After Logan Fraser left the visiting room, William stepped out and bit down hard on his lip. The metallic taste of blood spread across his tongue, but he paid it no mind.

Logan Fraser was drawing ever closer to the truth. He had ignored their arrangement entirely, as if determined to uncover everything with his own hands.

William had maintained an air of composure before him, pretending calm. But the uncertainty of how far Logan intended to dig unsettled him deeply.

“It wasn’t intentional. I never meant to kill him…”

A mutter slipped from his lips, as though offering excuses to someone who was not there.

Everything had begun that day. The day James Fraser, shoved in a fit of anger, had died on the spot. And from the moment a young girl had witnessed it.

To survive, he had stolen the seal. To conceal his crime, he had set the fire. Even knowing how much damage it would cause, he committed the act in order to live.

Isabella Wins.

When he found the name of the girl he had believed perished in the flames listed among the survivors, it felt as though his heart dropped to the pit of his stomach.

He had hoped she would simply die on her own.

He had assumed the girl he left inside the burning manor would not survive. As he scanned the list of the dead, his gaze halted at the name of a man who shared her surname. The girl’s father.

No one would be left to search for an orphaned child.

William erased the girl’s name from the survivors’ registry. Then, without anyone noticing, he secretly removed the injured child. If she remained, the truth would inevitably surface. He intended to deal with her quietly before the ducal household grew suspicious.

She had to die. That was what his mind insisted. His wife, Laura—who had learned the entire truth—had said the same. Killing the child was the surest way to bury the sin.

But he could not make the decision. Too many names of the dead already weighed before his eyes.

He could not commit another killing. He had already destroyed far too much.

So he made the most cowardly choice of all. He waited for the girl—barely clinging to life, her breaths faint and shallow—to die on her own. With the severe wound she had suffered from the debris that struck her head, he believed she would not last long.

“Should I have killed her with my own hands back then?”

Yet she survived. As if mocking him, she lost every memory of that day.

He had even considered sending her far away once she regained consciousness. But the possibility that she might someday recover her memories—and seek out the Frasers—made him change his mind. It was safer to keep her within sight, to watch her, to control her the moment her memories returned.

It was only natural that Amelia disliked the maid. For a young girl burdened by her parents’ lies, the presence of a servant who carried the household’s secret was more than enough to provoke resentment.

And so he endured.

The truth had not been revealed. Amelia was now on the verge of marrying Logan Fraser, just as they had hoped.

He had believed everything would remain perfectly concealed.

“I cannot give up like this.”

William muttered under his breath. If not for that maid—if she had not existed in the first place—Logan Fraser would have had no reason to suspect them at all. Everything would have proceeded according to plan. Amelia would have become the mistress of the Fraser household, and his past sins would have been buried forever.

His legs trembled uncontrollably. He refused to admit that he was falling apart.

No charges had yet been formally proven. His title had not been stripped from him. There was still time—still a chance to correct what had gone wrong.

He told himself it had all begun with a mistake. He had not killed James. Setting the fire had merely been an act born of fear—fear that someone might shift the blame onto him. He had not known so many people would die. He had never intended such devastation.

“Everyone makes mistakes.”

It had simply been misfortune. Why should he, a count, fall this far over a single moment’s error?

It felt unfair.

Had James not committed a far greater sin? Though death had erased it now, adultery was still condemned in noble society—especially when both parties were married. Compared to betraying one’s spouse and honor, gambling could be dismissed as a minor lapse. Even now, somewhere in the Empire, other nobles were surely seated at gaming tables without consequence.

‘Then why me? Why must I alone be confined here?’

William lifted his shackled hands. He struck the cuffs against the desk, trying to force them loose, but the heavy chains did not yield. They produced only a harsh clanging sound—one that seemed to echo like iron tightening around his own throat.

He paced the cramped cell, narrower than the lavatory of his own manor.

The longer he remained confined, the more his reason eroded under the gnawing anxiety that everything might soon be exposed.

The moment he confessed, everyone would die. Laura. Amelia. Even Vincent, who was digging for the truth.

The crime of killing another noble did not end with a single execution. It demanded blood from every branch tied by lineage. It destroyed entire houses.

To survive, there was nothing he would not do. For his child, he could do anything.

William steadied himself and sat at the desk. Though imprisoned, he still retained his noble status—for now—and so the cell granted him a semblance of dignity: a desk, a sofa, proper furnishings. He clung to that remnant obsessively, as though it proved he had not yet fallen completely.

Pulling a stack of papers toward him, he began to write.

He composed letters asserting his innocence, speaking of false accusations, injustice, and the secrets he possessed—secrets that might persuade those with power to aid him.

Even if he had to bow his head in humiliation, even if his own son had turned his back on him, this was the only path left to survive.

***

When Logan arrived at the manor after receiving word from the attending physician, Bella was resting.

He had been told she had suddenly developed a high fever, accompanied by difficulty breathing. Compared to when Logan had departed from the detention center, her shallow breaths had steadied somewhat. But that did not mean she was out of danger.

“I wish I could offer you words of hope. But the truth is… her condition is so critical that her breathing could stop at any moment.”

They were pouring every treatment available under Imperial medicine into her care, yet there was no sign of improvement. The repeated infection of her external wounds had kept her fever from subsiding. Moreover, the damage to her lungs—left untreated for too long at the scene of the fire—was severely hindering her recovery.

Logan said nothing. He stood by the bedside, looking down at Bella.

Aside from the bandages wrapped around her body, she appeared almost peaceful, her eyes closed as though in deep sleep.

“…Therefore, I must advise transferring her to the hospital rather than continuing treatment at the manor. Should her condition worsen, we would be able to take far more immediate and comprehensive measures there.”

The proposal was clear: Bella should be treated in the hospital, not at the manor.

Logan did not answer at once. He was well aware that, in terms of medical care, the hospital far surpassed what the manor could provide. Yet there had been only one reason he had insisted on keeping the physician stationed here.

Bella’s safety.

While public attention remained fixed on the crimes of Jack Hunter and Everett surrounding the Fraser name, revealing Bella’s existence to the world would be dangerous. She had already been exposed to the press once. He had no intention of placing her at risk again.

“Could the hospital equipment be moved here instead?”

“That would be impossible.”

The physician’s reply was firm. Not only the equipment but also the manpower required made it unrealistic to replicate hospital-level treatment within the manor.

“This concerns her life, Your Grace.”

Logan’s gaze returned to Bella.

Her breathing was faint, as though it might stop at any moment. Yet she was still fighting—fighting to survive.

“…Prepare to transfer her to the hospital.”

At last, he made his decision. Saving Bella’s life came first.

“I don’t care what it costs. Whatever happens, keep her breathing.”