Chapter 60

The carriage sped through the darkness and arrived in a quiet residential area.

As Aneta stepped out of the carriage, she looked around.

Every time she came here, she noticed the same thing: the houses were too far apart from each other. Even just by eye, the gap between them seemed to be at least twenty to thirty meters.

It made her think that even if someone died in one of these houses, the neighbors might not know.

And that wasn’t all. Since entering the residential area, Aneta hadn’t seen a single person passing by.

It wasn’t that late; it just got dark earlier because it was no longer summer.

‘Is it because there are few households here?’

When she had visited before, she thought the area was decent, but seeing it at night changed her opinion. Everything seemed wrong.

The only good thing was that there were streetlights scattered around. If it weren’t for those, she would have seriously suggested Chris move to a different place.

Aneta clicked her tongue and looked up. As she checked the house for any signs of trouble, she noticed something odd about the windows.

“All the lights are off?”

Aneta’s puzzled remark prompted Serce to also look up at the windows. Indeed, all the lights were turned off.

“That’s strange.”

It didn’t make sense that Chris would go to bed after sending a servant to fetch Aneta. Serce turned to Lily and asked,

“Baroness Deven isn’t away, is she?”

Aneta also looked at Lily, agreeing with Serce’s question. Under their demanding gazes, Lily fumbled with the keys she was pulling out of her pocket and accidentally dropped them.

Clang. The small piece of metal clattered on the ground before Lily quickly picked it up.

“…She should be inside. Nothing was different when I left the mansion.”Lily explained that Chris hadn’t turned on any lights while she stayed in her bedroom and that she had turned off the rest of the lights when she left.

Her hesitant speech and shifting eyes made her seem untrustworthy.

Despite her doubts, Aneta nodded. She glanced at Serce, who was watching Lily unlock the door with a peculiar expression.

When Lily inserted the key into the lock and turned it, the front door opened without a sound.

Aneta followed Lily inside, still feeling uneasy.

‘Why would she turn off all the lights before leaving?’

Aneta felt that Lily’s explanation was flimsy. It seemed odd to turn off every light when expecting a guest.

‘And her reaction to Serce’s question was strange too.’

Aneta knew that Vernon wouldn’t leave an unreliable person by Chris’s side, but her sharp sense of caution didn’t fade easily.

There was a reason why the proverb “you can’t know a person’s heart” existed.

In many cases of assassinated nobility or royalty, the perpetrator or accomplice was often a trusted butler or personal servant. Trust and loyalty were not easily measured.

More than anything, Aneta’s intuition told her that this needed to be checked.

If Lily could be trusted, that would be ideal, but if not, Aneta couldn’t let Chris stay with someone harboring ill intentions.

Moreover, this was Chris’s house. This issue was directly related to Chris’s safety.

If Lily indeed harbored ill intentions, Chris could be in danger or might have already been harmed.

The bad premonition flashed through her mind, causing her heart to pound heavily in her chest.

“Chris’s bedroom is this way.”

As soon as Lily stepped inside, she began leading them to Chris’s bedroom. Serce followed, subtly positioning Aneta behind him.

The interior remained shrouded in darkness.

‘Did she forget to turn on the lights, or did she do it on purpose? ’

As Aneta pondered this, she fervently hoped her fears were unfounded.

But her intuition was often correct.

This time was no exception.

While passing through the living room, Aneta came to an abrupt halt. She had spotted something familiar on the floor.

‘That’s definitely…’

—

Aneta approached the object lying beside the leg of the sofa. The faint moonlight filtering through the window illuminated its shape more clearly.

As she suspected, it was indeed the self-defense bead she had given Chris when they first met.

‘Why is this on the floor?’

It was an item that should never be needed under normal circumstances, yet here it was, carelessly dropped on the floor. The cap, designed to prevent accidental activation, was also missing.

The implication was obvious.

‘…Surely, it just fell off.’

To shake off the growing unease, Aneta looked around for the cap. It wasn’t anywhere in plain sight.

There was only one place left to check. With no other choice, Aneta lowered herself to the floor. She did this so quickly that no one could stop her.

She braced herself with her arms and peered into the gap between the sofa and the floor.

What she expected to be a space revealed a pair of eyes staring back at her.

Aneta’s mouth opened in silent shock. Her hope that nothing was wrong was shattered by the piercing gaze.

An alarm went off in her head.

Frozen with fear, Aneta could only stare at the man hiding under the sofa. She felt the blood drain from her face.

Her body, stiff as a statue, refused to obey her commands. She tried to speak, but no words came out.

At that moment, the man, having been discovered, rose with a fierce determination.

Aneta snapped back to reality. Her survival instincts kicked in, bringing her body back to life.

As she scrambled to her feet, a sharp pain shot through her wrist, but that wasn’t important now.

Quickly stepping back, Aneta glanced at Lily. Unlike Serce, who was startled by the sudden appearance of the man, Lily’s expression was as calm as if she had known all along.

‘So, they were in on it together from the start.’

While Aneta confirmed her suspicions, the man seized the opportunity and reached out to grab her. Serce shouted her name as he saw this.

“Aneta!”

Fortunately, Aneta managed to dodge the grasping hand by dropping to the floor. But the real danger came next. The man drew a dagger, clearly intending to harm only her.

But Aneta wasn’t going down without a fight.

As the man swung the dagger down to stab her, Aneta rolled to the side and pressed the button on the self-defense bead in her hand, throwing it at him.

He sneered and tried to deflect the bead with his dagger, a foolish choice.

A powerful electric current surged through the dagger, conducting into him.

“Aargh!”

The man let out a final scream as he dropped the dagger. Struggling with the intense pain that made it feel like his arm might fall off, he soon convulsed and collapsed.

Aneta breathed a sigh of relief, looking at the unconscious man. It was fortunate that the dagger he wielded had a metal hilt.“Damn it.”

Serce, who had been watching the situation unfold, cursed under his breath, frustrated that he couldn’t protect her once again.

But he couldn’t afford to wallow in self-reproach. He quickly moved to subdue Lily, who was an accomplice to the man who attacked Aneta.

Fortunately, Lily had no physical abilities, and subduing her was not difficult. Serce twisted her arms behind her back and pinned her against the wall next to the bedroom door.

“Aneta, are you hurt? ”

“No, but it looks like we’ve fallen into a trap.”

Aneta’s face was grim as she responded to his worried tone. She had been half-expecting trouble, but experiencing it made her entire body tense up.

However, this wasn’t the end. Chris was still nowhere to be seen.

“What’s the purpose of all this? And where is Chris? ”

Aneta glared at Lily with eyes that burned like blue flames. Despite this, Lily averted her gaze with an expression of indifference, giving no answers.

It was then that the closed bedroom door opened. The lights, which had been off, suddenly switched on, causing a blinding flash in their vision, accustomed to the dark.

Aneta instinctively closed her eyes and then quickly opened them, realizing her mistake. Another man emerged from the bedroom, swinging a dagger at Serce, who had been restraining Lily.

Serce narrowly avoided the attack but had to let go of Lily.

Freed, Lily quickly hid behind the man.

Instead of confronting the man, Serce chose to retreat.

But that wasn’t the end. Aneta bit her lip as more men emerged from the bedroom.

The leader, seeing his unconscious comrade, frowned and addressed Aneta.

“Well, well. I thought you were a pampered noble, but it seems you’re no pushover, are you, Your Ladyship?”

These men, unlike the assassins she had seen at the banquet, were not nimble but heavy-footed. It was obvious from their movements that they prioritized brute strength over finesse.

“Are they mercenaries?”

Serce voiced the same suspicion, his tone filled with certainty. The leader picked up the self-defense bead from the floor and smiled deceitfully.

“Yes, we are mercenaries. Unlike you noble lords, we do anything for money. So, we need you to come with us. There’s someone very eager to meet you.”

“What if I refuse? ”

“I don’t know, you’re asking for the obvious. We’ll have to use force, if necessary.”

Randolph, the leader, threatened with a smirk, and his subordinates tightened their grips on their weapons. The need for force had been a given from the start.

Aneta quickly thought of a way to turn the situation around. The only leverage she had was money.

“How much are you being paid to hand us over?”

Randolph studied her expression for a moment, trying to gauge her intentions.

Ignoring this, Aneta stared back at him, silently urging him to answer.