Chapter 30: Chapter 30 Personnel Changes_1
Half a month later, inside the Rose Iron Prison Core Zone.
"Eat shit, Warden!"
"The head guard’s here again today, huh? You’re looking a bit off, are you feeling close to death?"
"Come on over here, you brat, and see if I don’t twist your head right off!"
...
Aiden, accompanied by Flandre, walked leisurely through the corridor, inspecting the howling core zone as usual.
"Just a moment, Aiden!" As they passed cell thirteen, Fille, as always, rushed to the bars and spoke in a coquettish tone, "I have something really important to tell you!"
Aiden immediately gave her an unimpressed look, "What now, you’re not going to say you were framed again and want me to overturn your conviction?"
"Eh? How did you know?" Fille was a bit bewildered having her line stolen.
"You’ve been in here five times already, how could I not know you? I can tell from the way you stick out your butt what shape of shit you’re going to take!" Aiden replied irritably, "Me, help you overturn your case? Don’t even think about it!"
"Unfair, Aiden! We’re so familiar, you could at least give me a chance. You helped that wolf girl on her first time," Fille pouted dissatisfiedly.
"Don’t think you’ve got a shot just because your cellmate got out! When have you ever been falsely accused?" Aiden kicked the cell door, "Now you’ve got a double room to yourself, so just be happy and stop acting so innocent."
With that, Aiden left Fille behind and continued his patrol deeper into the corridor.
"It’s been a week, huh? Has she not come to see you?" Flandre asked idly as he followed.
"Nope, not a sight of her, nor a thank you letter. What an ungrateful woman," Aiden shook his head.
A week before, Veronica had left the prison to attend her retrial.
Considering she was likely to be exonerated, Veronica had preemptively bid farewell to Aiden who had come to see her off.
She had said that if she got out, she would definitely come back to thank Aiden in person.
After the trial, she was released on the spot.
"She probably doesn’t want to have anything more to do with this place. Prison isn’t exactly a place for inmates to cherish memories, even less so for the wrongfully imprisoned. I’ve been working here for over a decade, and I could fill an entire unit with the number of prisoners who have said they’d come back to visit, but not a single one has shown up," Flandre reflected.
"As long as they don’t come back to add to our workload, I’m fine with whatever they do," Aiden said and turned around, "Alright, patrol’s over. Let’s head back."
After returning to his office, Aiden brewed himself a cup of tea and sat down in the soft chair beside the tea table to rest.
On the tea table laid the "Silvertown Daily," delivered by other guards, its headline reporting "Shocking National Mounted Police Murder Trial Commences, Rogue Cop Jaron Lorton Sentenced to Life Imprisonment."
"He didn’t die?" Aiden scoffed coldly.
Veronica was sentenced to death without a second word when she was caught, but now that she was acquitted, the even more heinous Jaron was only sentenced to life imprisonment. It seems that Mr. Anthony Roton, the congressman, must have made some effort to run around before his removal from office, doing everything possible to save his son’s life.
Of course, this guy’s political career is as good as dead, the second page of the newspaper bore the headline "Member of Parliament Anthony Roton under investigation, accused of nepotism for family job placement."
It wasn’t surprising; the Rotun Family was never a politically well-entrenched clan, and such a scandal was devastating to them.
Beyond that, the front-page story also mentioned Bruce Cain, who was being tried alongside Anthony and had only been given two years—a comparatively light sentence.
Under Aiden’s influence, Bruce ultimately didn’t disclose that he had been hunted by an assassin, only telling the prosecution that he had an attack of conscience and surrendered himself voluntarily. In this way, Aiden’s little manipulations would go unchecked, and Bruce managed to secure a lighter punishment.
However, Aiden had no intention of letting these two off easily. According to the reports, it seemed they were taken to the men’s prison in Silvertown, the Thorn Iron Prison, where he planned to write to the warden to ask for "special attention" to be paid to these two new inmates. Since the Thorn Iron Prison had been wanting to visit and learn from his facility recently, they were likely to do him this favor.
Being consistently targeted in prison would probably make death seem more merciful than life imprisonment.
He idly flipped through the newspaper and unexpectedly came across an interview with Veronica Wolfe titled "The Rose of the Police Force, Veronica Wolfe, Struggles on the Edge of Death to Earn Vindication."
The report first recapitulated the process of Veronica being wrongfully imprisoned to her court-acquittal upon retrial, listed her past achievements and some interviews with residents from her jurisdiction, and described how she fought unyieldingly from arrest to imprisonment.
The entirely positive article almost portrayed Veronica as a saint, without a single word about her werewolf lineage—though Aiden remembered when he first started paying attention to Veronica’s case, he had seen photos of her fierce expression in "The Silvertown Daily" during her resisting arrest, with headlines such as "Murderous cop caught in the law’s net, werewolf turns vicious in resistance."
Aiden scrutinized the article carefully and finally found a part in Veronica’s interview where his name was mentioned.
"Thanks to the warden of Rose Iron Prison lobbying on my behalf, I was able to clear my name"—that was the only mention of him in the whole report, and it seemed likely the journalist thought he merely helped pass along Veronica’s retrial application.
"After all that trouble, my ’part’ in it all is just this little," Aiden remarked, holding his teacup, with a sigh.
Regardless, that girl really could have been a bit more gracious. Even if she didn’t want to return to the prison, she could have at least looked for him to express her gratitude in private... Or at the very least sent him a letter.
He continued reading until he saw Veronica discuss her career plans: "... the Mounted Police have restored my position and notified me I could rejoin at any time, but I’ve also received invitations from other agencies."
The Mounted Police’s reputation had plummeted after the incident, but as a victim, Veronica herself garnered a lot of attention.
If she chose to go back to the Mounted Police, eager to restore their image, they might offer her a compensatory promotion. If she was interested in moving to another agency with better conditions, there would likely be quite a few institutions willing to take her on for the publicity—altogether, her future looked bright.
They probably wouldn’t cross paths again... Aiden thought to himself as he put down the newspaper.
At that moment, someone knocked on the office door.
"Come in."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Flandre walked into the office, handing him a document: "Chief, this!"
"A transfer application? What now, someone else wants to leave?" Aiden immediately noticed the document’s bold title.
"No, it’s someone applying to come here. Look at the name!" Flandre urged.
"Hm?" Aiden looked where instructed, paused for a moment, and then burst into laughter, "That girl..."
In the applicant section, a very familiar name was signed—Veronica Wolfe. The handwriting was identical to the signature on her previous retrial application.
