Jeremiah quickly skimmed through the documents in front of him.

In fact, he was somewhat aware that Caroline had been secretly embezzling money bit by bit behind his back.

Despite this, the reason he couldn’t immediately condemn Caroline was because she was his only remaining family.

‘Jeremiah. When you grow up, you must protect your sister well.’

After their father’s sudden accidental death, those words remained as his last will to Jeremiah.

‘Sigh.’

Jeremiah’s sigh deepened.

All his efforts to keep his father’s last wish had become meaningless.

It was all Caroline’s own doing.

From the beginning, Caroline lacked the ability to handle administrative work.

She also lacked the foresight to see the future and the ability to prepare for risks.

That’s why she was excluded from the northern administration and all important tasks.

He couldn’t entrust important northern matters to someone without ability.

But he couldn’t bring himself to refuse his sister’s request to trust her just once, saying she would help the Grand Duchess who was unfamiliar with the North.

‘But to think she would even touch the Grand Duchess’s dowry.’

Most of the money Caroline had drawn as investment funds was from Karina’s dowry brought when she married.

It also included living expenses such as the Grand Duchess’s allocated dignity maintenance fees, social expenses, and banquet funds.

Jeremiah inwardly sighed as he rubbed his brow.

He didn’t know Caroline would be this foolish and thoughtless.

He had been filling the gaps left by Caroline’s embezzlement with his own private funds.

But this had already gone far beyond the line.

Jeremiah let out a hollow laugh in disbelief.

The same went for those leech-like bastards clinging to Caroline trying to get whatever they could.

“These fearless bastards have underestimated me.”

Jeremiah ordered with eyes flashing with killing intent.

“Investigate everything thoroughly. Find all those involved and report back. Arrest anyone with even the slightest connection.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The investigators and tax officials responded firmly, bowing their heads.

After they all left, Janssen entered the office.

“Your Highness.”

“What is it?”

Janssen was holding a familiar jewelry box.

“Well… We found this emerald necklace and jewelry in Lady Caroline’s room.”

Jeremiah lowered his gaze to look at the jewelry box Janssen was holding.

When Janssen opened the box, he saw the jewelry he had purchased from Paulo’s jewelry store last time.

Jeremiah’s brow furrowed.

“This was in my sister’s room?”

“Yes.”

Jeremiah recalled Caroline coming to him with this jewelry box right before the charity event.

‘Jeremiah. You gave Karina jewelry to wear for the charity event, right? But what should we do? Karina doesn’t like this necklace. She says the design is too simple and not to her taste.’

Caroline had continued, shaking her head.

‘Having grown up in the capital, Karina seems to only like lavish and flashy things. She told me to take it. I’m telling you this because you should know since it was your gift.’

Hearing Karina’s unexpected reaction, something had welled up inside him.

So he had unknowingly insisted stubbornly.

‘It doesn’t matter whether the Grand Duchess likes it or not. Tell her to keep it even if she doesn’t like it.’

He had definitely said that.

‘Did she not return it after that?’

Jeremiah sighed with a frown.

‘Or maybe that whole story was a lie from the start.’

His mood sank low.

Then a sudden question occurred to him.

“Janssen.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“When I told you to take the necklace to the Grand Duchess, you said you met my sister, right?”

Janssen answered, recalling his memory at Jeremiah’s question.

“Yes, that’s right. I encountered Lady Caroline on my way up to the Grand Duchess’s room. She said it would be better to have someone with her when receiving the jewelry, so she took it saying she would deliver it instead.”

Jeremiah had received that report that day too.

At the time, he had dismissed it without much thought, but now he was suspicious.

Had Caroline really delivered the necklace to Karina?

He had reasonable doubts.

Knock knock.

Just then, Ron came to the office to inquire about Gannon’s treatment.

“Your Highness, what should we do with Gannon Ferguson now?”

“…”

Jeremiah had personally interrogated Gannon to get a confession.

In fact, it could hardly be called an interrogation.

It was closer to Gannon begging to be heard, saying he would tell the whole truth.

And after hearing Gannon’s confession, Jeremiah became even more troubled.

As he had thought before, it seemed Karina already knew Caroline was behind this incident.

Honestly, the more he investigated, the more he felt Karina couldn’t have been unaware.

In a way, Caroline was able to do all this because she had full authority over Karina’s dowry and the Grand Duchess’s overall powers.

It was a mistake to grant Caroline the authority for various support projects and rights that should have belonged to the Grand Duchess, under the pretext of helping the Grand Duchess.

But even so, it wouldn’t have been easy to do without Karina’s consent.

“How could my sister use the Grand Duchess’s dowry and overall living expenses? She couldn’t have done this without the Grand Duchess’s knowledge, could she?”

When Jeremiah asked, Janssen, who had been standing quietly beside him, carefully spoke up.

“Well… I heard that right after the marriage, the Grand Duchess herself gave it to Lady Caroline, saying she wanted it to be used for the North.”

“Who did you hear that from? Don’t tell me it was my sister?”

“Yes…”

Janssen answered with an apologetic expression.

Jeremiah swallowed a hollow laugh.

Now he suspected that everything Caroline had said might have been a lie.

‘My eyes were too clouded.’

Jeremiah chastised himself.

He judged that he had been too complacent because of the fact that she was his only remaining family tied by blood.

Janssen asked, holding the jewelry box in his hand.

“Your Highness. What should we do with this?”

“Give it to me.”

Jeremiah took the jewelry box containing the necklace from Janssen.

He thought he should hear from Karina about this whole situation.

And if she wanted, he was thinking of handing over the right to punish Gannon Young-sik to her.

Jeremiah headed towards Karina’s room.

“Lord Revals. The Grand Duchess has sent a letter.”

“Caroline?”

Revals’s expression slightly furrowed.

“I heard she was immediately taken away from the charity event and isolated in her room. How did she send a letter?”

Revals’s eyes narrowed as he glared at the letter his aide held out.

“She’s acting thoughtlessly even in this situation. Check if it was followed.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Revals leaned back in his chair with an irritated expression.

He pressed his temples firmly with his hand before speaking.

“We must ensure we don’t suffer any damage from this large-scale audit ordered by the Grand Duke. You’ve gotten rid of all the evidence, right?”

“We’ve dealt with everything, but due to the time constraints, it’ll be difficult to make it look completely unrelated. However, we’ve managed all business and dealings with Lady Caroline separately, so we shouldn’t suffer any damage from getting entangled in this investigation.”

Revals irritably unfolded the letter.

The letter was filled with disparaging remarks about how that arrogant Karina had put her in a difficult situation, along with urgent words to do something quickly.

“Ha!”

In the end, a hollow laugh escaped his lips.

“I thought she was smart, but she’s more foolish than I expected. I gave her a good method thinking she could be useful, but to think she’d make things this troublesome.”

Revals clicked his tongue after reading the entire letter.

“I’m already annoyed because of the mine issue.”

He couldn’t attend the charity event held at the Grand Duke’s residence due to the mining business.

As luck would have it, part of the tunnel in the mine owned by the Lambert family collapsed the day before the event.

Because of that, the excavation schedule was delayed and they couldn’t meet the quota that needed to be handed over to the distributors.

Revals was anxious that this matter might reach the ears of those people.

So he was hushing up the incident to prevent it from leaking outside and pressuring the miners to meet the quota.

But the situation wasn’t resolving as easily as he’d hoped.

The middle passage of the tunnel was blocked by the collapsed soil and rocks.

The miners argued that blindly digging out the blocked passage could cause the inner tunnel to collapse again at any time.

Even when he ordered them to dig it out anyway, the miners refused to continue the excavation, saying it was dangerous.

In the end, Revals had to go there himself to make the miners continue the excavation.

He took mercenaries with him and had them beat up the foreman leading the miners as an example.

And only when he threatened to break their arms and legs so they could never work again if they didn’t meet the excavation quota did the rest of the miners reluctantly start working, crying.

“They only listen when they’re beaten.”

Revals was extremely irritated that he couldn’t attend the charity event at the time because of this incident.

But looking at it now, he thought it might have been for the best.

Thanks to that, he avoided the troublesome situation of getting entangled there.

“What should we do?”

To his aide’s question, Revals replied nonchalantly.

“The dead don’t speak. Disguise it as suicide for the guy in prison. Or mix poison in his food and kill him.”

Revals spoke about killing someone without a change in his expression.

His aide, who heard the order, also showed no particular emotion.

Rather, he asked as if it were familiar.

“Wouldn’t it be better to deal with him after he’s released from prison, since he’ll be out soon anyway?”

Revals rebutted his aide’s words.

“Normally yes, but look at Caroline’s current situation. It doesn’t seem like things will be resolved so easily.”

Revals stroked his chin with an unsettled expression.

Through investigation, he knew that Jeremiah had little interest in his wife, Karina.

In fact, he had confirmed the content of the investigation to be true after seeing the two of them at the banquet hall.

So when he heard about what happened at the charity event, he was more concerned about Jeremiah’s unexpected reaction, separate from how things had gotten complicated.

“Certainly… We didn’t expect Lady Caroline to be confined to her room before the charity event even ended.”

“Right. We thought at most she’d have a few months’ worth of living expenses confiscated, or the punishment would end with a superficial 1-2 weeks of self-reflection…”

Revals trailed off, frowning.

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

Revals returned to his expressionless face and crumpled the letter in his hand, throwing it into the fireplace.

Then, as if he had made up his mind, he spoke again with a firm expression.

“It’s better to kill him as soon as possible after all. And Gannon should die while imprisoned in the Grand Duke’s prison, so the Grand Duke can’t be free from the responsibility of Gannon Young-sik’s death.”

Hearing this, his aide brought up a few problematic points.

“It’s impossible to kill someone completely secretly when they’re imprisoned in the Grand Duke’s prison. Not only is the prison surveillance thorough, but if we use something like poison, traces will remain and we’ll certainly be caught.”

Revals smirked at his aide’s words.

“Of course we’ll be caught. Just make it look like Caroline planned it. When the situation turned unfavorable for her, she resorted to rash actions to silence Gannon.”

Revals laughed maliciously.

“You understand what I mean, right?”

“Yes. I’ll handle it without any issues.”