While she was unconscious, evidence exposing the affair between Ned and Deva had fallen to the floor.

Photos of the two entangled in the car Penelope had bought as a birthday gift for Ned. Photos of them entering a shabby hotel near the harbor. Photos of them groping each other in some unknown place. Other photos as well, scattered like stains across the floor—images whose meaning didn’t even need to be interpreted.

“Penelope! Don’t tell me you went out? You didn’t really touch my bank account, did you? Damn it, where the hell are you?”

Thump, thump.

Ned’s footsteps, failing to find Penelope, grew distant.

The violin practice room was where Penelope spent most of her time. But her husband, who had no idea what she did or where she usually spent her days, couldn’t even guess her whereabouts and kept opening and closing the wrong doors.

Ned had never once watched Penelope play the violin. He might not even know there was a practice room in the mansion.

Penelope’s legs gave out, and she sank to the floor, unable to bring herself to clean up the scattered photos.

She picked up the most shocking photo among them.

In the photo, Ned was seen with his arm around Deva’s shoulders, walking right into this very mansion—Penelope’s home.

“While madam was lying unconscious, I thought he didn’t care because he didn’t even look in on her and only brought guests over…”

“So the guest Lucy mentioned was Deva.”

While his wife clung to life, Ned had brought his mistress into the house.

She could no longer call him her husband.

Penelope gathered the photos and placed them inside the small safe in the practice room, moving slowly and deliberately.

Despite holding the evidence of betrayal in her hands, she didn’t feel angry.

Her fury had peaked long ago and she was no longer shaken by a few pictures.

Now, Penelope wondered who had sent the photos and what their purpose was.

The angle and style of the shots resembled the scandalous celebrity photos often seen in tabloid newspapers.

The composition was clearly designed to provoke the viewer. It was as though an anonymous person was urging her to take action.

The suspicious letter had ruined all her plans for revenge. She could leak it to a tabloid, which would not only discredit Ned, but also the entire Hoffman Marquessate.

Alternatively, she could use it as evidence in a divorce trial.

However, before she could decide how to proceed, she first needed to find out who had sent the photos. Someone who meant well would not send such a suspicious delivery.

If she used the photos without verifying the source, it could backfire.

‘For all I know, maybe I’m the only one in the Modeston social circle who doesn’t know about my husband’s affair.’

For photos like these to land on her doorstep, how long must the tail have been?

Was she a fool, unaware of what was happening while the rest of the world watched? Did she shut herself away simply because she knew nothing?

Who seemed to know more about her misery than she did?

Were they still watching her, even now, from somewhere?

As one chilling thought spiralled into another, goosebumps prickled her skin.

“Young miss, are you in here?”

Lucy cautiously opened the door to the practice room and peeked her head in.

“That colt just left. Tch, he was fuming again, probably needing more money.”

Lucy approached Penelope with a distressed expression.

“Were you going to practice? You’re still not well—you should rest today. And go to the hospital too, please.”

Her gaze fell on the violin.

“I bet Iris would like to rest today too.”

Iris was the name of the violin Penelope had received as a gift from her adoptive parents. To her, it wasn’t just an instrument—it was her sister, her friend.

Penelope had never truly trusted her adoptive parents as family—not from the very beginning.

“Practice until you’re perfect! We built that orphanage and fed a lowly orphan like you, so earn your keep.”
“Don’t eat until you’ve memorized the sheet music. Nobles only clap and toss coins if you can play with a blindfold on.”

Penelope was subjected to relentless abuse at the hands of the director of the Angelica Orphanage until she was adopted.

Blinded by donations from wealthy patrons of the arts, the director exploited her. She was locked in a dimly lit basement room and forced to play the violin until she had memorised the sheet music perfectly.

Barely fed and living in confinement, it was no surprise that she developed claustrophobia and social anxiety.

Because of the director, Penelope developed a fear of adults and was unable to trust her adoptive parents, even after being adopted.

She distrusted people so deeply that she couldn’t accept the idea of being loved.

‘Back then, I thought they were just bad people trying to make money off me too.’

Believing her violin was once again being used just to make money, Penelope fell into a period of mutism.
But the Utterbacks never gave up on her—they gave her love.

“Our beloved angel. If it’s hard for you to speak, then share your heart with me through the sound of your violin.”

The way her parents chose to communicate with their wounded daughter was through music. And through that love, Penelope was able to heal and become family with parents who shared no blood with her.

‘It all began with that stroke of luck, performing in front of my parents at the orphanage’s annual fundraiser.’

The former Utterback couple had attended the regular sponsor event at the orphanage and heard Penelope play. They had given her a candy after her performance.

That small piece of candy was their very first connection.

The sweetness of that first gift was so precious to Penelope that she couldn’t bring herself to eat it.
Instead, she had carefully hidden it inside her violin case.

‘Though in the end, I never got to eat it.’

That candy, which she had stared at longingly for days without tasting it, ultimately ended up in someone else’s mouth.

That boy.

The one who’d been thrown into the practice basement during a violin session—kicked in by the orphanage director.

“It’s not time for him to die yet, so I’ll just lock him in here for now. Penelope, what are you staring at? Stop slacking off and get back to practicing! And make sure he doesn’t try anything stupid.”

Penelope had been so shocked to suddenly find another person in the basement where she always practiced alone.

What shocked her even more was the boy’s condition.

She had seen many children beaten by the director before, but none had ever looked as brutally assaulted as that boy.

Penelope had been terrified the boy might die on the spot. If he did, she would have had to continue practicing the violin with a corpse beside her.

In the end, she had no choice but to share her candy and care for the boy, locked up and suffering in the pitch-dark basement.

Fortunately, the boy had recovered safely, and Penelope had even helped him escape from that underground prison.

‘He must be alive somewhere. If he is, I want to see him again. I never got a good look at his face—it was too dark down there.’

Because she had undergone hypnotherapy to treat her mutism, her childhood memories were fragmented and hazy.
Still, the memory of that boy lingered—faint, but never completely gone.

If not for that boy, Penelope would have quit the violin.

To Penelope, her talent for the violin had been a curse. Because she was so exceptional, she caught the director’s eye and had to undergo grueling, relentless practice day and night.

Back then, Penelope had grown so used to the director’s insults that she truly believed she was worthless.

Even when she was called a freeloader, she thought it must be true—after all, she’d been abandoned by her parents. Surely the director was right.

‘He was the first one who ever said thank you to me.’

That boy was the only person to thank her for playing the violin — an instrument she had once considered completely worthless.

It was that single, heart-fluttering moment of warmth that gave her the will to carry on playing.

After meeting him, ‘thank you’ became the greatest praise Penelope could receive.

So, if she were to meet her parents again in the afterlife and hear them say, “Thank you, our daughter,”

, she would have to uncover the truth behind her unjust death.

She couldn’t continue living as the naïve woman she once was.

She had to change.

She had to stop turning a blind eye to her husband’s infidelity out of fear of being discarded.

Penelope picked up Iris and began to play. It was a lively dance tune from a faraway land that her parents had loved.

The quick, powerful tempo steadied her trembling hands, guiding them back to their rightful place.

As she focused on the complex sheet music and moved the bow across the strings, the chaos in her mind slowly began to quiet down.

Yes.
She had been discarded, but that didn’t mean it was over.
She would take back what was rightfully hers—everything that had been stolen from her.

She would carve it out.
Not her precious life, but them.
Those who had hurt her—she would tear them from her life, erase them cleanly, and start anew.

Just as the dance piece came to an end and Penelope, eyes closed, let the last note fade—

“This is…”

Only then did she finally notice the things she’d missed, distracted as she had been by the photos of her husband’s affair.

Penelope spotted something in the front-page article of the newspaper, and her heart began to race with excitement she could no longer contain.