Damion, having finished signing the reviewed documents, looked up at the clock.

2 o’clock. There was still plenty of time until the appointed hour. However, Damion got up early. To buy a gift before meeting Ansi.

“I’ll be leaving early today. I have an appointment.”

“Do you have something good planned? You look to be in high spirits,” Max, Damion’s secretary, asked as Damion rose from his seat and put on his jacket. Damion readily nodded.

These days, he looked forward to every day.

Today especially seemed like it would be so.

He left the office with a light step.

In the room filled with silence, only the sound of the clock hands moving rang out. Ansi, who was sitting on the sofa with her knees drawn up and tightly hugging her legs, bit her lower lip hard.

With each passing moment, she felt like she would go mad. Anxiety seemed to be eating away at her whole body.

Eventually, Ansi lifted her head to look at the clock on the wall.

The clock was already pointing to a time past 3 o’clock.

The distance between Damion’s company and the hotel was 30 minutes. Surely he would depart soon.

Ansi rose from her seat without realizing it.

She ran towards the door and reached out her hand to the handle, but hesitated. Gripping the handle tightly, she squeezed her eyes shut.

〈Ansi must never come to that place. Remember that this is a condition of our deal.〉

Kardian’s words tormented Ansi all day long. All she could do was sit obediently in this house and wait for the results of what she had done.

But…

The face of the man who laughed as brightly as a child yesterday came to mind.

〈I’m looking forward to it.〉

Ansi opened her eyes. Her breath caught in her throat.

Even if she tried to rationalize that nothing would happen, the anxiety did not subside. Whatever Kardian’s intentions were, it was clear that it would not be good for Damion.

To save Derl, Damion had to go to that hotel. Ansi had no other choice. But betraying Damion like this again was something she shouldn’t do after all.

In the end, Ansi stepped out the door.

She headed straight for the study where the telephone was. At the very least, she had to warn Damion. She had to tell him honestly that it wasn’t really her who had called him.

With trembling hands, Ansi dialed the number. Surely he would still be at the company at this time.

The sound of the connection began. The cheerful sound rang in her head. Ansi gripped the receiver tightly.

After a while, there was a click and someone’s voice was heard.

− The call has been answered.

It seemed to be Damion’s secretary.

“…This is Ansi de Orphée. I was hoping to be connected to the president.”

− The president left the office about an hour ago.

“Ah…”

Her mind turned as white as a blank sheet of paper.

Her grip loosened. The receiver slipped out. Barely avoiding dropping it, she ended the call. Then she turned her head to look at the clock in the study.

The time was 3:20.

The hotel was about an hour’s carriage ride from the mansion. There was no time to waste. Ansi immediately headed outside.

“To the Pièce Hotel, as fast as possible, please.”

The carriage raced through the streets. Ansi endured the time rushing towards Damion with her hands tightly clasped together. During that time, numerous thoughts rose in Ansi’s mind.

Rationalizing that even if Damion had already arrived at the hotel, nothing would happen right away.

Anxiety about what would happen to Derl if she stopped Damion now.

Calculating what hand she would have to play against Kardian to get Derl back.

The intricately tangled thoughts continued. But she could not reach a proper conclusion. Choosing one meant losing the other. Faced with a desperate loop, she could neither do this nor that.

She couldn’t hate her indecisive self more. She was now confused about where she stood. What moved her body now was close to instinct. She was simply going where her body told her to, as if swept away by a raging storm.

Finally, the carriage arrived near the hotel. But the speed slowed down noticeably. Sensing something was wrong, Ansi opened the window and looked outside.

“There are people gathered in front, so I can’t go any further, ma’am,” the coachman said.

As he said, there was a crowd of people gathered in front of the hotel.

She had a bad feeling about this.

“I’ll get off here.”

Ansi got out of the carriage and hurriedly ran towards the hotel. With each step she took through the gathered crowd, her anxiety grew. If she let her guard down even a little, she felt like her legs would give out and she would collapse on the spot.

At last, Ansi squeezed through the crowd and entered the center.

At that moment, her eyes met Damion’s as he was walking out of the hotel.

Ansi’s gaze turned to his wrists.

Her face turned ashen.

Handcuffs were attached to his wrists.

About 20 minutes before that.

Damion entered the hotel.

In his hands were a gift box and a bouquet of flowers for Ansi. Although it was not a special occasion, he had personally chosen things he thought she would like because he wanted to see her happy face.

He took the elevator up to the 10th floor and headed to the room. Though he acted nonchalant, his excited feelings were evident in his steps that felt like walking on clouds.

Soon he arrived at the room.

He knocked on the door, but no one came out. It seemed Ansi had not arrived yet. Damion opened the door with the key he received from the front desk.

He quietly entered. The room was dark, with thick curtains drawn.

But something was off.

“…!”

A familiar and unpleasant metallic smell assaulted Damion’s nose.

It was a smell he knew all too well.

The thick scent of blood.

“Ansi!”

The items in his hands fell to the floor. Damion hurriedly turned on the lights in the room. He looked around the spacious room like a madman.

And he found her. A woman collapsed face down. And the pool of blood that had spread from her.

“No.”

Damion’s face turned deathly pale. He ran to the woman as if he would collapse.

And with trembling hands, he hurriedly turned her body over to examine her.

“…”

Damion’s face went blank for a moment.

It wasn’t Ansi.

The one lying there with her eyes closed and bleeding was…

Bekishi de Orphée, Kardian’s wife.

It was a moment that made him doubt his own sense of ethics. Even though there was a bleeding woman right in front of him, someone he was acquainted with, the first emotion that rose was relief.

The next moment, Damion checked if Bekishi was breathing.

She was still breathing, albeit faintly. Damion immediately tore the bedsheet and wrapped it around Bekishi’s abdomen. To stop the bleeding.

He looked for the bell button to inform the front desk of the situation. But the button was unusable. Someone had broken the device. There was no other way to communicate with the front desk inside the room.

“Damn it.”

He had no choice but to notify them in person. Damion quickly walked to the door. Stepping over the scattered bouquet and box, he flung the door open.

It was at that very moment that a hotel employee passing by saw the scene inside the room. The timing was too uncanny to be a coincidence.

“Aaah!”

Beyond Damion, who was covered in blood, the employee saw Bekishi collapsed and let out a loud scream.

“Someone’s been killed!”

There was no time for explanations. At the employee’s continuous screams, people who were in their respective rooms came out. Murmurs and screams poured out from those who discovered the screaming employee and the blood-soaked Damion. Hotel staff rushed over in a hurry.

The police arrived from the nearby police station in less than 10 minutes. They were even faster than the ambulance that would take Bekishi away.

“You’ll have to come with us as a suspect for attempted murder, sir.”

Handcuffs were placed on his wrists. Even when he tried to explain that he was merely a witness, it didn’t work.

A sneer escaped Damion’s lips.

Damion de Orphée was caught red-handed trying to kill Bekishi de Orphée.

It was a perfect scenario, as if it had been arranged.

His mind was now filled with worry about Ansi.

Wasn’t this the hotel where he was supposed to meet Ansi? But at the time he was supposed to meet her, Bekishi was found dying in that room.

Then where on earth had Ansi gone?

Damion grew anxious at the thought that she might also be in danger.

“Please locate the whereabouts of Ansi de Orphée.”

Damion spoke to the police officer arresting him, but the officer only shook his head.

“We were originally supposed to meet in that room, but she’s not there. She might be in danger.”

Even as he uttered the words, Damion felt he knew how absurd his words would sound. Right now, Damion was the culprit. No matter how much a culprit expressed concern for his wife, it was not relatable at all.

“At least let me make a phone call…”

Damion, who was about to tell them to call the mansion to find Ansi, trailed off.

There was no need for such an instruction.

Ansi was right in front of him.

In front of the hotel, she was staring at him.

A deep sense of relief washed over Damion’s entire body.

“No!”

In contrast, Ansi ran to Damion with a frightened face. Blocked by the police from getting close to him, Damion asked her urgently.

“Ansi, are you all right?”

“I… I’m fine. I’m sorry…”

The moment he heard those words, Damion went blank as if he had been hit in the back of the head.

Damion’s lips parted slightly.

“…”

Reading the emotion in Ansi’s eyes, he couldn’t say a word.

Her face was so painfully contorted.

But it was not out of bewilderment or confusion.

The emotion she harbored was unmistakable guilt.

Damion slowly shook his head, his gaze fixed on Ansi. He denied and denied that he had misunderstood.

But the conclusion did not change.

Ansi knew what Damion would go through at this hotel.

Yet… she had called him here.