Chapter 155
The man’s attitude was not merely composed; there was something brazenly sly about it.
He stared at Jeffrey with eyes that, at a glance, almost seemed generous, like a mother beast tossing an easy prey—one barely clinging to life—to a cub still clumsy at hunting.
But in the end, its essence was an order.
Hurry up and shoot her dead.
Hurry up and shoot her in front of everyone and cut off that woman’s breath.
He was urging him to take the blame for everything, just as they had promised.
Jeffrey looked down blankly at the woman collapsed on the floor.
Sasha Grayson.
A woman who had used the laughable trick of adoption to worm her way, legally, into his family in the end.
A worthless thing of vulgar birth, who should originally have been bowing her head to him.
What was so special about that face? That parasitic woman who had entered his family solely because she resembled his cousin.
All because of that face.
Her hair, disheveled and wild, more than covered the face lying turned to the side.
Jeffrey wanted to see the white face beneath it. He wanted to see the expression on that face.
He wanted to confirm just how twisted the expression was—the one she, a mere swindler, had always worn while pretending to be lofty and looking at him as if he were pathetic.
Yes. Her face.
That pretty little face.
That hateful face that had never even pretended to smile at him sincerely.
……I wanted to ruin it with my own hands. I wanted to seize it at last, make her kneel beneath my feet, and sob her heart out.
If she was never going to smile at me for the rest of her life, I wanted to make her live beside me crying for the rest of hers.
But even after that thing’s true identity was exposed, that country noble bastard didn’t divorce her. Instead, he wrapped himself around her, and as if that wasn’t enough, he kept shaking my family without knowing his place, like he had set his mind to it.
……Just what are you?
“……Why aren’t you being abandoned?”
The sky was ash gray.
The sunlight had long since departed. But it did not look like it would rain. Heavy clouds had merely gathered in droves, deepening the gloom. Like Jeffrey’s face, the sky looked as if it were covered in bruises.
The humidity was just right.
And the man’s patience had run out.
It was the moment he was about to take a step toward Jeffrey, who looked as if his soul had left him.
From behind, bang! A shot rang out and pierced the space right above his head.
The people who had been leaning out the windows, staring at the scene in horror, quickly pulled themselves back inside.
The man swiftly twisted his body and pressed himself beside the dangling door. Glancing back, he saw a man aiming a gun at him, covered here and there in blood. It was Wilson.
That one still isn’t dead.
Bang!
The instant he pressed himself against the door, a bullet narrowly grazed past right beside the man’s head.
The passenger car was thrown into chaos once more.
Eardrum-tearing screams. Amid them, gunshots and some unidentified dull noises continued without pause.
Jeffrey stared at the passenger compartment with a vacant face, then turned his head back. Sasha still lay collapsed in the same spot, not moving an inch.
Was she dead?
Then that bastard killed her. Not me.
Clinging to that slender thread of hope, and seized by the murky desire to see that face properly no matter what, Jeffrey slowly bent down and crouched.
The blood flowing from the woman’s body had formed a small puddle, staining the wooden floor red.
The stench of blood.
Unable to hide his nausea, Jeffrey covered his mouth. Even so, determined to see her face, he grabbed the hair covering it and lifted it.
At that moment, a white hand shot out, seized Jeffrey by the collar, and dragged him down.
“Aaagh……!”
So startled was he that Jeffrey let out a shrill scream and tumbled onto the floor.
Whether he did or not, the woman did not release the hand gripping his collar.
“Shut your mouth, Jeffrey.”
Whether he did or not, the woman threatened him, covering Jeffrey’s mouth with her palm.
At the same time, she stomped on his useless right wrist that had been holding the revolver.
Argh!
Making the warning meaningless, he screamed again, but this time the sound was buried beneath the woman’s blood-soaked palm.
The gun slipped feebly from his hand and rolled across the floor. The woman kicked it away, sending it far off.
It was the woman’s left arm that was bleeding. The blood that had flowed from her arm ran down to her fingers and dripped steadily; now it was smearing the area around Jeffrey’s lips in blood.
“My eardrum burst, so my ear hurts. Don’t scream. ……Understand?”
Despite having suddenly clamped his mouth shut, the voice that flowed out was gentle.
Until moments ago, he had been pressing a gun to her and dragging her around like livestock, intending to kill her.
The woman’s face was deathly pale. As she had lain collapsed, enduring the pain and trying to keep quiet, she had bitten her lips until blood that had not yet dried had pooled there.
But unlike her gentle words, the hard muzzle of a gun pressed against the front of Jeffrey’s chest.
“If you stay still, I won’t shoot. I promise. Just be quiet.”
Her tone remained gentle and calm.
Unlike her appearance, which was almost no different from a half-dead corpse, she was so composed that Jeffrey, who had been about to scream at the top of his lungs, seemed like the strange one.
The woman stared intently at Jeffrey with an unreadable face.
There was none of the anger and wailing he had expected. She only gazed at him quietly.
That sent a shuddering chill down his spine.
“Why are you doing what they tell you to do?”
The woman abruptly asked that.
Then she said,
“Your parents, I mean. Jeffrey.”
In the end, it was something he had seen and learned.
Just as his parents had survived by thoroughly erasing and denying the existence of his grandfather, the duke who had grown up watching that was seeking a way to survive by erasing his own child.
And as luck would have it, his child was a prodigal son whom everyone despised, so how convenient was that?
“……Tell me.”
To ensure Jeffrey could not even think of bolting, Sasha held him tightly with her uninjured hand.
At a glance, the touch seemed far removed from violence. But the tips of her nails were pressing into and digging into the flesh of Jeffrey’s neck.
Of course, neither of them paid any attention to that.
“Your parents couldn’t have only threatened you. ……What did they say? That even if you killed someone and went to prison, they’d take responsibility? That they’d get you out someday, even if they had to pour that damned money all over the problem?”
“……Let go of me.”
“If it came down to it, they could use insanity as an excuse to move you to a hospital, then quietly slip you out.”
That man Butler, you know.
I wondered if that man’s parents might use such a method, but they didn’t go that far.
His parents realized it too—that he wasn’t a child worth bearing that much for.
“But even so.”
The wind blew in, gently lifting the curtain of her hair that had fallen over her face.
For an instant, the face revealed was expressionless. More than expressionless, it was cold.
“You. Why are you trying to sacrifice yourself in something that has nothing to do with you in the first place?”
Jeffrey’s movements stopped. Jeffrey, who had been struggling to get even a little farther away from the drops of blood soaking his shirt, went still.
Jeffrey stared up at Sasha blankly.
“Sacrifice……?”
“Yes. You’re about to die a dog’s death after getting caught up in some unrelated adults’ fight. I’m asking why you’re doing something that doesn’t suit your original nature.”
It was effective.
Because Jeffrey, who had not even pretended to listen no matter what she said, had his face crumple as if he had been shaken.
Disgusting.
It seemed he truly thought he, too, was a victim.
But apart from that, Sasha had asked because she genuinely could not understand.
She had not lived long, but now that she had grown up, she had found that there were quite a few parents who treated their children worse than livestock.
On the other hand, there were also foolish sorts who covered up everything, even took the blame for crimes, solely because they were family.
To anyone’s eyes, Jeffrey did not fit the latter. The very traces of violence on his face proved that he had never agreed for such a reason.
But in a pleasant voice, Sasha spoke as if she were trying, at a glance, to share some sense of kinship with him.
“Do you know what will happen to you? You’ll be completely abandoned by them. You’ll become an orphan worse off than me, Jeffrey.”
“…….”
“Just as Butler’s parents abandoned that madman, those people will abandon you too, without exception.”
Her voice was kind and filled with pity, as though she were offering sincere advice. Even if, upon listening, each and every word was no different from a curse.
“Why should you be dragged into the fight of higher-ups that has nothing to do with you like this? Don’t you feel wronged? Why should you have to suffer when it isn’t even your fault? Don’t you feel that injustice?”
“…….”
“I feel wronged. I don’t want to wither and die because of a dogfight between people who have nothing to do with me.”
Then her true feelings slipped out.
But Jeffrey was no longer paying attention to such things. He seemed satisfied that Sasha, rather than taking revenge on him, was looking at him as if she pitied him and trying to coax him instead.
Jeffrey, too, knew to some extent. He expected that his parents, far from keeping their promise, would abandon him when the opportunity arose.
Had he not behaved the exact same way toward George Butler? Had he not sweet-talked that gloomy delusional patient, telling him that if the matter ever grew big, he would handle it—had he not made that hollow promise?
He had agreed solely to survive. Because his father had intended to kill him on the spot if he did not agree, he wanted to at least preserve his life, ……and so.
While clinging to his father’s trouser leg as the man looked down at him with a face devoid of any emotion, as if he were beating a disobedient beast.
He had knelt and begged to be spared.
“……Can you kill Father……?”
Jeffrey asked.
His eyes, which had been filled with terror, now gleamed damply for a different reason.
Sasha did not answer, and as if that alone were enough, Jeffrey let out a relieved, heh, of laughter.
No wonder. He had wondered why they were putting so much effort into making such a noisy affair out of killing this insignificant wench.
“You need my help, don’t you? That’s why you’re persuading me.”
Sasha released the hand that had been gripping Jeffrey’s collar. Now that she had fully raised herself up, her face was utterly expressionless.
There was no need to put in any more effort; Jeffrey had completely fallen for it.
As if she had touched something rotten, Sasha rubbed her palm roughly against her skirt and wiped it clean.
“Promise you’ll stay quietly tucked away and do nothing.”
Jeffrey could not answer.
Bang! A bullet shot from the front flew in and lodged itself in a nearby wooden barrel. Through the hole it made, tart and sweet wine streamed out.
Sasha grabbed Jeffrey’s arm and dragged him behind slightly safer cover.
She released him as though she had touched something utterly filthy, then adjusted the gun she was holding once more.
Now she was not looking at Jeffrey at all.
Jeffrey was, then as now, always the same: everything had to revolve around him. He did not know his place.
“……Can you promise you’ll leave that bastard and come to me?”
“…….”
“If not, then…….”
In the end, Sasha could not hold back and kicked Jeffrey.