Pregnancy for a Successor - Chapter 44

“You, how did you…”

Andro, who had opened his mouth unthinkingly, covered it again.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know?”

“……”

“Everyone in the Hilbert family works only for Hilbert. The same goes for the lawyers. They wouldn’t follow a fake.”

“Wh-What.”

“How does it feel to see everything slipping away from your hands when you thought it was all yours?”

Eugen’s voice was extremely calm and peaceful.

“You’ve impregnated countless maids, haven’t you? When the time came, you forced them to abort and kicked them out of the mansion. You silenced them with pocket change. Sometimes you even threatened their families.”

“Wh-What evidence do you have for such…”

“There’s plenty of evidence and witnesses. Mouths closed with money can be opened with money again.”

“……”

Andro’s complexion turned even paler at Eugen’s calm response.

“Or I could just fabricate it.”

At these chilling words, Andro began to thrash about wildly.

“Get out of here. If you don’t…”

“If I don’t?”

“You bastard.”

“Will you beat me with a belt like when I was young?”

“Y-You…”

A smile appeared on his lips as he looked at his stepfather, who was at a loss for words. Seemingly annoyed by this, Andro began to raise his voice even more.

“You’ve always deserved a beating, then and now. You made one hit turn into ten, twenty. It’s all because of those eyes. How dare a young brat look at me like that.”

Andro, overcome with both drunkenness and anger, began to gesture wildly as though he was extremely provoked.

“Today, I will have my heir. I will have a child born who will inherit this mansion, and furthermore, all of Hilbert’s wealth and glory. So, you…”

Andro, grabbing a fruit knife, lunged at Eugen. Eugen cleanly avoided the attack and swiftly restrained Andro’s arms from behind.

“Let, let go… Ugh.”

Andro’s eyes widened at the sharp sensation of metal piercing his neck.

“……”

Eugen pressed the plunger of the syringe, injecting the drug into his stepfather’s neck until it was completely empty. The entire process was carried out in an instant with elegant and swift movements.

It was when Andro, who had suddenly been injected with the drug, glared at Eugen.

“You, you.”

Two ice-blue eyes, like well-honed blades, were directed at him. Andro let out a choked breath as he faced those emotionless, cold eyes.

“D-Die… What have you done to me…”

He flailed his arms as if to strangle Eugen. His arms merely made a whooshing sound as they cut through the air, not managing to grasp Eugen’s neck as he had intended.

The focus disappeared from Andro’s eyes as he continued to make meaningless gestures in the air. A moment later, Andro’s body fell backward.

Eugen quietly looked down at his stepfather, who had fallen spread-eagled on the bed. It was a gaze no different from one looking at a beast he had just slaughtered.

Eugen straightened out his stepfather’s corpse on the bed and covered it with a sheet.

A moment later, he sensed someone entering. He hid his body in the space right behind the bed and silently waited for the owner of the footsteps.

“Duke?”

The bride’s voice, cautiously calling for the groom, strangely wrapped around his ears.

“……”

He suddenly became curious about the woman with that voice. As he peeked out slightly, he could only see the back of the woman’s head.

Watching the woman sitting in one place throughout the dawn, Eugen felt a bit sorry for her. He even thought about giving her appropriate compensation and sending her away. But the scene he witnessed shortly after was quite shocking.

The woman broke a glass vase and used it to prove her virginity, then immediately screamed to call people. He barely managed to suppress his laughter as he watched it all.

When he entered the funeral hall late, pretending to have just returned from abroad, he first sought out the back of the head of the pitiful widow. He found himself unconsciously following the small woman sitting pitifully amidst the busy gossipers.

The woman hiding herself in a pitch-black veil.

“I am Celia von Hilbert.”

The woman in the black veil introduced herself with a trembling voice. Celia von Hilbert. A smile unknowingly spread across his lips as he repeated the woman’s name in his mind.

“Then we share the same surname.”

He was willing to bestow that name upon her if she desired.

What should I do with this woman?

Eugen’s blue eyes scanned the woman entirely wrapped in the black veil. It seemed the woman was trying to use that veil as a shield to protect herself.

Not knowing that it only made him want to tear it apart.

I want to possess her.

Until now, he had only tried to reclaim what his stepfather had taken from him. But now, for the first time, he thought about taking something that belonged to his stepfather.

***

“Was it Anne? The maid that my stepfather recently touched.”

The cigar smoke Eugen puffed filled the study.

“Yes, it is.”

“Have that maid attend to Celia.”

“……”

Mrs. Letten looked at him with wide eyes, surprised.

“Why do you look like that?”

“She’s a maid that Andro touched. She’s been very jealous since before the madam arrived at this mansion.”

“I see.”

He put out his cigar as if it were nothing.

“It seems she’s been secretly trying on Violetta’s dresses and jewelry since you gave her the keys to manage the locked rooms.”

“Leave her be, and let her continue managing the keys.”

Mrs. Letten’s expression became even more puzzled at his response.

“I’ll leave it as you say for now, but… I’m worried she might harm Celia.”

“Even better.”

“…Pardon?”

Eugen smiled as he looked at Mrs. Letten.

It wasn’t long before news came that Celia had gone to the masquerade ball.

“The Duchess went to the masquerade ball with Anne today.”

He stopped the pen he had been diligently playing with at the butler’s calm report.

Fearless.

A cruel smile was drawn on Eugen’s lips. It seemed the Duchess of Hilbert truly didn’t know what was frightening.

The man’s lips twisted once again as he saw her clumsily pushing her way into the crowd of people wearing a mask.

Celia ultimately failed to seduce anyone or boldly jump into someone’s bedroom. The problem was that such an appearance looked like a very appetizing prey to someone.

“Here.”

Eugen gestured to a waitress wandering nearby. Celia, looking around with a careless face, drank the water offered by the waitress without a second thought. Eugen clicked his tongue at the sight. And then, like a pack of jackals that had caught a scent, men began to gather around Celia.

“Oh my, you seem dizzy.”

“Shall we help you?”

Masked men surrounded her as she staggered at one side of the ballroom.

“I’m… fine.”

“You seem to have drunk too much. Why don’t you rest for a while?”

Eugen threw the cigar he had been smoking at one of the group. In such a crowded place, it didn’t matter at all who started the fire. He turned his back on the noisy crowd and followed Celia.

“Huff, huff…”

The breathing echoing in the corridor was like that of a beast being chased by a hunter. Even though he was walking leisurely, he had no trouble following her footsteps.

She seemed unaware that the place she was walking now was full of secret spaces for spending intimate nights. He finally approached Celia, who seemed to have run out of strength and was leaning against the wall.

Creak.

Celia let out a startled breath as the wall turned and pushed her inside. As he swallowed her breath, all the disgusting smell of the ballroom vanished. In its place was a soft and seductive scent.

Once touched, it was impossible to let go, unless one hadn’t touched at all from the beginning.

So, I must have her.

The woman, cornered to the bed, pitifully shed tears.

“Why are you crying?”

After coming here on your own feet.

“Because you don’t want to?”

Eugen stared at her face, thoroughly wet with tears. Her feverish expression was hazy, as if the effects of the drug slipped into the drink she had unknowingly consumed had spread throughout her body.