In an instant, the carriage fell silent, as though it had been doused in ice water. Thankfully, the back and front seats were separated by a thin pane of glass. Otherwise, the chauffeur sitting in the front would have seen just how badly their marriage had broken down.

Even without a partition, though, Cordelia wouldn’t have been able to hold back any longer.

‘Why do you keep hurting me like this? If you were going to wound me this deeply, then why did you ever pretend to love me in the first place?’
‘Even if you’d just asked me to marry you because I was useful, I still wouldn’t have been able to reject your touch back then. So why do you insist on making me feel this wretched…?’

To make matters worse, she had stopped taking her sedatives, and her head swirled while her stomach churned painfully. She leaned her forehead against the cold window and focused on the scenery rushing by.

“To be deceived like this—if that’s the alternative, I’d rather be with a gentleman like him. Even if he doesn’t have a fortune like the Duquesne family.”

“Ah…”

One of Lucas’s brows twitched with irritation. The corner of his mouth also curled inward in a restrained sneer. Anyone close to him would have seen this as a danger sign and backed off at once—but unfortunately, Cordelia missed it.

Lucas reached toward the partition between the seats and slid it aside. The confident smile that had always hung on his face vanished, replaced by a cold blankness. And from every angle of his face, a beast-like savagery began to surface.

“Henrick. On the way back, head to Hell’s Realm.”

“Yes, sir.”

At that moment, Cordelia, who had been resting her eyes from the dizziness, flinched hard. There was no way she wouldn’t know that place—she had lived in this city for a year now.

This dazzling metropolis, full of skyscrapers, the latest technologies, golden ornaments glittering in the glass windows of shopping districts. Some called it a heaven of honey and opportunity—but in the shadows of heaven, hell festered.

And now, the carriage had entered the gates of that hell.

Moments earlier, there had been cheerful, lemon-tinted roads and neat rows of trees. Now, in their place, there was cracked, uneven pavement covered in puddles, making it seem as if they had crossed into another world.

The streets were lined with ramshackle buildings that seemed ready to collapse at any moment. Above them, the sky was covered in tangled washing lines.

She’d heard that more than eight people lived in rooms that small. When she saw the children trudging off to their afternoon shifts in the factory, she was consumed by shame and wanted to melt into the back seat of the carriage.

It felt as though a voice were whispering, How dare you speak of suffering, dressed like that?

The pain she’d felt—claiming betrayal and sorrow over her husband’s deception—now seemed like nothing.

The ring on her left hand, large and heavy, suddenly felt unbearably burdensome.

“Lucas, please, take a different route—ah!”

But just then, the driver—of all possible roads—chose one filled with puddles.

Splash!

The black tires of the carriage cut through without mercy, kicking up a wave of dirty water.

The people waiting outside the job placement office were drenched in an instant, left looking like soaked, shivering strays.

Cordelia wasn’t the one who had been splashed, but the sight hit her like a bucket of ice water. She quickly covered her mouth.

“Ah…!”

Why was she so shaken? She hadn’t directed the driver to come this way. But when her eyes met those of a drenched and stunned teenage girl, she suddenly understood why this moment hurt so deeply.

‘It’s because of Luke.’

A precious—long forgotten because of the damage to her memory. He, too, had once endured the same kind of suffering. And now, seeing someone in such a similar state… it pierced straight through her heart.

“Lucas, please, take a different route—”

At that moment, Lucas grabbed her chin as she tried to turn her head away.

“Look straight, Cordelia.”

“Hngh…!”

“That’s what you’d be—if you hadn’t married me.”

Lucas stared into her violet eyes as he delivered the blow.

‘Don’t you dare look away.’
‘From the life I fought desperately to escape—don’t you turn your eyes from it.’
‘You were saved from that hell. You should’ve accepted your place, resigned yourself to what your life became. I went through that kind of hell, thinking of you.’

“I’d like to think you’d be a little more grateful. But I suppose that’s too much to ask from someone of such noble character.”

“Are you insane?”

Cordelia snapped, slapping his hand away angrily.

Yes, she feared poverty. She had once been on top of the world, but now she was clinging on by her fingernails at the edge of a cliff leading straight into hell.

And every time, she had prayed: prayed that she wouldn’t fall further; prayed that her suffering would end; prayed that things couldn’t get any worse.

But comparing her pain to someone else’s misfortune and trying to console herself with “At least I’m still better off”—that was the height of cowardice.

“I don’t look down on them! I know exactly what this place is like. And yet… how could you?”

“Thank you for the fine display of hypocrisy, from the woman who married me just to avoid ending up like that.”

“Haa…!”

Cordelia jerked her head away, not wanting him to see her eyes turning red.

‘How could I not have seen how cruel he truly is?’

Only now did she feel that she was finally seeing the real Lucas. He had no sense of morality; he mocked the weak, just like this.

Cordelia held back the urge to cry and pressed a hand to her forehead.

“…I’m disappointed in you.”

“How unexpected.”

Lucas replied curtly, then nodded slightly towards the rear-view mirror to signal to the driver that they should return to the original route.

Soon, the car reversed and headed back towards Millionaire Row. They returned to a world of brilliance and luxury, but the journey back to the estate was silent.

***

After suffering at Lucas’s hands and falling asleep, Cordelia would, without fail, dream of Luke.

It felt like her mind was trying to soothe her wounds with memories, applying balm to what ached in reality.

And in those dreams, she returned to when she was eighteen—and willingly lost herself in the past.

In this dream, she was leaning both elbows against a window sill, chin resting in her hands, wearing a thoroughly displeased expression.

The source of her irritation was none other than Luke. More precisely, it was the overflowing basket of fruit and honey cakes he had brought back—gifts that stirred a quiet storm of frustration within her.

“Did you get all that from your girlfriends?”

“Girlfriends? I don’t have any. People just give them to me because they want to.”

“Oh, please. You know full well it’s because they’re all in love with you.”

Though the boy’s face was not visible, Cordelia remembered—even unconsciously—that he had been strikingly handsome. She shot him a glare filled with annoyance.

“At this rate, you’ll end up dating every girl in the village. And one day, you’ll be stabbed in the back—literally—by all the ones you made cry. You’ll look like a human pincushion. And you’ll deserve every bit of it.”

“Wow! Our young lady never says anything that isn’t both eloquent and blunt.”

“You little brat…”

Despite herself, Cordelia bit her lower lip at his cheeky reply. She wasn’t actually angry; his bold, teasing tone always made her laugh.

In the end, however, Cordelia reluctantly revealed her true feelings. It wasn’t jealousy; it was genuine concern.

“What will you do if one day this all comes back to hurt you?”

“Huh?”

“Treating people’s feelings so carelessly… it’s not right, Luke. Even if they all adore you now, what if one of them holds a grudge later on?”

Her dearest friend seemed to fear nothing. She was the complete opposite, having grown up sheltered, rigid and overly proper within the confines of the estate. Luke, on the other hand, was wild and free.

That was why Cordelia had fallen in love with him.

But, at the same time, she had a quiet dread that he might one day stray down a dangerous path. Whether he sensed her worry or not, Luke simply gave a cheeky shrug.

“Hmm… I’m not really afraid of anything.”

“Luke—”

“As long as you’re the one beside me, I don’t care about anything else.”

He set the basket down on the ground and turned fully to face her.

In her head, Cordelia had always called him a boy, but the word ‘young man’ suited him far more now. He was tall, with defined muscles visible even beneath his white uniform shirt and long legs clad in black trousers.

She could understand why the village girls looked at him like starving cats.

But Luke looked only at her and whispered:

“The other girls mean nothing to me. No one else means anything at all. As long as I have you, that’s all I need.”

“…”

“That’s the truth. Until I die. Forever.”