Although she was trying to appear calm, Ansi’s hands were still trembling slightly. It was unclear whether this was due to the shock from earlier or if her body had been affected while saving him.

How much life had he taken from that woman this time? Damion suddenly felt utterly disgusted with himself for living on borrowed time from her.

“Do you know him?”

That’s all he could muster to hide his feelings. It was pathetic.

“…I borrowed money from him before. I’m sorry. I paid back the agreed amount, but what was left was illegal interest not specified in the contract. I didn’t expect it to come to this. It’s my fault.”

Ansi answered earnestly while pretending to be calm, her gaze fixed outside the car window.

“That illegal interest no longer remains. I paid it off.”

Damion said as if it were obvious. Ansi’s eyes wavered. So that’s how it was. She tightly clasped her hands together. She couldn’t bring herself to ask how he knew about the debt. With Geris coming all this way to try to kill him, such questions seemed pointless now.

“Was there anything else?”

“I don’t know why he attacked like that today. When I ran into him yesterday, he didn’t try to kill…”

“Yesterday?”

One of Damion’s eyebrows raised.

She had encountered such a man yesterday and hadn’t said a word to him about it? Saying he didn’t try to kill implies he threatened her in some way.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think it was necessary.”

“If not for something like that, then what exactly would you need to tell me?”

There was clear anger in his voice. Ansi looked at his profile. His tightly pressed lips seemed angry. But Ansi stubbornly asked.

“What would have changed if I had told you I ran into Geris yesterday? Would today’s events not have happened?”

“Who knows. Maybe I would have found that bastard before dawn and done something. Maybe you wouldn’t have had to run there in your underwear and almost get shot.”

“In the end, no one got hurt. None of us died. Isn’t that enough?”

Damion narrowed his eyes.

“It sounds as if you think one of us should have died.”

At his words, Ansi’s lips tightened. Damion seized the opportunity and spoke again.

“Let me ask you again, Ansi. Did you know that bastard was going to shoot me in the Dedeup Forest today?”

Ansi opened her mouth in shock. She seemed to understand what he was implying.

“Are you suspecting that I called Geris?”

Her voice trembled with disbelief.

She knew that given the circumstances – knowing Damion had a meeting scheduled by the lake in Dedeup Forest, and being acquainted with Geris – she could be seen as suspicious.

But even so, she had saved him today. Was it right for him to suspect her like this? A sense of indignation mixed with a pitiful desire for recognition welled up. Ansi took a slow breath to calm herself.

Damion turned the steering wheel. The car smoothly curved. Unlike her pounding heart, that man seemed unaffected.

“No. That’s not what I’m asking.”

How could he draw a different meaning from that question? Ansi stared at him, waiting for further explanation. Noticing her gaze, Damion slowly turned his head towards Ansi.

Their eyes met. A strange tension made Ansi’s body stiffen.

“Did you see a future where I died in that forest today?”

“…!”

For a moment, Ansi felt as if she had been thrown out of the moving car.

His mansion had drawn near. Amidst the familiar scenery, only the man’s face seemed unfamiliar.

“…Damion.”

“So it’s true.”

The car stopped in front of the mansion. Damion gestured towards the car door.

“We’ll talk later.”

Ansi got out of the car. He didn’t follow. Leaving only those explosive words behind, he started the car again. Ansi stood dazed, watching the back of the departing car.

After dropping off Ansi and driving away, Damion’s face contorted violently.

An insane anger welled up inside him. It was something he couldn’t express while Ansi was beside him.

Foolish woman. What was she thinking, jumping in front of him like that and almost getting shot? Why try to stop something that was bound to happen anyway? What was so good about throwing away her life that she had to rush there so urgently…

“Damn it.”

In truth, he knew. The feelings of foolishness or anger weren’t directed at her.

It was at himself.

He felt disgusted with himself for using that pure woman for his goal of obtaining Orphe.

Hot air flowed in through the open car window. Somehow, the air entering his lungs seemed to smell like a sewer.

Even the bones and flesh that made up his body didn’t feel like his own. He felt nauseous, as if every part of his body was rotting and festering.

Eventually, he stopped the car by some bushes.

Even after emptying his stomach, the nausea wouldn’t subside. It made sense. The source of his discomfort was himself.

“Ansi…”

His wife’s name flowed out on his cracked voice.

He squeezed his eyes shut. He had a vision of that name – which gave a calm yet refreshing feeling – being engraved on that dark path leading to Sobelvi’s annex.

Damion straightened his back.

It was time to make a decision after long deliberation.

Something he hadn’t considered at all when marrying Ansi de Rubelsac. But now it had become something he had to consider as the top priority.

Would he leave her in the darkness and keep walking until he saw that light?

Or would he take her hand and retreat, even if it meant going back to a place where they would gain nothing but lose nothing either?

“Didn’t you have a meeting scheduled this morning?”

Max, Damion’s executive assistant, followed him as he entered the president’s office. Damion spoke in a dry voice.

“A man named Geris tried to kill me in Dedeup Forest today. He’s been handed over to the police, and we’ve secured witnesses. I need you to ensure he receives the maximum sentence for this case.”

“What? How could such a thing…”

“The meeting location was leaked. He was waiting in front.”

Max’s eyes widened in surprise. Damion stared at him quietly.

Perhaps Max, showing such a surprised reaction, could be the one who leaked the information.

Max was someone Damion had known since before he was discharged from the military, when he was only involved in investments rather than business operations. But that didn’t exclude him from the list of suspects.

Damion had already instructed others to investigate Max. If the results showed he was the culprit, he might feel some disappointment, but not betrayal. After being shot in the side on the battlefield, he realized how foolish it was to completely trust anyone.

There were many other possibilities as well. It could have been through the meeting counterpart, or that criminal bastard obsessed with that woman might have followed Damion and found out by chance.

Perhaps… Kardian was involved.

If so, the list of suspects narrowed even further.

“It seems there’s a mole planted among the secretarial staff.”

“Are you referring to Nancy?”

“Probably.”

He had been suspicious that Nancy might be Kardian’s underling. As such, he hadn’t disclosed any top-secret schedules like meeting Orphe’s elders or confidential business matters recently.

He had been sharing only general schedules and quietly observing, thinking that if she showed any suspicious movements, he could use it as leverage to strike at Kardian.

He was also using Nancy to reassure Kardian. Recently, Damion had been targeting the clients of the textile company Kardian was operating one by one, and he had been feeding different information only to Nancy regarding this matter.

It was a misjudgment. He should have interrogated Nancy immediately. He had misjudged that Kardian, who still thought of him as a toy, wouldn’t move rashly while Damion’s movements weren’t surfacing.

Had something already reached Kardian’s ears, whether related to the textile company or the elders?

Given the situation, he needed to quickly extract Kardian’s name from Nancy. To prove that Kardian was involved in today’s attempt on Damion’s life.

“I’ll talk to them myself. Call the secretaries one by one. Starting with Nancy.”

“Well, about that…”

Max trailed off, seeming troubled. Damion raised an eyebrow as if to ask why.

“Nancy didn’t come to work today.”

Damion’s expression hardened. He rolled his tongue inside his mouth. It tasted bitter.

“Max, you’ll need to keep an eye on the secretaries.”

“Yes, sir.”

Damion stepped outside.

The sky was cloudy and dark. It looked like it might rain soon.

As he started the car to return to the mansion, a mix of dejection and incredulity appeared on Damion’s face.

“Haha…”

Did she cause trouble and run away? Or did Kardian remove her? Knowing how to cover his tracks well, the latter was more likely. He probably left no evidence related to Geris.

The physical evidence had disappeared.

But this made it even clearer.

The fact that Kardian was trying to kill him again.

If he continued down this path, incidents like today’s would happen again. Perhaps next time, his wife might really die.

After sacrificing her life to save him.

Upon arriving at the mansion, Nubel opened the door. Damion went up to the second floor and quietly stared at Ansi’s door before heading to his own room.

He intended to have a conversation after calming his mind a little.

However, the moment he opened the door, his body froze.

“Can we talk now?”

Ansi was sitting in his room.