Chapter 154
Jeffrey's green eyes looked straight at Sasha. They were the same green eyes that had always stared at her in an unpleasant manner. In Jeffrey's gaze as he looked at Sasha, there had always followed a sticky leer that made her want to slap him across the cheek. But now, his green eyes were cast in darkness, submerged with a different meaning.
He looked like someone drunk on something.
Before Sasha could even respond to his words, Miss Iver tightened her grip on Sasha's hand. She looked toward Sasha and shook her head with an extremely resolute expression.
Don't you dare go out.
When Sasha tried to pull her hand free, Miss Iver squeezed back with enough force to crush her bones. Her gaze grew even fiercer than before. Her face looked very stern, as if she were scolding Sasha rather than simply worrying.
'I'm not your daughter, though.'
Amidst all this, Sasha let out a hollow laugh to herself at the thought. Instead of alerting Miss Iver to it, Sasha used her other free hand to grasp hers and slowly shook it, trying to pull her trapped hand free.
Jeffrey's patience was not long-lasting.
Click! As the door opened, the noblewoman sitting opposite let out a scream.
"Shut up!"
Jeffrey's roar immediately turned toward that pitiful woman. The husband quickly wrapped his frightened wife in his arms and pulled her against his chest.
"Please, please calm yourself. My wife is of weak constitution, so... Sir. I will tend to my wife."
The man spoke desperately, then looked at Sasha.
It was a gaze containing far too complex an inner turmoil. The self-reproach of failing to protect the ladies as a man, the wish—purely for the safety of him and his wife—that the target, that woman, would go out of her own accord, and the self-loathing resulting from that, all tangled together.
Sasha understood him. And she felt sorry for the couple.
"I'll follow you out, so stop making a scene."
Sasha spoke firmly and calmly, rising from her seat. At the same time, Miss Iver rose with her to prevent her from leaving.
Bang!
A bullet flew in and embedded itself directly in the wall above their heads.
Her heart dropped with a thud, and simultaneously Sasha looked in the direction the bullet had come from. It wasn't Jeffrey. Of course, Jeffrey was holding a gun too, but he had merely been aiming it and screaming. The bullet had come from behind him.
It was a man wearing an ashen fedora. The moment Sasha confirmed this, she grabbed Miss Iver's shoulder and roughly pushed her down into her seat.
"Don't step forward."
The words came out more grimly than usual, without her realizing it. Sasha muttered, almost glaring at Miss Iver, then released her shoulder and stood up straight, passing by. As if afraid that Miss Iver might step forward again, she stretched out her right hand, which had been hanging limply at her side, and held it before her eyes.
Please don't step forward.
"Will you move aside so I can get out?"
Sasha spoke to Jeffrey, who stood blocking the door. As she approached, a stench wafted out. The stench of sweat, the foul reek of tobacco, and a faint smell of liquor.
Instead of obediently complying, Jeffrey grabbed her arm and roughly pulled her. Her body toppled forward, and her forehead struck Jeffrey's shoulder. Click! Jeffrey closed the door again. As if he were only now acting concerned, afraid that the man behind him might shoot again.
With her face buried in his shoulder, the sour smell of sweat rose even more thickly. Jeffrey was sweating all over his body.
No matter how hot the day was, could one possibly sweat this much, as if pouring rain from every pore?
This was not due to simple heat.
It was extreme terror.
Jeffrey was sweating all over his body from terror. The gun he held in one hand wasn't even properly loaded. His gun hand trembled like an aspen leaf. Sasha raised her head to look at his face.
At the same time, Jeffrey grabbed her by the hair.
"...I."
Jeffrey spoke. As if afraid that Sasha might notice his agitation, he gripped her hair viciously and yanked at it.
Her pinned-up hair came undone and streamed down. The hat she had worn had fallen off long ago, and Jeffrey looked at the disheveled Sasha and spat out the rest of his words.
"I have a lot to say to you."
Jeffrey dragged Sasha straight toward the door. The surrounding compartments were silent. Everyone kept quiet to avoid the sparks, to avoid being rebuked like the man earlier. The man in the fedora who had been standing behind Jeffrey slowly followed after him.
They had no interest in Miss Iver. It seemed their goal was solely Sasha.
Through the window set in a nearby door, a pair of frightened eyes were looking out at them. But when Jeffrey turned his head that way, they let out a "Hic!" and quickly shrank back. The man in the fedora had now completely caught up to Jeffrey. Because Jeffrey was walking very, very slowly.
The man stuck close behind Jeffrey and Sasha, who was being dragged by him, and clicked—the sound of a revolver being cocked. Jeffrey was now sweating even more than before. He walked faster toward the door, sweating so profusely that one might think he would collapse from dehydration.
Sasha now realized the dominant relationship between Jeffrey and that man. Urged on by the man, Jeffrey made groaning sounds like a dog and vented his frustration by putting his full strength into the hand gripping Sasha's hair.
Clack! The door to the train car opened. The rear was a freight car. The first-class compartments that only the wealthy could afford and the ordinary passenger cars were strictly separated.
"Young master."
The man in the fedora spoke.
"I believe this is far enough."
In a tone that seemed kindly and cajoling, he looked at Jeffrey as if he were a child. Sasha could finally look at the man properly now. He was a middle-aged man of slender build, and at first glance, he looked far removed from anything like combat. However, the way he held his gun was incomparably relaxed and skilled, so much so that one could tell he was a first-class gunman without giving it deep thought.
Not only that. The man seemed to be someone well-experienced in such matters. He had no hesitation in shooting at people. He seemed to be someone who made this his profession.
"There is a man who has long been notoriously infamous among the agents. He calls himself a 'Fixer,' and he's famous for being as clean in his work as he is merciless."
The story she had heard from Isaac not long ago came to mind. Despite the blatant nickname 'Hunting Dog,' his appearance was neat enough that if she had passed him on the street, she likely would have walked by without any sense of discomfort.
"Apologize."
Her gaze, which had been fixed on the man, snapped upward. Jeffrey spat out the words, still gripping Sasha's hair.
For a moment, a sense of déjà vu flashed by. Apologize. There was another person who had once made a fuss, demanding she apologize out of the blue.
George Butler. The disgusting man who had come to ruin her, swayed by temptation no different from Jeffrey's instigation, overlapped remarkably with him. The difference was that, at least, the Jeffrey before her now, though pale with fear, was not as unhinged as George Butler had been then.
Yes. Jeffrey was in his right mind.
At least that was a small comfort.
"...What am I supposed to apologize for?"
Sasha asked quietly.
The weight of the revolver in her pocket pressed heavily against her thigh. However, drawing a gun first in front of a skilled gunman was no different from suicide.
Isaac had taught her this once. Truly, that man. Even though he could never have imagined Sasha would find herself in such a situation, he had gone ahead and taught her such things.
That lovely man.
...Sasha truly missed Isaac.
"...Fuck, do I have to spell it out for you? The things you did to me... The things you did to my family... How you schemed with that old hag to humiliate my parents too..."
The hand gripping her hair gradually lost strength. Jeffrey's hand was now trembling openly.
Sasha looked at the man standing at a moderate distance with his arms crossed, watching them indifferently. Behind the man, the door to the first-class compartment they had come from was left open, rattling.
And the people's gazes. A few people who had earlier been too afraid to even look out the door were now precariously leaning their upper bodies out the windows to watch them.
"I'm sorry."
It was like a well-orchestrated play. They were the audience, and Jeffrey and Sasha were actors performing their given lines for them.
Seeing him openly force an apology that was no longer needed, as if to put on a show for them, it seemed terribly contrived—utterly artificial, like lines from a script.
It made her realize that this was truly a pre-written script.
Sasha apologizing immediately, as if she had been waiting to do so, seemed entirely outside Jeffrey's expectations. Sasha looked straight at Jeffrey and apologized, regardless.
"I'm truly sorry. Jeffrey. For everything I've done to you. For humiliating you in front of your friends, for acting coldly toward you not knowing my place—I'm sorry for all of it. Or should I be using proper honorifics?"
"...Shut up."
Her apologizing so readily, without a shred of resistance, seemed truly beyond his expectations. However, Sasha didn't care; she was prepared to kneel if Jeffrey told her to.
Now Sasha thought she understood what they wanted. If she refused to apologize, Jeffrey, unable to control his anger, would shoot and kill her.
Jeffrey Grayson, who had been a nuisance to his family since long ago. A prodigal son who had never learned the humility befitting his station. In the end, disgracing his family until the very last,
At the same time, the rope that would save his parents.
"...Jeffrey, I'm truly sorry."
Jeffrey shook his head as if he didn't want to hear her apology. Regardless, Sasha continued to apologize to Jeffrey.
Jeffrey loaded the gun with trembling hands and aimed it at Sasha, who was right before him.
At this distance, her head would explode and she'd die instantly. Sasha thought this for a fleeting moment.
"Kneel."
Jeffrey commanded. However, his tone was no different from a tearful plea.
Bang!
The bullet missed. His hands, which had been trembling violently without calming, contributed to firing the gun in a completely different direction.
But the impact was immense. For a moment, Sasha thought one of her eardrums had burst. At the stabbing pain, she raised a hand and rubbed her ear, feeling something hot gradually flowing out from inside.
It seemed her eardrum had burst.
Fuck this, fuck that. Jeffrey's cursing flowed into her other ear. The moment stretched agonizingly slowly. As Jeffrey struggled to reload the heated revolver with trembling hands, a gunshot rang out again.
With a deathly pale face, Jeffrey looked down at Sasha as she collapsed with a thud. Blood flowed from her, who had fallen limply like a doll, and pooled on the floor.
The man—the hitman his father had hired—spoke to Jeffrey again.
"It should be easier to hit her now."