try begging

"... ... ."

How much time had passed? Leon stared at the last blank page, and only then did he come to his senses when he reached for his cigar, which had become shorter and shorter.

"Did that woman see this?"

As Joe nodded, Leon cupped his forehead with one hand and closed his eyes.

"Fuck...."

When she was sent by her brother to find out the truth about her birth and the beautification scheme, the woman was confronted with an even more horrifying truth. It was such a horrifying truth that it was amazing that she didn't take her life on the spot.

When I returned to Chesterfield, I couldn't suppress the regret that I should have abandoned the operation and brought her back. I already knew that the woman's brainwashing had been released, but I was blinded by my greed to make her betray her comrades and leave her alone in the woman's world. I didn't see that the woman was in extreme pain at that moment.

Leon groaned belatedly in shock at what the woman must have been going through.

I had such doubts in her boarding room.

'What kind of life have you lived?'

And now that question has finally been completely answered.

Contempt, indifference, discrimination, and lies.

Grace Lee lived, in a word, in a state of ugly malice.

And the woman grew up unaware of the malice surrounding her, just as a fish in the sea cannot sense water. After realizing this, when she looked back at her hometown, she must have seen hell, not heaven.

Those disgusting demons. They systematically brainwashed children by confining them in the village and raising them for their own vile purpose, simply because they had received the blood of their enemies.

A plan to make dogs eat dogs and pigs eat pigs.

Maybe the rebel leaders ordered the woman to seduce him because she was raised for that purpose from the beginning. For them, it would have been quite a satisfying movie to see the daughter of the woman who seduced and killed her father kill her son in the same way.

Leon couldn't shake the feeling of humiliation that he too had been used in their perverted play.

"You didn't know."

He asked Joe questioningly, who was observing me with eyes full of bewilderment.

"I found out a few years ago. I washed my hands of it as soon as I found out."

Leon stopped Joe from putting the diary back. He turned the pages, stopping when he saw the words Abington Beach.

"I wish that kid had just disappeared. I wish that some kind family that was vacationing in Abington Beach had taken him away."

It meant that he had not brought the woman with him for the purpose of having her join him in the mission to torture and kill his father. This was the truth beyond doubt, as Angela Riddle could not have written lies in her diary expecting him to see it one day.

"Grace changed. Blindly."

Leon pointed to these two passages and asked Joe.

"What happened after she got back from Abington Beach and turned blind?"

Joe searched his memory for a moment and then answered.

"I had a really bad cold. I had a high fever and was talking nonsense sometimes...."

"gibberish?"

"Uh... I told you not to throw it away because I was going to kill it."

"... ... ."

"I don't know who he was talking about killing."

The woman's brother's further remarks were not heard, for Leon was not here at the moment.

He was in the basement of his annex on the other side of the kingdom.

I remember the night I took a vacation, ignoring pressure to sign Jeffrey Sinclair's fake confession.

It was just another night like any other. After a passionate love affair, he wiped the woman's body, covered her with a blanket, and turned off the light. But that day, he did not return to his bedroom.

It was a time when I was tilting a glass of whiskey in the dark and admiring the sound of a sleeping woman's breathing.

"Black...."

The woman began to sob.

Leon couldn't believe his ears. The woman who had been playing on the top of his head while he was a captive, and who had never cried in his life, was crying.

For a moment, I wondered if she knew I was gone and if she was crying like this when she was left alone.

"I'll kill you... Don't throw me away... ."

It was a sleepwalking.

Why are you talking like this?

Was it a nightmare? I just laughed it off, saying that everyone has strange sleeping habits.

Now I see that it wasn't a nightmare, it was reality.

"What on earth did those authors force that... young girl to do?"

Joe shook his head at Leon's questioning.

"Grace had nothing to do with it."

"How can you be sure if you weren't there?"

Joe sighed deeply and spoke with difficulty.

"The adults sometimes talked about what happened that night. Grace's name was never mentioned. And she was only eleven years old. She was young for her age, so she was crazy about the carousel and the house games that only little kids could play."

"I know that too."

I suspected it even though I knew it. Even after hearing the woman's apology and explanation, I still doubted it and did not believe it until the end.

That woman was a victim in the end, no different from him.

I kept my eyes tightly shut and suppressed my murderous intent, not knowing who to turn to first, but the woman's older brother asked with a look of obvious suspicion.

"Why are you asking this?"

When he opened his eyes, the other person was staring at him with a strange look. It seemed like he didn't know that he had been connected to that woman since childhood.

"I don't know."

"Are you looking for Grace?"

Leon was in no mood for any more petty conversation, but he couldn't ignore this. He desperately needed someone to help him find that woman.

"that's right."

The other person asked with narrowed eyes as if he could not understand at all.

"why?"

Why must he find that woman? Leon was momentarily speechless as all the reasons, from simple to complex, sharpened and crushed his heart at that one simple question.

I came to my senses again, and was about to answer that I didn't know that either.

"I wonder if it was you who made my little brother like that...."

That's what it looks like.

"This disgusting little beast!"

The moment Leon furrowed his brow, a fist came flying from across the table.

Bam. Jonathan Riddle Jr.'s fist struck Leon Winston's left jaw. At that moment, Campbell, who was running hurriedly behind his superior, stopped.

'why?'

Even the major alone could have easily avoided or blocked a punch like that.

'Why didn't you avoid it?'

While the witnesses and even the one who struck him were shocked and stunned, the person who was actually hit seemed unharmed. He seemed to be thinking about something alone and then muttered something incomprehensible.

"no."

Only when the major let out a sigh of discontent did Campbell come to his senses and subdue Jonathan Riddle Jr. and handcuff him.

"Major, are you okay?"

I approached him late and asked him, but the superior said something strange.

"I thought the feeling would be similar... but your fists are weaker than my little sister's."

It was a regretful tone. It sounded like he wanted to be hit by the woman who had disappeared, and Campbell felt embarrassed.

"Well, the fists may not look similar, but the way you lunge at someone without even knowing your own situation is similar."

While Leon was snickering and smoking a cigar, the woman's brother was swearing while tied up.

"My brother is innocent! If he was innocent, it was my parents who committed the crime! Then why are you taking revenge on Grace? What did she do?"

It wasn't something I did out of revenge. No, maybe once or twice. Maybe more often. Now, it was ridiculous to deny that it had happened because the scales that weighed her had tipped the scales toward affection rather than hatred.

"No. You were a famous demon to begin with. What do you expect? You should blame those who sent my brother to the demon."

Joe's face twisted and he spat out curses through his clenched teeth.

"Damn it... Mother didn't want Grace to repeat the same fate... ."

At that moment, Leon's eyes, who was lighting a cigar, became irritated. He compared my woman to Angela Riddle, who lived a miserable life and died. It made me even more irritated because it put me on the same level as a pimp named Jonathan Riddle.

Leon declared through his teeth clenched around a cigar.

"I won't repeat it."

He would not exploit that woman. What's more, he was still determined to give her everything he had.

"That wouldn't happen if you just cooperated with me."

Joe, who had been banging his head on the edge of the table, snorted, then lifted his head and asked.

"Why would I do that if I'm not crazy?"

"Because I am the only one who can keep your little brother safe."

"Protecting it... Haha... ."

It was a laugh with a hint of mockery.

"You're asking a thief to take care of the jewels. You have to make sense. Oh, by the way. Grace doesn't need your protection."

The devil's eyes sharpened as he realized that there was more to it than a simple rejection. Even if he told me, there was nothing the author could do. Joe decided to mock the other person while pretending to confess obediently.

"...With that amount of money, he won't need anyone's help. He might have already gone far away. So just take some revenge and leave him alone."

The devil's reaction when his mother told him that she had left Grace a large inheritance was unexpected.

"... ... ."

How much time had passed? Leon stared at the last blank page, and only then did he come to his senses when he reached for his cigar, which had become shorter and shorter.

"Did that woman see this?"

As Joe nodded, Leon cupped his forehead with one hand and closed his eyes.

"Fuck...."

When she was sent by her brother to find out the truth about her birth and the beautification scheme, the woman was confronted with an even more horrifying truth. It was such a horrifying truth that it was amazing that she didn't take her life on the spot.

When I returned to Chesterfield, I couldn't suppress the regret that I should have abandoned the operation and brought her back. I already knew that the woman's brainwashing had been released, but I was blinded by my greed to make her betray her comrades and leave her alone in the woman's world. I didn't see that the woman was in extreme pain at that moment.

Leon groaned belatedly in shock at what the woman must have been going through.

I had such doubts in her boarding room.

'What kind of life have you lived?'

And now that question has finally been completely answered.

Contempt, indifference, discrimination, and lies.

Grace Lee lived, in a word, in a state of ugly malice.

And the woman grew up unaware of the malice surrounding her, just as a fish in the sea cannot sense water. After realizing this, when she looked back at her hometown, she must have seen hell, not heaven.

Those disgusting demons. They systematically brainwashed children by confining them in the village and raising them for their own vile purpose, simply because they had received the blood of their enemies.

A plan to make dogs eat dogs and pigs eat pigs.

Maybe the rebel leaders ordered the woman to seduce him because she was raised for that purpose from the beginning. For them, it would have been quite a satisfying movie to see the daughter of the woman who seduced and killed her father kill her son in the same way.

Leon couldn't shake the feeling of humiliation that he too had been used in their perverted play.

"You didn't know."

He asked Joe questioningly, who was observing me with eyes full of bewilderment.

"I found out a few years ago. I washed my hands of it as soon as I found out."

Leon stopped Joe from putting the diary back. He turned the pages, stopping when he saw the words Abington Beach.

"I wish that kid had just disappeared. I wish that some kind family that was vacationing in Abington Beach had taken him away."

It meant that he had not brought the woman with him for the purpose of having her join him in the mission to torture and kill his father. This was the truth beyond doubt, as Angela Riddle could not have written lies in her diary expecting him to see it one day.

"Grace changed. Blindly."

Leon pointed to these two passages and asked Joe.

"What happened after she got back from Abington Beach and turned blind?"

Joe searched his memory for a moment and then answered.

"I had a really bad cold. I had a high fever and was talking nonsense sometimes...."

"gibberish?"

"Uh... I told you not to throw it away because I was going to kill it."

"... ... ."

"I don't know who he was talking about killing."

The woman's brother's further remarks were not heard, for Leon was not here at the moment.

He was in the basement of his annex on the other side of the kingdom.

I remember the night I took a vacation, ignoring pressure to sign Jeffrey Sinclair's fake confession.

It was just another night like any other. After a passionate love affair, he wiped the woman's body, covered her with a blanket, and turned off the light. But that day, he did not return to his bedroom.

It was a time when I was tilting a glass of whiskey in the dark and admiring the sound of a sleeping woman's breathing.

"Black...."

The woman began to sob.

Leon couldn't believe his ears. The woman who had been playing on the top of his head while he was a captive, and who had never cried in his life, was crying.

For a moment, I wondered if she knew I was gone and if she was crying like this when she was left alone.

"I'll kill you... Don't throw me away... ."

It was a sleepwalking.

Why are you talking like this?

Was it a nightmare? I just laughed it off, saying that everyone has strange sleeping habits.

Now I see that it wasn't a nightmare, it was reality.

"What on earth did those authors force that... young girl to do?"

Joe shook his head at Leon's questioning.

"Grace had nothing to do with it."

"How can you be sure if you weren't there?"

Joe sighed deeply and spoke with difficulty.

"The adults sometimes talked about what happened that night. Grace's name was never mentioned. And she was only eleven years old. She was young for her age, so she was crazy about the carousel and the house games that only little kids could play."

"I know that too."

I suspected it even though I knew it. Even after hearing the woman's apology and explanation, I still doubted it and did not believe it until the end.

That woman was a victim in the end, no different from him.

I kept my eyes tightly shut and suppressed my murderous intent, not knowing who to turn to first, but the woman's older brother asked with a look of obvious suspicion.

"Why are you asking this?"

When he opened his eyes, the other person was staring at him with a strange look. It seemed like he didn't know that he had been connected to that woman since childhood.

"I don't know."

"Are you looking for Grace?"

Leon was in no mood for any more petty conversation, but he couldn't ignore this. He desperately needed someone to help him find that woman.

"that's right."

The other person asked with narrowed eyes as if he could not understand at all.

"why?"

Why must he find that woman? Leon was momentarily speechless as all the reasons, from simple to complex, sharpened and crushed his heart at that one simple question.

I came to my senses again, and was about to answer that I didn't know that either.

"I wonder if it was you who made my little brother like that...."

That's what it looks like.

"This disgusting little beast!"

The moment Leon furrowed his brow, a fist came flying from across the table.

Bam. Jonathan Riddle Jr.'s fist struck Leon Winston's left jaw. At that moment, Campbell, who was running hurriedly behind his superior, stopped.

'why?'

Even the major alone could have easily avoided or blocked a punch like that.

'Why didn't you avoid it?'

While the witnesses and even the one who struck him were shocked and stunned, the person who was actually hit seemed unharmed. He seemed to be thinking about something alone and then muttered something incomprehensible.

"no."

Only when the major let out a sigh of discontent did Campbell come to his senses and subdue Jonathan Riddle Jr. and handcuff him.

"Major, are you okay?"

I approached him late and asked him, but the superior said something strange.

"I thought the feeling would be similar... but your fists are weaker than my little sister's."

It was a regretful tone. It sounded like he wanted to be hit by the woman who had disappeared, and Campbell felt embarrassed.

"Well, the fists may not look similar, but the way you lunge at someone without even knowing your own situation is similar."

While Leon was snickering and smoking a cigar, the woman's brother was swearing while tied up.

"My brother is innocent! If he was innocent, it was my parents who committed the crime! Then why are you taking revenge on Grace? What did she do?"

It wasn't something I did out of revenge. No, maybe once or twice. Maybe more often. Now, it was ridiculous to deny that it had happened because the scales that weighed her had tipped the scales toward affection rather than hatred.

"No. You were a famous demon to begin with. What do you expect? You should blame those who sent my brother to the demon."

Joe's face twisted and he spat out curses through his clenched teeth.

"Damn it... Mother didn't want Grace to repeat the same fate... ."

At that moment, Leon's eyes, who was lighting a cigar, became irritated. He compared my woman to Angela Riddle, who lived a miserable life and died. It made me even more irritated because it put me on the same level as a pimp named Jonathan Riddle.

Leon declared through his teeth clenched around a cigar.

"I won't repeat it."

He would not exploit that woman. What's more, he was still determined to give her everything he had.

"That wouldn't happen if you just cooperated with me."

Joe, who had been banging his head on the edge of the table, snorted, then lifted his head and asked.

"Why would I do that if I'm not crazy?"

"Because I am the only one who can keep your little brother safe."

"Protecting it... Haha... ."

It was a laugh with a hint of mockery.

"You're asking a thief to take care of the jewels. You have to make sense. Oh, by the way. Grace doesn't need your protection."

The devil's eyes sharpened as he realized that there was more to it than a simple rejection. Even if he told me, there was nothing the author could do. Joe decided to mock the other person while pretending to confess obediently.

"...With that amount of money, he won't need anyone's help. He might have already gone far away. So just take some revenge and leave him alone."

The devil's reaction when his mother told him that she had left Grace a large inheritance was unexpected.