Ten years ago, Leticia remembered Luka as a young man who still had a youthful appearance.

He would have been about eighteen or nineteen at that time.

Being an orphan without parents to tell him his age, the young man, who didn’t know his real ag,e was a handsome actor with black hair and striking, clear green eyes.

He was always mature, but the dimple that appeared whenever he played pranks on Leticia suggested he wasn’t even twenty yet.

So when a man who looked like an adult to anyone turned her around, Leticia first felt a sense of unfamiliarity.

“…Leti?”

Features that had grown more defined over the past ten years, and a burn scar on the left cheek.

It was Luka, now unfamiliar.

But his green eyes, widening at the sight of Leticia, remained the same.

“Is it really you? Are you really here?”

Luka, gripping both of Leticia’s shoulders, opened his eyes wide in disbelief.

Even in the dark room, she could tell. The joy and longing in his eyes.

“I thought it was Nathan’s scheme, but it’s really you… How, from the Grand Duchy all the way here?”

Though unable to believe that Leticia was standing before him, Luka was delighted by her presence.

Like reuniting with family thought to have gone to a faraway place, never to be seen again.

Family.

Yes. Luka had also been part of her old family. Not just that man sitting in the armchair.

“Did you miss me?”

To the impulsively uttered words, Luka answered without hesitation.

“Always.”

When she left for Basilinte ten years ago, Leticia had imagined such a reunion even while contemplating death.

And now that the imagination had become reality, she felt…

“It’s nice to see family reunited after so long. Luka.”

The atmosphere that had softened tensed up again at the man’s words.

Luka’s expression froze coldly.

Then, without even responding to the man’s words, he grabbed Leticia’s arm and tried to leave the room.

“Where are you going? Leticia, don’t you have things to hear from me?”

Finally, Luka couldn’t hold back and said.

“If it’s about who our real enemy is, I already know, Leti. So there’s no need to exchange words with that person.”

“Luka. Do you think that the child who came all this way doesn’t know who the real enemy is and came to me for that? You didn’t come to me because you didn’t know either.”

“….”

“She probably wants to hear it directly from my mouth, the one who betrayed her. Wasn’t it the same for you?”

Leticia, being led outside by Luka, stopped in her tracks.

The man was right. From the fact that he was an imperial spy, it was already as good as decided who the culprit was.

But Leticia thought she needed to hear the answer from that man’s own mouth.

Just as Luka had done in the past.

“Come closer, Leti. I’ll give you the answer you’ve been wanting.”

Eventually, Leticia approached the man.

Luka couldn’t stop her. He just stood behind Leticia, wary of the man.

“Over here.”

As she lowered her head at the man’s gesture, he whispered in her ear the answer she had wanted.

“Yes. His Majesty the Emperor gave me the order. He said he needed someone with purple eyes but no connections. So I set fire to the troupe.”

And before the man finished speaking, his cane snapped.

The jagged, broken end of the cane stabbed at Leticia’s stomach.

As water instantly gathered over Leticia’s stomach to block the cane’s tip, Luka pulled her shoulder backward.

With Luka’s pull, Leticia fell to the floor with a thud. In her view appeared Luka, holding a dagger to the man’s throat.

“Please. Luka. My beloved son.”

With his collar grabbed, the man couldn’t speak after that, seemingly choking.

But Leticia could read the man’s moving lips well enough.

The plea that said, ‘Just kill me now.’

The moment she read that plea, Leticia immediately said.

“Don’t. Brother.”

“But—”

“Don’t do what he wants. Especially not because of me.”

It was just the broken tip of a cane. And it was thrust by the hand of a sickly patient at that.

The man’s action wasn’t really an attack on Leticia but a provocation to get himself killed.

That action alone was enough to know. That living was h*ll for this man.

And Leticia didn’t want to grant him the mercy of ending that h*ll.

“You don’t want to kill him, Brother. You want him to suffer more.”

At those words, Luka muttered some curse under his breath, then threw the man, whose collar he had been gripping, to the floor.

Leticia, still sitting on the floor, looked down at the man lying face down and declared.

“I won’t kill you. You’re not worth it.”

And this will be more miserable for you.

“Ah, no…”

Ignoring the man, Leticia looked up at Luka and whispered.

“Let’s go, Brother.”

Luka strode over, picked up the seated Leticia, and left the room, leaving behind the man who had once been their father.

Leticia wrapped her arms around Luka’s neck and buried her head in his shoulder. Like when she was a child, ten years ago.

“You did well, Leticia.”

Luka whispered.

Only then did Leticia raise her head.

Instead of the dark room, she could see the sunlit corridor of the mansion.

Neither Luka nor Leticia would ever go back to that dark room.

They would probably never see that man in the room again, either.

She felt relieved, yet empty.

Luka, who had already cut ties with that man before Leticia, seemed to understand that feeling and stroked her head as he said.

“Let’s go to where I live now. We have a lot to talk about…”

“Um, excuse me, young master’s brother. Could you please put our young master down?”

Aina, who had been quietly following, suddenly spoke up as they were about to exit the mansion.

At that unexpected interruption, Luka frowned and asked Leticia.

“By the way, who is that woman you brought?”

“Ah, my maid… and colleague? She arranged this meeting…”

As she answered somewhat dazedly, Luka’s eyes sharply scrutinized Aina.

Despite this, Aina was more concerned with nervously looking around at their surroundings than with Luka’s piercing gaze.

“You there. What’s your relationship with Nathan? Originally, someone working for Nathan should have come to this place—”

At that moment, something struck Luka’s leg forcefully.

“Ugh!”

Chamuka, who had snatched Leticia from Luka’s grasp and picked her up, kicked Luka’s already staggering leg, knocking him to the ground.

Leticia froze with wide eyes at the sudden turn of events.

Aina, who had somehow moved three steps behind them, quietly clicked her tongue as if she had expected this.

But Chamuka, who couldn’t care less about what others thought, examined Leticia up and down and asked.

“Are you hurt anywhere? Why were you like that?”

Ah, right. Chamuka was following us.

“N-no. I’m not hurt.”

Leticia shook her head while glancing at the fallen Luka. That sounded like a hard hit. Is he okay?

“Then was he harassing you?”

“No! That’s not it, he’s my bro…”

If I say brother, would that be okay? Doesn’t Chamuka still not know my gender? Though he probably wouldn’t care even if he knew?

With her mind tangled in complexity, Leticia’s words trailed off until she fell completely silent.

As Leticia just moved her lips without speaking, Luka, sprawled on the floor, managed to raise his head and asked.

“Leti. Who is that man…?”

“And what are you, calling Leti so familiarly?”

Who should I answer first?

“And who are you to be holding Leti?”

Just as Leticia was choosing her words to explain each to the other, Chamuka proudly declared.

“I am this child’s family.”

Chamuka remembered Leticia’s words that they were family.

In fact, he remembered every single meaningless murmur Leticia had ever uttered, but that statement was more special.

Because it was the reason Leticia had rejected him without hope.

“….”

“….”

After the silence, Luka asked.

“Leti. Don’t tell me you’re already married?”

To someone like that?