Vienna adjusted her clothes with trembling fingers, her gaze oscillating between the white puddle on the floor and Barbara's ashen face.
Finally, her eyes settled on Egon.
"Egon, If what you're saying is true... if she has been bleeding me dry all this time... how do I even begin to punish this?"
There was no hesitation in his response. Egon's lips pulled back into a smile, but there was no warmth to be found in the gesture. It was the expression of a predator that had finally cornered its prey and intended to savor the scent of its fear.
He stepped toward Vienna, his presence expanding to fill the suffocating silence of the room. His hand slid firmly around her waist as a possessive and grounding touch that channeled her frantic anger into something colder, sharper, and infinitely more dangerous.
"For starters, she is going to face the very things she spent years trying to bury."
He turned his predatory gaze toward Barbara. The woman's lips trembled so violently she looked as though she might shake apart.
"What... what do you mean by that?" Barbara stammered.
Egon offered no immediate answer. Instead, he paced slowly toward the desk, his boots clicking rhythmically against the floorboards.
He reached down and scooped up a heavy stack of documents, crumpled receipts, and meticulously forged records.
With a flick of his wrist, he dropped them at Barbara's feet.
The heavy thud made her flinch as if he had struck her.
"Do you recognize these?"
Barbara remained silent, her eyes darting across the ink-stained pages.
Egon crouched down, bringing his face level with hers.
"You didn't just skim a few coins, Barbara. You rewrote everything. You redirected funds, fabricated transactions, and doctored the very soul of this business. You built a system."
"A system designed to eventually replace the woman you call Mistress."
Barbara's breathing became a series of ragged, uneven hitches.
"I... I had no choice, I was—"
"Wrong answer."
Egon didn't shout, but the pressure of his words felt heavier than any scream.
"You always had a choice. You simply grew to loathe any option that didn't line your own pockets."
He stood up, the movement fluid and imposing, and turned back to Vienna.
"You asked for a punishment."
Vienna nodded, her jaw set. "I did."
Egon gestured toward the scattered papers on the floor. "Then we will begin with the truth. A full, unadulterated accounting."
Barbara's heart seemed to hit the floor along with the papaers.
"No... please..."
Egon ignored the plea entirely. "You are going to read them. Every single one."
Barbara froze. "Read...?"
"Every falsified entry. Every stolen copper. Every lie you ever inked into these pages," Egon commanded. "And you will do it out loud, so there is no shadow left for you to hide in."
Barbara shook her head instinctively, "I can't... I won't."
"Oh, You will. Or we can bypass this little exercise and hand everything over to the Royal Magistrates. I imagine their dungeons are significantly less comfortable than this office."
That was the breaking point. The last of Barbara's resistance shattered like glass.
"I... I'll read them..."
Her hands shook so violently the paper rattled as she picked up the first sheet. To her, the parchment felt heavier than iron. Her voice was a mere ghost of its former self.
"Transaction log... third month... discrepancy of... 120 gold coins... redirected to... private account..." She choked on the words, a sob catching in her throat.
Egon said nothing. Vienna remained a statue of cold fury.
So, Barbara continued. Line by agonizing line. Entry after fraudulent entry. Her own crimes were stripped bare, spoken into the open air where they could no longer be ignored.
Each sentence was a lash against her own ego, exposing the rot she had allowed to settle in her heart.
"I falsified the supplier costs for the silk shipments..."
"I altered the inventory records to hide the surplus..."
"I withheld thirty percent of the quarterly profits..."
By the time she reached the midway point, her voice was a hoarse, grating wreck. Tears blurred the ink on the pages, but Egon's shadow remained over her, unmoving.
"Continue," he prompted coldly.
She swallowed the bile in her throat and forced herself through the final pages.
Minutes stretched into what felt like hours. Time became a blur of shame and numbers. When the last page finally slipped from her numb fingers, Barbara looked smaller than she ever had before.
"I... I've said it all. Everything is out now..."
The room plunged into a heavy silence. Vienna finally moved, the sharp click of her heels sounding like a death knell as she walked toward the broken woman. She stopped directly in front of Barbara and waited. The silence stretched until it was unbearable.
"Paah!"
The slap was thunderous. Barbara's head snapped to the side, her cheek blooming into a violent crimson.
"I trusted you, bitch. I gave you my confidence. I gave you authority. I gave you a seat at my table."
"And you used every bit of that grace to sharpen a knife for my back."
Barbara's shoulders buckled. "I'm so sorry..."
"Sorry?" Vienna let out a bitter, jagged laugh that held no humor. "You weren't just stealing gold, Barbara. You were trying to steal my life. You were trying to erase my future."
Barbara collapsed entirely, her forehead pressing against the dusty floorboards. "I know... I know... I don't deserve mercy..."
Egon finally spoke again, stepping up beside Vienna. "You're right. You don't."
Barbara flinched at the finality in his tone.
"But that doesn't mean your service is finished," Egon added.
She looked up, her eyes red and puffy. "What...?"
Egon's expression had returned to a terrifying mask of calm. "You are going to repay every single coin. Every loss, every bit of collateral damage, and every headache you caused this house."
Barbara blinked through her tears. "How? I don't have that kind of money anymore..."
Egon looked toward the door, then back at her with a look of profound disdain. "You'll earn it. By working."
He paused,
"But not as you were before. You are stripped of your title. You no longer hold authority over a single soul. You will never touch an account book again. You will start from the very bottom of the dirt."
Barbara felt a chill of realization. "No..."
"You will clean," Egon cut in. "You will scrub the stockrooms. You will mop the floors until they shine. You will organize the cold storage and carry the heavy deliveries that the laborers usually handle. You will report every single item you touch to your new superiors."
Barbara's hands clenched into the rug. This was a death of a different kind. This was the systematic stripping of her dignity.
"And tomorrow, you will stand at the main entrance of this shop."
Her head snapped up, horror etched into her features.
"No... please, anything but that..."
"You will greet every customer who walks through those doors," Egon continued, ignoring her plea. "And when they see the former manager in rags and ask who you are, you will tell them the truth. You will tell them you betrayed your mistress. You will tell them you are a thief who was shown unmerited mercy. And then, you will thank her for the privilege of cleaning her floors."
Barbara broke. She let out a wail of pure despair, "Please... Egon... I'll do anything else... kill me if you have to, but don't do this..."
Vienna spoke before he could, "No. You will do exactly as he said. Every word of it."
Barbara went still. The verdict was final. This wasn't a flash of vengeful anger that would fade by morning; it was a cold, calculated judgment.
"Y-Yes... Mistress..." Barbara whispered, her spirit finally extinguished.
Egon watched her then gave a satisfied nod.
"Good. Now, get up."
He turned to Vienna, "This way, she has to live with the ghost of who she was every single day. She will be the living monument to her own failure."
Vienna exhaled a long, shaky breath. The fire in her chest hadn't gone out, but it had been harnessed.
She looked down at the pathetic heap that was once her right-hand woman and a friend.
"Clean yourself up, Barbara. Then report to the stockroom. Your shift starts now."
Barbara stood slowly, her legs shaking like a newborn calf's. She didn't look at either of them as she shuffled out of the room, a broken shadow of a woman.
The door clicked shut, leaving Egon and Vienna alone in the silence. Vienna leaned into him, letting the tension drain from her shoulders.
"Do you really think this is enough?" she asked softly.
Egon looked at the closed door.
"For now. Let her try to rebuild her life piece by piece in the dirt."
"Or let her break completely under the weight of it. Either way, justice is served."
Ding!
[ You have changed the course of destiny once again ]
[ Luck Points +100 ]