Chapter 90
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 90
The moment Eric saw Oscar’s cold expression, he shrank back like a startled turtle. The other nobles quickly followed suit, ceasing their questions about his wound. Charlotte was no different.
She met Oscar’s gaze as if nothing had happened, her face a mask of maternal benevolence.
“You must be busy, Oscar. I’m surprised you came.”
“…”
“To see such affection between siblings… you have no idea how it warms a mother’s heart.”
At her sweet voice, warm enough to melt the coldest resolve, Oscar let out a low, humorless chuckle.
“Is that so?”
“Are you leaving already?”
“Mother, please stop him. Brother says he’s leaving.”
As the siblings spoke over each other, Charlotte glanced back and forth between her son and daughter.
“Yes, then you must go. Sabine, you should understand. Your mother is here to keep you company, after all.”
Oscar averted his gaze, staring into the distance as Charlotte gently took her daughter’s arm and began to walk.
Rustle, rustle.
With elegant steps, the Marchioness brushed past her son—who refused to even look at her—and whispered, “Go home safely.”
At the same time, Oscar began to walk away.
Though they were three people bound by blood, they passed one another like oil and water, utterly incapable of mixing.
In the wake of the mother and daughter, a cloying, headache-inducing trail of perfume lingered.
It was only when he reached the railing where that woman had leaned that the scent finally faded. Only then did Oscar take a deep breath and look down.
The edge of the railing, which had seemed like a sheer cliff when she stood there, now looked like a ruler’s dais. As he stood there, Simon approached and delivered his report.
“The carriage carrying the target took the outer route and is heading toward the manor. The Backup Team is erasing their tracks.”
Oscar descended the stairs without a word. The suffocating floral scent had receded, but his chest still felt tight.
Even after leaving the department store and settling into his carriage, the pressure in his chest refused to ease. Oscar pulled off his gloves. Blood was seeping from the gash left by the glass, but he ignored it and threw the window open.
“A cigarette.”
Placing the cigarette Simon handed him between his lips, Oscar struck a match with impatient hands. He inhaled deeply, as if desperate to escape. Only when the acrid smoke filled his lungs did he feel like he could finally breathe.
“Haa…”
As the smoke brought a wave of lightheadedness, the foul mood churning in his gut began to dull. Leaning his head back against the seat, Oscar inhaled again and again, as if the cigarette were his lifeline. He loosely held the towel Simon had handed him, not caring if he bled, focusing only on the smoke. He finished one in an instant and immediately lit another.
His frantic smoking was almost a desperate act—a struggle to delay the thoughts that kept clawing their way to the surface.
Bury it.
The instinct that had always saved him was screaming a warning. It was as if a voice was telling him not to even try to understand what it was he had to bury.
Oscar closed his eyes.
By the time his second cigarette was half-gone, the carriage had entered the Reinhardt Manor. Even with his eyes closed, Oscar could feel exactly where they were: passing through the damp forest, climbing the sloped hill, and finally making the sharp turn as the carriage slowed.
He opened his eyes. Through the square window, the familiar manor and the Wolves lined up in formation came into view. Once the carriage came to a complete stop, the door was opened from the outside.
Oscar dragged his heavy body to his feet.
As he stepped out, a gust of wind swept past him, and his vision expanded in all directions. Above, the black night sky crowned the manor’s roof. Below, the manor’s lights cast a glow over the gravel path. On either side, long lines of Wolves stood at the edge of the forest. As the scene unfolded before him, the brightly lit manor blurred. Like a cheap, out-of-focus photograph, the building was painted in hazy light and shadow.
Oscar brought the cigarette hanging from his fingertips to his lips and took a deep drag. Damn it. He couldn’t taste a thing. The cigarette, which had been a temporary refuge, now felt as empty as swallowing air.
While everything else was a blur, only that woman, a fleeting image at the edge of his vision, remained sharp and clear.
“When will you return?”
If she was going to ask something like that, shouldn’t she have at least waited for him?
Oscar tossed the half-smoked cigarette aside and began to walk.
He walked the path he was meant to take. As he moved, heavy presences stirred from all directions as if they had been waiting for his signal.
Leading the Wolves, the Marquis crossed the threshold through the wide-open doors and ascended the carpeted stairs. The Wolves dispersed like currents flowing to their designated places, while a few, including Barbara, followed behind him.
Barbara hurried to keep pace with her master as he crossed the hall in an instant. She rushed ahead to open the door for him.
“Do not follow.”
After stopping her with a single command, Oscar strode forward in a near-trance.
He passed the reception room and his office, heading straight for his bedroom. He only stopped when he reached the door that connected to the study.
Standing before it, Oscar was breathing heavily, like a man who had just finished a full sprint.
It felt as though lava, thick with molten minerals, was surging through his veins. At such extreme temperatures, minerals only glow red, their true forms hidden until they cool. Only after the boiling crimson subsides do the hardened elements within finally reveal themselves.
Oscar could not grasp what this emotion was, this boiling thing that turned his stomach inside out.
That woman becoming Sabine’s plaything? Being humiliated by that trash? What did it matter? She wasn’t dead.
Then… was it because she hadn’t run to him?
“Am I out of my fucking mind?”
Oscar let out a sharp, derisive laugh. Was she supposed to have begged him for help back there? And what? Would he have played the savior and rescued her?
The image of her walking down the stairs with Abel Sting flashed before his eyes like lightning, and Oscar squeezed his eyes shut.
Who was it that had summoned Abel and told him to get close to her? Who was it that had ordered him to seduce her by any means necessary, to manipulate her at will?
The unanswered questions spun in vicious circles.
Feeling suffocated, Oscar ripped off his jacket.
The wound that had barely closed had burst open again, soaking the fabric with blood.
He glared at the raw, gaping injury with irritation, then turned his gaze to the study door.
Could he manage not to open this door tonight?
No. He couldn’t.
Oscar opened the door.
As his hand fell limp to his side, he felt blood dripping from his fingertips. The throbbing pain from the cut was sharp and clear.
A Reinhardt wasn’t supposed to bleed a single drop, even if stabbed.
The wound his own mother had ignored was, of course, nothing. A minor injury like this had appeared and disappeared hundreds, thousands of times. But no matter how many thousands of times he was scarred, a wound was still a wound. It was impossible for it not to hurt, impossible for it not to bleed.
And yet, in an instant, the heat and the pain were forgotten, as if they had never existed.
Rustle, rustle.
A presence, faint as a line drawn in pencil, drifted toward him.
The self-deprecating questions that had driven him to the brink of madness vanished along with the pain.
Oscar’s mind fell silent.
The faint presence moved down the hallway and stopped just outside the door.
Oscar, who could never tolerate waiting even a single second, waited for the door to open. After an agonizing eternity, the doorknob turned, and the door swung inward.
Moonlight spilled in first, streaming from the hallway window and casting the woman’s long shadow across the floor. Then, slowly, the light faded. Once the moonlight was gone, nothing remained to fill the space between them.
Only then did he release the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
“Haa…”
She stepped into his space.
At that moment, the boiling emotions finally settled. He felt the beast inside him, which had been raging in incomprehensible directions, finally slump back in satisfaction.
*
Seo-ah felt as though she were dreaming. In truth, she wished it were. Her mind was in a haze. She must have fallen asleep without realizing it, because when she opened her eyes, she was back at the manor. And he was there, though she had no idea when he had returned.
Her head felt thick with fog.
Abel had been called away by a man named Simon. Lady Barbara had looked at her with an expression that suggested she had much to say, but in the end, she simply told her to call if she needed a meal before heading downstairs. The expressions of the Wolves trailing behind her had been equally grim.
She could feel it in her bones: her actions today had once again caused them great annoyance and trouble.
Soon, only she remained in the hallway. A chilly draft seeped into her empty arms, and she shivered.
Standing there alone, she tried to take a step, but her feet felt incredibly heavy, as if someone were dragging her down by the ankles. A heavy stone weighed on her chest.
She reached her door. She had to open it and go inside, but she felt as if she lacked even the strength to lift her hand.
The future was bleak. The more she thought about it, the more certain she became that those people were connected to her biological father. If they had gone to the royal palace, how on earth was she supposed to get in there? And how much more trouble would she bring upon the people of this manor?
Tears fell to her feet. They were silent, without a single sob, dripping straight to the floor without even wetting her cheeks.
Should she just confess everything to him? Confess and beg for his mercy?
Oscar’s face rose in her mind. And with it, a scene flashed before her eyes, as sharp and vivid as an image carved with a knife.