7

And she had forgotten her own family name on top of that?

“The Cretus family has weakened lately, but they’re a founding noble house. The man who inherited it had no head for business whatsoever, got the position purely by being born a son, and has been steadily running it into the ground, but it’s still a name people recognize.”

“Yes.”

He had spoken harshly about her father, but her expression didn’t change. She listened the way someone listens to a story about complete strangers. Detached, indifferent.

That amused him, so Zayed continued.

“The reason they sold you off was money. Your mother left behind a considerable fortune. The sole heir is Yulia Cretus, and no one else.”

“Yes.”

“But there’s a condition. If you die, the assets are seized by the imperial household.”

“……Yes.”

Yul blinked. Beneath those long lashes, her eyes held a color that stirred something in him. A shade that seemed like it could gently wrap itself around the fire he carried inside.

Her personality seemed anything but gentle, but well.

Their bodies might be a good match.

“Beyond that, your mother put several conditions in place to protect you. She seems to have wanted to prevent the inheritance meant for you from falling into someone else’s hands.”

“She didn’t manage it.”

“No. She didn’t anticipate them throwing you into a psychiatric hospital.”

It was a bit unfair to blame her for not foreseeing that.

A husband and wife were strange creatures. They could think the worst of each other endlessly, and yet at some point always arrived at ‘but surely they wouldn’t go that far. Surely they’d still act like a human being.’ The former mistress of the Cretus family had fallen into that same emotional trap. She had taken various precautions, but gaps remained.

The current master of Cretus was too much of a fool to find those gaps, but the new wife who had moved in was another matter.

“Let’s be precise about the names. Your biological father, Phaidon Cretus. The second wife, Catalena Cretus. Her son, Jeremy Cretus. Is it those three?”

“No. Every last person who calls themselves Cretus and struts around because of it.”

“So you want to wipe out the whole lot, distant relatives included.”

“That’s the minimum before I’ll feel any satisfaction.”

The woman said it with a perfectly serene face. He found it entirely to his taste.

Zayed was the kind of man who, once he drew the blade of revenge, would crush not just the thick roots but grind every last tendril underfoot. What place did justification or morality have in personal vengeance anyway? Satisfaction was justice.

Deciding that on his own terms, he toyed with the woman’s black hair.

“Moving on, the Vergeus family. They’re under the devoted protection of the current Empress. In some ways, they’re trickier to deal with than the Cretus family.”

“Why is she protecting them?”

“The Empress is completely unhinged. She’s obsessed with astrology, and she’ll leap out of bed in the middle of the night if Morgon Vergeus says something.”

The Empire of Dahran was clearly on a path of decline.

The current Emperor, Hercales Dahran, was a strong ruler, but a poor husband. His appetite for women was insatiable, and he was still chasing after tonics and aphrodisiacs to this day. His wife could hardly be expected to be content.

Msimone Dahran had been married off young in a political match, and after enduring her philandering husband again and again and again, she had finally buried herself in an abnormal religion.

“The Vergeus family was originally so obscure they could barely hold the last seat in the noble assembly. But now they stand openly at the Empress’s side. That’s been the case for about four years. At this point, you could call the imperial palace Vergeus territory.”

“……So they threw me into a psychiatric ward, seized the inheritance my mother left me, and used it as a stepping stone to power.”

“Sharp. To deal with someone like Morgon, you’ll need the power of the imperial family. Either the Emperor himself or another member of the imperial household of comparable standing.”

Yul was quiet for a while.

Zayed waited, playing with her hair.

Waiting wasn’t something he was accustomed to, but this time it didn’t bother him. He knew well enough that the deepest hatred was never something easily spoken aloud.

Simple dislike, resentment, grievance, those could be shaken off with a single glass of wine.

But hatred that had hardened like a gallstone, black and rotting through every day lived on nothing but that hatred, clung to the chest like something sticky. How could anyone spit that out with ease.

“So…… what you’re saying is, they’re out of your reach.”

“……”

“What to do. If you beg me nicely, I could fabricate charges and have them executed.”

Zayed murmured in a coaxing tone.

But if she actually asked him to kill them for her, he would be deeply disappointed.

Revenge was only satisfying when done by your own hand.

Zayed had no intention of leaving the woman he was going to share a bed with as nothing. He would use deception and manipulation to lift her to a certain position, and after that, the rest was hers to do.

Would she ask him for help, or would she tell him to stay out of it and handle it herself?

“No. I’ll do it. From start to finish, I do it.”

“I’m a man who listens to his wife, so I suppose I have no choice.”

Well, the answer had always been obvious.

She was the kind of woman who had to pour at least one oil canister with her own hands when burning down a hospital. Hearing the answer he wanted, he shrugged with satisfaction. Yul muttered a quiet curse at him.

“You’re insufferable.”

“I know. You love me anyway, don’t you?”

What could be more beautiful than a lie like ‘I love you.’

Still smiling lazily, Zayed pressed a brief kiss to his short-term contract wife’s forehead. He felt her muscles lock up immediately, and found it deeply entertaining.

He really was more interested in a woman who radiated revulsion with her whole body than in one who came running to him eagerly. A peculiar taste, admittedly.

When they ran, he wanted to hunt. When they refused, he wanted to coax and tempt them until they came to him on their own. And then, if they clung to him…… well. His interest would drop off sharply at that point.

A bad habit, one might say, but he owned it without shame.

What was he supposed to do about being made this way?

“Oh, come to think of it…… tell me whatever you remember, sweetheart. What was done to you in there. Every last detail.”

The first sentence and the last contradicted each other. Could ‘whatever you remember’ and ‘every last detail’ really go together?

Yul tilted her head, then parted her dry, cracked lips.

“I don’t know. My head hurts. Nothing is clear except that I was locked up.”

“Then why were you checking the soup bowl just now?”

“You have to be careful when there’s a bowl. They use bowls when they want to hide something inside.”

“So how did you normally eat?”

“They threw food on the floor. I bit through a few of their ankles hard enough that they looked ready to sever, and after that they…… hm, stopped doing it.”

Yul’s eyes blinked.

She had clearly slept for a long time, but now that her stomach was properly full with real food, drowsiness was washing over her again.

Rubbing her eyes, she burrowed into the man’s chest with small, wriggling movements. She even settled herself into a comfortable position.

“She doesn’t even see me as a man.”

“Mm……”

“You should brush your teeth before sleeping.”

“Okay……”

Zayed let out a faint laugh and studied the woman’s round forehead and straight brows through half-lidded eyes.

She was so pale she looked like she could collapse at any moment.

When she had passed out, he had called a doctor. The doctor had examined her and delivered the verdict: malnutrition, along with clear signs of extreme *buse. She had likely been subjected to repeated violence over a long period of time. Her organs were probably not in good shape either, so she would need to be fed carefully, on an invalid’s diet.

“Someone like me, a country doctor, is not sufficient. You should find a renowned physician in the capital and have her examined properly, s-sir.”

After pressing a generous sum into the doctor’s hands to buy his silence, Zayed had thought it over.

Her condition was far too poor to drag her all the way south as she was. So he had stopped in a suitable city and taken a hotel room.

The provincial hotel, acceptable but not up to his standards, naturally had weak security for its guests.

‘By now, my esteemed grandfather has probably heard that I have a woman with me.’

How was he supposed to turn this into a fated love story?

‘For now, Yulia Vergeus died in that psychiatric hospital along with the rest.’

That identity could not be brought out again. It had to be a completely fabricated new one.

‘I’ve already wiped any trace of my visit to Moshre Psychiatric Hospital.’

He had moved carefully enough that even his grandfather wouldn’t be able to find it, so that wasn’t a concern.

His ‘official’ trail began right here, at this hotel.