“I just want to check it with my own eyes for a moment. You’re being overly cautious about simple things. Don’t you know that this makes me even more suspicious?”

“You know very well that I am not on guard for fear of my lies being discovered.”

“Hey, Captain. I’m not here to get rid of her. All right, I will allow you a body search.”

The commander spread his arms wide. What he meant was that Leon should personally confirm that there was no weapon on his body.

Leon shook his head in refusal.

“I didn’t come to steal it from you. I have no intention of taking that child. You know better than to want to be involved in any way. I just want to check for a moment to see if it’s correct.”

“Let’s go out.”

Whatever purpose he came for, he had no intention of showing the woman. Still, the commander was stubborn.

‘That woman, her stubbornness resembles her father’s…’

The elderly man turned to go down to the basement again. Even though the woman wasn’t there anyway, Leon wanted to kick him out of the annex quickly. He had no idea what the woman left alone in the bedroom was doing.

“There is no need to check eye color. A photo would suffice.”

You can see the reason just by looking at the photos.

The commander stopped and gritted his teeth. The face of the person who was trying to argue with an angry face suddenly became blank.

The gaze was not on Leon but far behind him.

“Oh, my God…”

In an instant, Leon followed the dazed commander’s gaze, and his eyes turned bloodthirsty. The woman was standing on the stairs, looking down at the two people.

“Go up!”

That woman was like a stray cat. He never heard her coming back down.

“I told you to go, now!”

“Georgia…”

While Leon was scolding the woman who was standing still, an unexpected name came out of the commander’s mouth. Georgia was the commander’s youngest daughter, who passed away a few years ago.

He wasn’t seeing the ghost of his daughter. Despite the fact that it was unpleasant, Leon had no choice but to admit that the dead woman he saw in the family photo when investigating this person’s background looked quite similar to Grace Riddle.

‘D*mn…’

One of the many reasons he didn’t want to show her was now unfolding before his eyes.

“My daughter. Come here, come here.”

An unfamiliar man called her his daughter and opened his arms to her.

It was definitely unfamiliar, though it also felt familiar. The man had brown hair like hers. On his face, which seemed to bear an uncanny resemblance to hers, the same turquoise eyes began to well up with tears.

‘What is this….?’

Two men gave opposite instructions to Grace, who had stopped thinking.

“Georgia, come to Father.”

“Riddle, go up now!”

The elderly man couldn’t stand it anymore and tried to climb up, but Winston stopped him. Eventually, Grace, who was looking at the two men with confused eyes, finally took her feet off the floor.

Tap, tap, tap.

Footsteps echoed up the stairs to the third floor. Leon glanced down at the devastated commander and smiled the most arrogant smile a winner could muster.

“I hear your daughter doesn’t like you. You have confirmed enough, so let’s go.”

“How dare you treat my daughter like a dog?”

The commander belatedly became obsessed with the dog collar and leash hanging around the woman’s neck and criticized him. The moment he saw the woman’s face, it was clear that he had become senile. He had already forgotten what he said earlier when he said he didn’t want anything to do with her in any way.

“This is an insult to me…”

“The commander called the time bomb that could end your life your daughter.”

“….”

“Get your act together.”

Leon acted calmly as he kicked out the commander, who looked five years older in just five minutes, but inside, he didn’t feel that way. It was as if this card, the secret of her birth, which he had tried to save until the end, was snatched from his hand and used recklessly.

Anger swirled uncontrollably in his chest. However, the moment he remembered the woman who had run away, an unexpected joy surged from him in that rough whirlpool.

The woman obeyed his commands.

The corner of his mouth that had been tilting up suddenly stiffened.

No. Maybe she was just running away from the shocking truth because she was a woman who was amazingly good at denying reality.

“You will pay a heavy price for disobeying me.”

Rather than scaring Grace, the threat only increased doubts because he wouldn’t punish her right away, even though he said so.

He was a man who usually played with her by taking off all of her clothes and saying vulgar things to her. However, as soon as he dragged her into the torture room, he only shackled her ankles and tried to leave her.

Like he was someone who wanted to avoid her.

Grace couldn’t get the strange conversation between the two men out of her mind.

“My daughter. Come here, come here.”

In addition, the strange words and actions of the strange man became intertwined, and everything became tightly tangled like a wrongly wound thread. The only person who could free her was that man who was running out the door.

She urgently grabbed him and stopped him.

“Who is that person?”

The man who called her daughter was not her father. Still, he resembled her enough to be considered a father-daughter.

“He’s a senile old man.”

“That’s not true!”

‘Please, say no. Please tell me my forebodings are wrong…’

The man squeezed the doorknob, avoiding her desperately clinging gaze.

“I have to go now. I’ll talk to you later.”

“The engagement ceremony is still two hours away!”

The woman blocked him with her whole body as he tried to shake her off. She even grabbed his collar tightly.

Why did a woman who was surprisingly good at denying reality insist on digging into the reality that she wanted to keep buried?

“If you don’t want to break your wrist, let it go when I’m still nice.”

“You can’t go! Tell me and go! Is it that difficult?”

“You don’t know about me, but I’m a very busy person, unlike someone who doesn’t do anything other than scratch my nerves and spread her legs.”

Leon leisurely taunted the agitated woman. The woman’s mouth trembled, and she gritted her teeth.
“The niceties end here, so let’s stop.”

He grabbed her wrist from the collar of his shirt as a warning.

Nonetheless, the woman got scared and instead of taking her hand away, she swung her other hand at his face. There was a loud popping sound, and a tingling pain rippled from his left lower jaw. The moment the small but strong knuckles brushed against his lips, he felt a stinging pain.

“Ha…”

Leon moved his chin and smiled.

“Bad hand habits you have.”

He couldn’t punch her in the same way.

He wouldn’t hit women. Even if he hit her just once, he would have to take her to the hospital.

The taste of metal spread into his mouth as he contemplated how to correct the hand habit of the woman who clearly knew this and confidently swung her fist at him.

As Leon glanced at his torn lips, he could see that his thumb was stained with red blood. He took a deep breath as if to suppress his heart, which was beginning to pound violently in his chest.

Simultaneously, the woman’s eyes that had been staring at him must have sensed an ominous sign and began to shake. The smell of blood, which was not hers, still made his blood boil. Leon lost his temper like a bull who saw red.

“Ugh!”

He firmly grabbed the back of the woman’s head with one hand and pulled her. He looked down at the helpless woman with his eyes burning with flames as if they were burning her to death, chewing out each word and spitting it out.

“Do you really want to know that man’s identity?”

The woman who had been running wild like a colt with no reins, saying she needed to know just a moment ago, had no answer. As fear began to appear in her turquoise eyes, he twisted his torn lips as he licked and drank his blood.

He would have to watch carefully the moment her spirit breaks down.

“George Davenport. A collateral royal family member and the new Western Commander. Your mother approached him when he was a young guard officer.”

“….”

“Physically, of course.”

The woman’s eyes shouted fiercely.

Don’t lie.

…When she was a living proof.

“So, she sold her body to get information and then foolishly took his child. Who is that child, huh? Who do you think it is?”

The woman’s eyes, who already knew the correct answer, twitched like a body trembling after being stabbed by a knife. Her face also became pale, as if she was about to die.

“Tough luck. The blood of the royal family you hate flows through your body.”

“N, no…”

The moment the woman whispered thinly in a trembling voice, Leon threw words that hurt more than his fist.

“Grace Riddle, you are proof that the Blanchard rebels use the dirty seduction trap.”

The hand that had been holding his collar lost strength. He thought she was going to hit him again, but the woman stumbled and took a step back. Her eyes were unfocused.

“Get out, right now.”

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