Chapter 37: Behind the Verdict

I couldn’t let it go.

The moment Mom stopped speaking, the dining room fell into an uncomfortable silence.

She lowered her eyes to her plate as if the conversation had ended, calmly picking up her fork again, but I knew better.

I had watched her for years.

Whenever she wanted to hide something, she always became like this—avoiding eye contact, pretending everything was normal, hoping the silence would make the questions disappear.

It never worked on me.

“What do you mean by that, Mom?” I asked, keeping my eyes fixed on her.

For just a moment, I thought she was going to answer.

Instead, she took another bite of her food and quietly said, “It doesn’t mean anything, Gwen. Forget about it.”

Forget about it?

If it truly meant nothing, she wouldn’t have reacted like this.

She wouldn’t have avoided looking at me, and she certainly wouldn’t have tried to end the conversation so suddenly.

The more she tried to brush it aside, the more convinced I became that whatever she was hiding was important.

“Tell me.” She didn’t answer.

“Mom.”

Still nothing.

She continued eating as though she hadn’t heard me, but her grip around the fork tightened ever so slightly.

It was enough.

I didn’t need her to admit she was hiding something anymore.

I could already see it.

Fine.

If she wasn’t going to tell me, then I’d figure it out myself.

I leaned back in my chair and replayed everything we’d talked about tonight.

Dad…

Chris…

justice…

ideals…

She had said Dad’s ideals weren’t the reason we got justice.

Then what was?

We had spent weeks fighting to clear Dad’s name.

Every door had been slammed in our faces.

The police ignored us.

The media ignored us.

Even people Dad had worked with refused to stand beside us.

Then, almost overnight…Everything changed.

I frowned as I searched my memories, trying to remember exactly when things had started turning around.

The answer hit me so suddenly that my heart skipped a beat.

The night Chris saved us.

That was also the night I met his mother.

After that, the investigation suddenly moved forward.

People who had ignored us started listening.

Things that had seemed impossible somehow became possible.

At the time, I had been too relieved to question it.

I had simply believed justice had finally won.

But now…I slowly looked back at Mom, my eyes widening as all the pieces fell into place.”…Did Chris’s mother help us?”

Mom froze.

It lasted less than a second, but it was enough.

Her shoulders stiffened, her hand stopped moving, and the expression on her face told me everything before she said a single word.

I already knew the answer.

I just needed to hear her admit it.

The silence stretched between us.

Mom slowly closed her eyes, and for several long seconds, neither of us spoke.

It was almost as if she was hoping I would ask something else, hoping I would simply let it go.

I wasn’t going to.

“Mom,” I said again, this time more softly.

“Please.”

She let out a long, tired sigh before finally opening her eyes.

“…Yes. Chris’s mother helped us.”

The single sentence hit me harder than I expected.

Deep down, I had already known the answer the instant I saw her reaction, but hearing her admit it made everything feel real.

I stared at her for a long moment before finally finding my voice.

“…How?”

Mom looked away again, avoiding my eyes.

“She… did everything.”

I frowned.

“What do you mean… everything?”

She didn’t answer.

The hesitation in her eyes told me this wasn’t something she had ever wanted me to know.

I swallowed the lump forming in my throat and quietly pleaded again.

“Mom… please.”

Another long silence passed before she finally spoke.

“After your father was killed, they framed him. They claimed he had been taking money from drug dealers. Overnight, everything he had worked for disappeared. His reputation was destroyed. His pension was frozen. The department abandoned him. Within a week, we were told we would lose the house because we could no longer afford to keep it.”

Every word felt heavier than the last.

“I refused to accept it,” she continued quietly.

“I went everywhere I could think of, trying to clear his name. I filed appeals, met with lawyers, spoke to anyone who had ever worked with him. I truly believed that if I just kept fighting, eventually someone would listen.”

She let out a bitter laugh that carried no amusement.

“No one did.”

I remained silent, unable to interrupt her.

“I still didn’t stop. Then the threats started. Anonymous phone calls telling me to give up. People following us. Cars parked outside the house for hours. Every day it became a little worse.” She paused, taking a slow breath before looking at me again.

“And on the last day… you saw them. You heard what they planned to do.”

My hands slowly clenched beneath the table.

Chris.

That was the day Chris saved us.

I remembered every second of it as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.

“What about Dad’s colleagues?” I asked quietly.

“The officers who worked with him… what about them?”

Mom smiled again, but this time it looked painful.

Tears slowly gathered in her eyes as she lowered her head.

“I went to them,” she whispered.

“Every single one I could find. I begged them for help because I believed they knew the kind of man your father was.”

She closed her eyes before repeating the words that had haunted her for years.

“‘George was corrupt. We tried to save him, but he wouldn’t listen.'”

Something twisted painfully inside my chest.

“They didn’t believe it,” Mom whispered, her voice carrying more exhaustion than anger.

“They made everyone else believe it. They were already on the payroll of the human trafficking ring your father had been investigating. They knew exactly what he had uncovered, and they knew they would be exposed if the truth ever came out. So they fabricated financial records, planted false witnesses, and spread the story that your father had been taking money from drug dealers until everyone accepted it as the truth.”

I lowered my gaze to the table, unable to find the words to respond.

Dad had always spoken so highly of the officers he worked with.

He trusted them enough to put his life in their hands.

I had grown up believing they were like another family to him.

The thought that every one of them betrayed us made my stomach turn.

“Then…” I slowly asked, “…how did she help us?”.

Mom leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling for a moment before answering.

“She started by saving us.”

I blinked.

“Not just from those men,” she continued.

“She made sure they could never come after us again. After that, everything started changing.”

“What do you mean?”

“The police commissioner who had buried your father’s case was transferred within days. The officers handling the investigation were replaced. Then a new judge was assigned to oversee the trial.”

She paused before adding quietly,

“A judge who worked for her.”

I froze.

“…Worked for her?”

Mom nodded.

“She had influence, Gwen. More influence than I could have imagined. She knew exactly who needed to be moved and who needed to take their place. Doors that had been closed to me for weeks suddenly opened overnight. Every obstacle disappeared.”

I looked at her, struggling to process everything she had told me.

“So… that’s how we won?”

Mom remained silent for several long seconds before giving a small nod.

“Yes.”

I wanted to feel relieved.

I wanted to believe that, despite everything, justice had still found a way.

Instead, an uncomfortable feeling settled deep inside my chest, refusing to go away.

Something still didn’t fit.

“But…” I said slowly, trying to make sense of everything she had told me, “they still needed evidence. They couldn’t just convict people because someone powerful wanted them to. There had to be proof.”

Mom’s expression changed.

She looked away so quickly it was almost instinctive.

Her fingers tightened around the edge of the table, and for the first time since this conversation began, I saw genuine hesitation in her eyes.

She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to.

Her silence was already telling me more than I wanted to hear.

“…Mom?”

She swallowed before speaking, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

“The evidence…”

My heartbeat quickened.

“What about it?”

She closed her eyes, as though saying the words out loud would make them impossible to take back.

“It wasn’t real.”

For a moment, I couldn’t understand what she meant.

My mind simply refused to accept it.

“…What?”

“The evidence used in court,” she repeated quietly, each word sounding heavier than the last, “…it was fabricated.”

I remembered watching the verdict on television.

I remembered crying because I thought justice had finally won.

I remembered believing that the system had worked in the end.

Had all of that been a lie?

Had the thing I had spent years clinging to never existed at all?

Everything around me seemed to fall silent.

I could hear nothing except the pounding of my own heartbeat as I stared at her, desperately trying to convince myself that I had misunderstood.

The evidence that had cleared Dad’s name.

The evidence that had exposed the corrupt officers.

The evidence that had restored our lives.

It…

It had all been fake.

……………………………………………

Author’s Note

I hope you guys are enjoying the story so far.

I know this is a superhero fanfic, but lately there hasn’t been much action, superpowers, or system progression.

This part of the story is more focused on the characters, their relationships, and building the foundation for what’s coming next.

I’m not sure if you guys are liking this slower pace, but I hope you are.

As always, thank you for reading and supporting the novel!

Author’s Note

I was rewatching the entire Marvel saga and noticed something I had completely missed.

In Avengers: Age of Ultron, they never actually say when Ulysses Klaue stole the Vibranium.

I always assumed it happened after 2010, but after checking Marvel’s timeline, it turns out he stole it around 1992.

That changes my original plans a little, but don’t worry—it also means Chris’s next power-up is coming sooner than I originally intended.