full-blown fight broke out after a long-standing tension. To prevent the rebels from fleeing the land, Charles issued an order for an on-site kill.

The rebels had already taken down quite a few soldiers, but the latter hadn’t yet captured the leader of the rebel group.

With that order in place, it was war.

Gunfire echoed in the air, and bombs resonated intermittently. The cries for help and shouts of battle blended together, with even the fallen troops’ silence adding to the dreadful atmosphere.

As the enemy fell back and the soldiers advanced fiercely, their morale at an all-time high, they were unaware that the last group they were pursuing so fiercely included innocent victims. When the final showdown between the forces and the rebels concluded, the soldiers emerged victorious.

After the mission was declared a success, Charles stayed behind for the cleanup. To his surprise, the next day, while assisting his men, they found the body of a young lady around eighteen years old.

“All collateral damage during that mission, or any mission, would be identified and confirmed,” Charles continued with a heavy sigh. “That young lady… she’s not in the system.”

Although not everyone would be identified, especially with the technology of that time, what made this young lady’s case dangerous and significant was what happened afterward.

“I was abducted and tortured,” Charles confessed. “I thought I was going to die… for a reason I didn’t fully understand. All I know is that they were looking for that young lady’s body.”

Charles scoffed as he recalled that memory, buried deep in his mind. It was the most terrifying experience of his life. No words could fully explain the pain he endured during those thirty-eight hours of captivity.

Even Hugo was shocked to hear this. He knew something had happened to his father during his time in the service, but all records of Charles’s last several months at the base were gone. He couldn’t determine if they were hidden, burned, or simply missing.

After a long silence, Zoren’s calm voice broke through.

“How did you survive it?” he asked, earning a look from Charles.

Everyone had almost forgotten about Zoren’s presence, as this discussion was so personal. But he was already there.

Charles sighed. “Another group saved me.”

“Another group?” Hugo asked curiously. “It wasn’t your unit who saved you?”

“No.” Charles shook his head and lifted his gaze to meet theirs. “In this world, there are many powerful people who choose to live high-profile lives and openly oppose the law, and some who choose to live in secrecy. The latter is often the most dangerous of all.”

“When this group saved me, they were also searching for the young lady’s body. Unlike the first group who captured and tortured me, this group wanted nothing more than to ensure her body was gone without a trace,” Charles continued. “The information about her body’s whereabouts was my ticket to freedom at that time. So, I gave it away.”

As a soldier, Charles felt he no longer deserved to serve. Before the incident, he had always believed he was the fiercest soldier of his generation. But when he faced helplessness and had few options, he folded.

It was one of the many reasons he felt unworthy of the title and of being in charge of his men’s lives.

“They made me fear death and pain,” Charles whispered. “When they threw me into the street where my men found me, it took me months to regain consciousness. But the first thing I heard was the nurse telling me… the young lady’s body went missing.”

A ridiculing laugh escaped him at the thought. “It went missing the day after my disappearance. I thought that once I was saved and back at the base, everything would be over. However, it wasn’t. The story was far from over.”

When Charles recovered, he began receiving calls and letters — sometimes delivered by a real person. It didn’t matter if he was at the base or away. One group warned him that his doom was imminent, while the other advised him to keep a low profile.

It would be a mistake to think the second group was on his side. No, they simply kept him alive because they intended to use him in the future. From what he knew, the young lady who died during the fierce conflict between soldiers and rebels was part of this unknown group.

“They want me to be a part of them while serving in the military,” Charles summarized. “I couldn’t do that. So, I left the service. They only stopped when I did, so I thought everything would be okay. That they wanted nothing more from me.”

“I was wrong,” he laughed mockingly, realizing that those people hadn’t forgotten him or stopped pursuing him. “They were simply waiting for the right time to make me suffer.”

Another wave of silence fell over them as they tried to process everything. After a long pause, Atlas spoke quietly.

“That right time…” he trailed off, his voice stopping in his throat. “…is when you had Penny?”

“An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth,” Hugo murmured, clasping his hands together. “Dad gave out an order that any leader would give, resulting in many deaths, including that young lady, who is wanted by two unknown yet powerful forces.”

Slowly, he looked up at them. “If she was part of either of them, then Penny is… somehow the repayment for that young lady’s death.”

An eye for an eye.

Tooth for a tooth.

Charles caused another man’s daughter to die. And thus, Charles would suffer the same pain of losing his own daughter.