CH 32

“Let’s greet each other formally. I’m Leon Winston. The Captain of the Domestic Intelligence Division of the Western Command, and the son of a man who was brutally tortured and killed by the devil called your mother.”

“….”

“Oh, do you already know this story?”

Leon gazed down at the woman’s shaking chest and shed a sneer.

“Miss Riddle, I’ve always wanted to meet you.”

The gentle voice that seemed to be talking with a benefactor, yet the gaze staring at the enemy seemed eerily different. Her breath tightened even more as his anger-soaked breath warmed her ears.

“But, like this…”

Winston came close with his lower body. At the same time, something thicker than a muzzle pressed against Grace’s back.

“I didn’t expect to be somewhere within easy reach.”

Uttering so, he swept the buttocks of the trusted maid, or a cunning spy with his gun.

“…You know that? When I saw you, I always wanted to shove my pistol into your cramped area and stir it up.”

The woman trembled as the gun stroked her skin as if to caress her skirt.

“Still, I couldn’t bully a good child, so I endured it. I no longer have to put up with it… Thank you, Sally.”

What he thought was a cute fox was actually…

“No, Grace.”

…It was a cunning rat.

Leon gripped the woman’s neck tighter as she began to twist her body and clenched her teeth.

“Don’t even think about saying no.”

“Huht…”

“Fred Smith. No, Fred Wilkins.”

As the prediction came true, Grace closed her eyes tightly.

“That bastard called out your name before I even touched him.”

…Just one day.

Just one more day, and it would have been over.

A cold laugh poured into Grace’s ears as she sighed.

“I feel sorry for Miss Riddle, who has a coward who has neither loyalty nor guts as a comrade.”

“Ugh…”

Winston suddenly turned Grace’s chin. In her vision, shaken by the twisting impact of her neck, she saw the coldest flame blazing.

“He said Miss Riddle was working to get Blanchard’s rats away from me. Am I right?”

Leon smiled coldly as he stared down at her turquoise eyes wet with tears and fear.

“I will give you a chance to complete your last mission.”

º º º

As soon as the creak of the heavy iron gate stopped, a faint sobbing was heard. When the lights came on, the sobbing person was clearly visible.

“Hello, Fred.”

Winston shoved Grace roughly inside after giving him a light greeting, with his limbs tied to one of the walls. Fred was just tied up though he was fine. It was true what Winston said that he had blown up her identity without even touching him.

Along with relief, anger swelled.

“Sniff… Please, help, help me…”

As soon as the lights came on, Fred raised his head in a gasp and began to beg Winston in fear. Then, the moment he looked at Grace, he burst into tears.

“Huuh… Grace…”

“Don’t call my name.”

Malice leaked out from Grace’s gnashed teeth.

“You don’t deserve it.”

“I’m, I’m sorry. Huhuu…”

“Grace.”

Winston, who watched the two happily, copied Fred and called her. His taunts were overflowing in it as his wide arms were tangled around Grace’s waist as she faced Fred. He then asked affectionately as he hugged her forcibly from behind.

“Do I deserve it?”

The pounding on her back was violent. Contrary to the outside, his inside was completely not serene at all.

“No, I don’t think so.”

Goosebumps rose as their bodies became closer together. However, Grace couldn’t resist, chained to Winston’s wall-like body, like Fred’s limbs tied to the wall.

“I used to think that when I saw the maid named Sally Bristol… Why is it that every time I define her one by one, I feel like I’m forcing a puzzle that doesn’t fit?”

Grace’s heart sank when he said that he had already felt uncomfortable with her. His animalistic sense was already infamous. So, although Winston opposed the infiltration operation, he was only accused of being a coward.

“If it were normal, my intuition would have told me. This woman…”

“Huht…”

“Is a spy.”

Suddenly biting her earlobe, Grace was startled.

“Though why was my intuition clouded in front of Miss Riddle?”

It was because he was blinded by lust. Even now, enraged by the spy, his body was still raging in a different way.

“…Am I a fool, or are you a genius?”

Kiik.

The laugh was followed by the sound of sharp metal rubbing against the soft leather. Soon, before her eyes, Winston’s military dagger flashed.

“Thanks to you, I’m a laughing stock in the whole kingdom. My job was to catch and interrogate the spy, but there was a spy down there… Truly an idiot.”

The sharpened tip of the dagger pointed to Fred, who was trembling, tied to the wall…

“A woman.”

He stabbed Grace in the neck. A stinging pain engulfed her as the pointed tip dug shallowly into her tender flesh.

“Uht, stop…”

Trying to escape, she twisted her body in Winston’s arms.

As Grace’s buttocks unknowingly rubbed his bulging lower body, Winston pulled out the dagger and let out a languid sigh.

“Miss Riddle, isn’t this an insult to you, too, not just me?”

Grace neither affirmed nor denied as she watched with trembling eyes as the dagger cut through the air like a bomb that didn’t know where to fall between Fred or her.

“You’re the last heir to a famous rebel family even within the group… It is a great insult to put such a rookie for you.”

“I’m, I’m sorry…”

Fred, who had sobbed vaguely the entire time Winston threatened her, again apologized for no reason.

Seeing that, Grace did all she could to resist the urge to slap him in the face right away.

‘I was against it from the beginning.’

Fred lowered his head helplessly, noticing what her eyes were saying. He was not fit for a job as a spy. Jimmy knew that, too. However, the pressure of Fred’s father, who wanted his only son to make a big contribution, whether weak or not, was formidable.

Shortly after taking over the post of commander-in-chief in place of his deceased father, Jimmy had no choice but to keep an eye on the elders.

“Don’t worry, he will fall.”

Jimmy, ironically, hoped that the enemy army would overcome this difficult situation instead. In other words, he expected Fred not to pass boot camp.

…But, how flustered he was when Fred passed the boot camp.

In addition, how absurd he was when Fred was assigned to the torture chamber because of Fred’s father’s scheme, who wrote ‘Fred Smith’s’ father’s job as a butcher on his enlistment application.

Of course, he didn’t fit. They told him to quit even now, but Fred was as tough as his father in this matter. He insisted that he could do it while vomiting. Still, Fred seemed to be adapting slowly, so she believed…

Leon glanced down at her small, trembling fist and whispered cruel words in Grace’s ear.

“Miss Riddle, don’t tell me you forget your duty and left your comrade in the mansion in the torture chamber? I said many times. I do my job, you do yours.”

Winston’s job was to torture the spy, and Grace’s job was to interrupt him.

“…Do you want me to do my job here now?”

When she asked in a trembling voice, Winston nodded her head from behind.

“That’s right, Miss Riddle. Your final task is to get Fred away from me.”

As Leon uttered an absurd word, hope flashed in Fred’s eyes, and doubt flashed in Grace’s eyes.

“Why? Do you want to kill that child?”

Well, I think… He murmured and laughed.

“If I want to kill him, you would reject your mission. Oh, of course, I don’t know what kind of punishment your commander-in-chief will give you for disobeying your orders, but I don’t know. For now, I’m going to make a very clear engraving on Fred’s body to make it easy to verify the facts.”

In front of Fred, who was getting pale blue again, Winston wrote with the tip of his sword.

“Die at the behest of Miss Grace Riddle.”

In other words, they threatened to turn Grace into a murderer if she refused this ‘last mission’ that Winston imposed.

‘…As expected, this is the intention.’

It was obvious why he had forced Fred to live by making low-key threats. Grace didn’t want to let Fred live, but as a condition of keeping him alive, she wanted to ask for what he wanted.

“So, where should I send his corpse and condolence money?”

It meant to blow the location of the base. From rage to rut—although he was in a very private and emotional state, he did not forget his private and public affairs. This kind of enemy was more terrifying.

The location of the stronghold could never be disclosed. Knowing that she was playing according to his intentions, Grace couldn’t help but ask.

“In return, are you going to set me free?”

“You’re pretty smart. Though why are you asking for an answer you know? That is stupid.”

In the end, Grace’s only option was death or a disgusting deal.

Closing her eyes tightly, Leon read the meaning of her resignation and buried his lips in the pure white neck that had a stream of red blood flowing.