He didn't even lift his gaze.
Only the corner of his mouth twitched—whether from boredom or hidden pleasure, it was impossible to tell.
"An unfortunate accident," the attorney repeated more softly, as though soothing a child.
"No one planned it. No one even wanted it."
Ethan couldn't hold back any longer.
He shot to his feet so abruptly that the chair scraped harshly across the marble floor.
His voice cracked—hoarse, fractured, brimming with despair that had been accumulating for far too long.
"He killed her!" he shouted, and the words echoed off the columns.
"This can't be justified! This wasn't an accident—this was murder! Cold-blooded, premeditated murder!"
His voice faltered, turning into a groan. Ethan covered his face with his hands; his palms trembled, fingers digging into his hair.
His heart pounded so loudly it seemed everyone in the room could hear it: heavy, ragged, as though his ribcage was about to burst.
He felt blood rush to his face, felt his throat constrict, refusing to let air through.
No tears came—there were none left. Only emptiness and rage fused into one.
The judge slowly raised an eyebrow—a formal gesture devoid of the slightest hint of sympathy.
He didn't even turn his head fully, merely tilted it slightly toward Ethan.
"Shh," he said quietly, but his voice carried through the room like ice spreading across water.
"The human side will have its turn to speak later. Maintain order."
Ethan sank back into the chair slowly, as though his legs had forgotten how to hold him. He stared at the floor, at his clenched fists, at the white knuckles.
Silence returned to the courtroom once more—that sterile, judicial silence.
Laurent yawned almost imperceptibly, covering his mouth with the back of his hand.
The gesture contained everything: boredom, superiority, the absolute certainty that the outcome had already been decided.
Ethan didn't look at him. He couldn't. Because if he did, he wouldn't hold it together. And he still needed to live long enough to have his say.
To reach the moment when he could finally speak the truth—even if no one wanted to hear it.
The attorney turned back to Laurent—now referred to simply by his first name in the official documents, as though a change of title could erase what he had done.
He placed a hand on the killer's shoulder—a light, almost fatherly gesture, the way a proud teacher might pat a favorite student after a perfect answer.
The attorney's fingers were long, manicured, with a perfect polish; on his ring finger a thin gold band gleamed, set with a small black stone.
"The law is clear," he said, voice even and confident, the voice of a man accustomed to his words becoming truth.
"If a human's death occurs under accidental circumstances, compensation is paid. Standard procedure. No additional sanctions."
Laurent slowly turned toward Ethan.
The smile on his face was the same one—condescending, rehearsed, as though he were explaining simple arithmetic to a child.
Look how the world works. Simple. Fair.
"Five thousand," he said, drawing the words out slightly, tasting them.
"Very generous, considering the circumstances. Most families get less."
The number dropped into the courtroom's silence like a coin into an empty fountain.
No gasps. No outrage. Only a cough from somewhere in the back rows.
Ethan remained motionless.
As though he had turned to stone.
His body refused to obey; his hands lay dead in his lap, his legs rooted to the floor.
He felt blood slowly drain from his face, felt cold crawl up his spine.
A ringing filled his ears—not from shouting, but from absolute, deafening emptiness.
"She was my life…" he exhaled. The voice came out barely audible, almost a whisper, as though the words were afraid to leave his mouth.
"My future."
He lifted his gaze slowly, with effort. His eyes were dry, but the pain in them was so raw it seemed they might crack.
"And you… value her… in money?"
The last word burned on his tongue like acid.
A thick, viscous silence settled over the room. Even the attorney's smile faltered for a moment: the corners of his mouth twitched, then snapped back into place.
The judge didn't move. His face remained impassive, a mask of white marble.
"The decision is final," he said without the slightest hesitation.
His voice was flat, mechanical, stripped of any shade.
"The court rules."
The gavel struck once—sharp.
The sound rang through the room, echoed off the columns, the high vaults, the white walls.
The echo lingered, reluctant to die.
"Laurent is released from liability," the judge continued.
"Compensation will be disbursed in due course. Proceedings concluded."
The assistant in the black robe approached Ethan and handed him a folded sheet of paper—an official form bearing a seal and the sum neatly printed in black numerals.
Five thousand. No more, no less.
Ethan took the sheet slowly.
His fingers trembled noticeably, though not violently. The paper rustled in his hands. He stared at it for a long time—too long.
Then he raised his head.
His gaze swept the room slowly, wildly, like that of a cornered animal that suddenly realizes the cage is open but there is no way out.
He saw the attorney still smiling. Saw Laurent rising, stretching as though waking from a long nap.
Saw the judge already shuffling papers, as though nothing had happened.
And inside him, something finally broke.
He seized the sheet with both hands.
Tore it sharply, with a crack. Shreds fluttered to the floor, drifting slowly, circling like snow in a sealed room.
Each rip felt like a blow—not to paper, but to something deep inside.
"Shove it up your ass," he whispered.
The steel in Ethan's voice made the people nearest him flinch involuntarily. He himself was surprised—not by what he said, but by the fact that he had managed to say it.
He stood abruptly.
The chair scraped across the marble, the sound slicing across nerves. His legs moved on their own—heavy, but firm.
He walked toward the exit without looking back—not at the judge, not at anyone still seated inside the building.
The courtroom doors were tall, heavy, dark wood with bronze handles.
Ethan pushed them open with both hands.
They swung wide with a long, protesting creak and slammed shut behind him with a boom that rattled the tall windows.
The crash rolled down the corridor—empty, cold, smelling of floor wax and old paper.
Ethan stopped.
He pressed his back against the wall. Slid down slowly until he crouched. His hands dangled between his knees. His head dropped.
After a while, he simply stood up.
The corridor seemed endlessly long, straight, with a high ceiling and cold marble floors that reflected every step like a mirror reflecting a shadow.
The echo rang in his ears—loud, rhythmic, almost mocking:
Thud… thud… thud…
As though someone were following him, reminding him:
You're still here.
Ethan walked slowly, mechanically—like a man who had long since died inside, but whose body continued moving out of inertia because it hadn't yet received the order to stop.
Shoulders slumped, head tilted slightly forward, gaze fixed on the floor—on the gray veins in the stone, on the cracks, on the dust no one had bothered to sweep away.
He didn't notice the people passing by—shadows in suits, in robes, folders tucked under arms.
No one looked at him for longer than a second. Here, in this building, grief was routine, like rain outside the window.
His fists were clenched so tightly that the skin over the knuckles whitened, then cracked.
Thin red lines appeared—first faint, then brighter, with tiny beads of blood he didn't even feel.
The pain was distant, muffled, like sound through thick glass.
It didn't distract him.
It only fed the fire already burning inside.
They stole Maria from me… — thoughts swirled in his head, sticky like a web woven from pain and rage.
They didn't even let me see her one last time… The coffin was sealed shut…
Before his eyes rose that morning—the funeral morning he remembered not by dates, but by sensations.
A gray sky hung low, almost brushing the rooftops. Rain poured in sheets—heavy, relentless, sounding like a thousand fingers drumming on the coffin lid.
The cemetery ground had turned to black sludge; boots sank, squelched, left deep prints.
The air smelled of wet earth, wet flowers, wet grief.
The coffin stood on low trestles beneath an awning—black, lacquered, with a heavy oak lid.
Completely closed—no window, no crack. Only a smooth surface on which raindrops gathered and slowly slid down like tears no one had shed.
People stood silently around, hunched under umbrellas.
Maria's mother—a small, gray-haired woman in a black headscarf—clutched something like a hand towel, crumpling it in her fingers.
Her father stood beside her, motionless as a post, staring at nothing.
Friends, colleagues—all subdued, frightened, as though afraid that a single word might awaken something terrible.
Not a single vampire. Not a single representative from their side. They hadn't even bothered to show up.
For them, the matter was already closed.
Ethan approached the coffin last.
His legs carried him forward even though everything inside screamed: don't go closer, don't look, don't touch—because it will only hurt more.
He reached out.
His fingers touched the wood—cold, smooth, damp from the rain. The chill pierced his skin instantly, raced through his veins, reached his heart and gripped it in an icy vise.
He ran his palm slowly across the lid, as though he might feel her beneath the wood, beneath the lacquer.
But there was only emptiness.
"Sorry…" he whispered, and his voice drowned in the roar of the rain.
"Sorry… we couldn't…"
The words dissolved in the wet air, never reaching even the nearest person.