try begging
Tonight again, his bedroom seemed deserted.
In front of the bed, where the bluish moonlight crossed, the woman's slippers were neatly placed, just like tonight. Leon squeezed his eyes shut and closed the door that he had barely opened.
The place I turned my back to was the torture chamber. This place too was without an owner.
It was something that would have drawn ridicule, but there was not even a faint smile on his face as he sat at the large table and stared at the empty bed.
You're the owner.
He is the master of this torture chamber, but how can he call that woman the master? Grace Riddle was just a prisoner in his torture chamber.
Prisoner.
Now that I know the whole truth, I ask myself again: Did that woman really commit a crime that deserves to be called a prisoner?
At that time.
From the perspective of that time, the woman was clearly a prisoner. She was a rebel who had illegally infiltrated a military facility and a military officer's private residence with impure intentions.
The severity of the crime didn't matter. He was just looking for an excuse to keep the woman here, driven by lust. And his blind desire for revenge also played a part.
But I could finally see it when I opened my eyes.
A woman who was lying helplessly on the cold floor of the torture chamber, repeatedly vomiting and sobbing as if expressing humiliation, even her jacket was too heavy to hold up.
A lonely woman who silently saved the ally who betrayed her, but was not saved by anyone.
An unjust woman who had to be punished excessively and blamed for crimes she did not commit.
"Fuck...."
He too blindly clung to false beliefs.
"The more I think about it, the more disgusting it becomes, the more I realize that it's a plan to have dogs eat dogs and pigs eat pigs."
The woman was not part of the vested interests of the revolutionary army.
"It's not coercion, it's persuasion."
The woman tried not to infiltrate his mansion.
"Grace had nothing to do with it."
The woman had no idea of the tragedy that would unfold that night in Abington Beach.
Three voices tangled in his head, refuting Leon's false beliefs one by one.
I know. I know.
Although he had felt it subconsciously, he denied it. When he opened his eyes late, Leon couldn't take his empty eyes off the empty bed that was the price he paid.
After the tragedy at Abington Beach, she became a different person. Just as he became a different person.
I believed that the incident had left an unhealable scar only on me, but that too was arrogance.
"I'm really sorry. I'm sorry for saying such mean things to you, for making you like me, and then running away like a coward, and for making you suffer. I sincerely... ."
The woman's tearful face flashed before my eyes. Without realizing it, the fingertips I raised toward the illusion trembled slightly.
"I liked it."
You were sincere.
I should have wiped away your tears then. I should have accepted your apology. If I had, would the words 'I liked you' have become 'I like you'?
At that time, he was so absorbed in his own pain that he didn't feel the woman's pain at all. Now, the pain that he felt belatedly tormented him like a ghost.
"I didn't know you were Winston. I didn't know you were trying to kill your father."
"Back then, I didn't lie about anything other than my name."
"As much as you may want to believe it, I am not responsible for your father's death."
Yeah, you only told the truth, and I got this kind of verbal abuse... .
"The woman I loved was Daisy, who was pure and honest. Not Grace Riddle, who was full of lies. Do you understand?"
That woman didn't want to lie to me.
"You, who have kept your mouth shut until now, are also an accomplice."
No, not at all. She had reasons to keep her mouth shut.
"If you were truly sorry to me, you shouldn't have come here! At the very least, you shouldn't have shamelessly infiltrated me!"
That's not what she meant.
She didn't want to come here. She believed that she had deceived him and mocked him, but I never deceived or mocked her on purpose.
In the end, that woman was a victim too. No different from him. She was a victim who stupidly took the blame for everything on herself.
Whatever the process, he is a criminal who has infiltrated under him. It is also true that he has committed countless heinous crimes as a member of the rebels.
So the world may call her a sinner, but to Leon Winston, Grace Riddle was now just a scapegoat.
He filled the void left by the collapse of one blind faith with another.
You are innocent. As you said, we were enemies back then. You just believed that the rebels were right. You couldn't help it. The blame lies with those who deceived you.
When Grace Riddle stands before the judgment seat between heaven and hell on the coming Doomsday, the one who will speak most loudly in her defense will be Leon Winston, her one-time enemy, nemesis, and spurned lover.
It was a Winston-like choice, one that filled only greed in the place of conscience.
You have never done anything wrong to anyone... .
"I forgive you for what you did to me."
Leon wanted to cut out his own tongue for saying something like that on the phone with that woman.
That was an incredibly presumptuous remark. There was absolutely nothing to forgive, so you must have been shocked.
It was natural that the woman didn't trust him, since he apologized before even realizing that he had so much to reflect on.
Leon looked down at Angela Riddle's diary on the table and touched his throbbing temple.
He was completely delusional. He did not hesitate to insult the woman by calling her a prostitute, a slave, and even a dog, because he secretly assumed that she was born into the privileged class of the revolutionary army and grew up enjoying special treatment and privileges.
But women were truly treated like dogs, used and exploited throughout their lives.
"You are a dog now."
Shit. A painful groan escaped his tightly clenched lips as the memory of treating a woman like a dog replayed in his head.
No. I wasn't trying to use you by saying that.
Because I was afraid of my heart being swayed by you, my enemy and my foe. Because I was so afraid of you, who could hold me and sway me without me doing anything, I just tried to seize the initiative that I was trying to give up without realizing it.
"It wasn't the child that was the monster, it was them."
Leon stared at the page that contained the rebel leaders' purpose for having the woman on their side, and he remembered the grim expression on her face when she had returned to Chesterfield. At that moment, the name Leon Winston must have been on the long list of people she wanted to send to hell.
No. I didn't know about this. Not at all.
Leon belatedly poured out an explanation that was beyond the woman's reach.
It is an inexcusable fact that I used you as a means. But I am different from those monsters. I have never used you only as a means.
From revenge to social success, Leon had achieved everything, but Grace Lee was now a useless woman. And he was the only one who wanted women to become useless.
So, the woman who had lost her meaning as a means to his wishes was now nothing more than a goal to him.
But I'm lost because I don't know where that destination is now.
After wandering and wandering, the only place he ended up was the bed that the woman had been using. Early in the morning, and late at night, when he opened the torture chamber door, the woman was always lying on this bed. In the dark, with only a blanket wrapped around her body.
He lay down in the same spot because he wanted to feel the woman's gaze. But all he felt was her loneliness.
Leon, who was looking up at the pitch-black ceiling, belatedly asked the woman in his head.
How lonely you must have been here.
In this place where no one saves you and no one believes in you.
"...Grace."
I tried calling out that name, which I had always been unable to call out because of the guilt that had clogged my throat, but the owner of the name could not hear me.
Whenever he wanted to call her name when she was right in front of him, guilt would scold him in his father's voice.
You should hate that name.
Since love was not allowed, he wanted to have that woman even if it meant using hatred as an excuse. So he tried to lock her up, control her, and brainwash her.
The only thing that set Leon apart from Blanchard's demons was his motivations. He was just as much a demon as they were.
The desire that had been so twisted was completely transformed during the short honeymoon period. During that time that was nothing but deception.
The woman began to fake love. She was annoyed that he was trying to break her heart again, so she did the same thing to him. She also gave him fake love without holding back.
I didn't really know what love was. I still don't know when to draw the line and define it as love from the emotions that have been building up for over a decade.
But now I know one thing: what he offered wasn't fake.