His adoptive father, whom he thought was asleep, muttered with one arm covering his eyes,

“She even ruined the drawings she had drawn….”

Dominic’s eyebrows twitched at this story he was hearing for the first time. Of course, disorganized information often came to him this way, so the situation itself wasn’t new. Drunk Herman would often spill words from within like tears.

“All of them?”

At his question, Herman’s voice continued slowly,

“Yes. Since her father kept embracing those things all the time, they must have seemed like bad things in her eyes.”

“……”

“It was probably for her father’s sake…… So that he would break free from the past and live like a human being.”

That’s unlikely. His adoptive father sometimes had a tendency to see the world unrealistically beautifully.

‘Or perhaps his judgment is clouded again because of that woman.’

Dominic guessed that Emily had done such actions for herself, not for Walter.

As an outsider, he couldn’t measure the size of her deficiency. Moreover, he had no right to criticize her bad behavior, and he didn’t particularly want to interfere in such matters.

……Normally, that would certainly have been the case, but today, setting aside all those reasons, he felt quite irritated.

Because he remembered the young girl who looked back at him with a gloomy face as she was seemingly dragged away from the mansion.

‘……She was truly a troublesome woman.’

As he unconsciously furrowed his brow in displeasure, his adoptive father’s voice, like a sigh, reached him,

“……Even so, it wasn’t something that could be easily forgiven.”

……That was also one of the things he hadn’t told May. The real reason why Walter and Emily had become irreversibly distant.

While Walter Prieto certainly wasn’t a good parent, it was clearly Emily who worsened the father-daughter relationship. Not only that, but she also frequently committed similar malicious acts to gain her father’s attention, he had said.

That behavior from Emily might have been similar to the young Walter who had reported the orphanage children and obtained medicine money for Chloe. In the sense that they would do bad things without hesitation for what they wanted.

‘That’s why it would have been harder to forgive. It would have reminded him of his own mistakes.’

Dominic put out the cigarette he had been smoking and recalled May’s clear face. Her gloomy face with drooping eyebrows.

She had worn the same expression when she heard that her grandfather and mother had a bad relationship on the day she received the will. Easily sympathizing with others’ pasts, easily saddened, feeling excessive pity….

He thought again that he had done well to tell a lie.

‘……I feel like an overprotective guardian.’

It was like becoming Herman who defended Emily. But Dominic calmly observed his own state.

He had long since stopped caring that he had already stayed here for more than two days. Despite his dislike for wasting time.

Now, he only hoped that May would blend into the peaceful scenery of the mansion. As he put away the line he had tried to draw, that wish became clear.

It was an expected development from the moment he took the hand extended to him in an unexpected direction.

‘Now I just need to find that employee.’

After finding that man and holding him accountable for his crimes, he would leave this place. Dominic left the terrace while making an uncharacteristically vague plan.

What he encountered was,

“……Who are you coming out from there?”

A blond man with furrowed eyebrows.

“……”

Dominic quietly examined the unfamiliar person who had suddenly appeared.

The man, who seemed to have just entered the mansion, looked as if he had been running. He roughly brushed his sweat-soaked hair while scrutinizing Dominic. At that wary face, Dominic’s eyes instantly sank.

He realized that the execution of the plan he had just made was being moved forward sooner than expected. Meanwhile, some realization also crossed the blond man’s face. He too seemed to have guessed Dominic’s identity.

“……Are you perhaps the lawyer who was supposed to visit?”

With this question, the man’s face, now mixed with more irritation, was exactly that of a criminal. As if saying, ‘Why of all people are you here now?’ The face of someone who had met a legal professional or someone with public authority at an unexpected time, unable to hide the expression that things had gone wrong… a face full of apprehension.

Dominic’s face grew even colder as he looked at that face. After maintaining silence for a moment, he responded bluntly,

“You must be the servant Miss May employed.”

Johan’s eyes narrowed slightly at that low voice.

‘So he is the lawyer. ……I thought he would be a middle-aged man.’

Just as he had assumed Aiden was an old man, Johan’s expectations were once again off the mark. It seemed his preconception that the son of his grandfather’s friend would naturally be middle-aged was a prejudice. Johan looked at the cold-looking young man with irritation.

‘The number of men has increased to two.’

That would be good news for the thought-form. If that man wasn’t impotent, that is.

Even as he faced the lawyer, Johan glanced anxiously at the second floor. Judging by the overall peacefulness of the mansion, it didn’t seem like the worst situation he had worried about had occurred, but….

Looking again at the lawyer’s attire, it was strangely comfortable. As if he had even slept here.

There’s no way that cold-looking man would have had a pajama party with May.

What could he have had so much to talk about that he stayed at the mansion? And why hadn’t that damned young master, acting as if he owned the place, driven this man away?

‘Could the two of them have come to some understanding?’

As questions multiplied, Johan’s wary gaze intensified.

Meanwhile, the man who had walked away from the terrace door stood in front of Johan. Johan let out a hollow laugh as he saw the shirt that was particularly taut across the chest and shoulders. The arms, revealed by half-rolled sleeves, looked quite sturdy for someone who had only studied.

‘……Is this bastard here to seduce my lady from the start?’

It wasn’t unreasonable to think so, given his appearance. A peculiar rowdy energy settled in Johan’s golden eyes as he stared at the other man.

“It seems you’re enjoying a vacation here.”

And the man showed no particular reaction to the sarcastic remark. That irritated Johan even more. He thought it would be better if he got heated like Aiden.

The person before him maintained a consistently cold face despite Johan’s crooked attitude. In other words, he didn’t seem like he would easily take the bait even if provoked.

‘A type I hate dealing with.’

He wondered if this was really the lawyer May had been waiting for, the one she said was “kind in his own way.” It was annoying how the man before him carried himself with such gravity that it was irritating, considering he had supposedly just come to deliver a message. It was also annoying how he scrutinized Johan as if he were something to May.

‘They claimed to have only met once.’

Naturally, a sullen feeling rose within him. But dealing with that man wasn’t his immediate concern. First, he needed to deliver the compass that had started vibrating in his pocket to May. He also needed to see her condition with his own eyes.

His anxiety reignited. His feet moved ahead of his words.

“I think we’ve exchanged enough greetings.”

However, the man’s low voice stopped Johan as he tried to pass by.

“She’s probably taking a nap right now.”

To Johan, who had deliberately tried to avoid a confrontation, this felt quite provocative. He turned his head to look at the man.

So his visit to the mansion wasn’t out of simple goodwill? Come to think of it, it had seemed strange that he would rush to the mansion because of a client’s letter asking about her grandfather’s past.

“……Are you a nanny rather than a lawyer? You speak as if you put my lady to bed yourself.”

At this sarcastic remark that he couldn’t hold back, the man let out a dry laugh. As if bothered by his hair falling down, he roughly brushed it back and replied in a dry tone,

“A nanny…… I am doing something similar.”

As he said this, he grabbed Johan’s shoulder. His grip felt strong enough to restrain him if necessary.

“So there’s one thing I need to confirm. ……Did you feed her something strange?”

The following question contained clear information. Johan’s face instinctively hardened as he glared at the man.

“Something strange?”

“Let me ask more directly. Did you use an aphrodisiac on May?”