To My First Love, With Regret (Libenia) Chapter 37

“Move along.”

Clang. Rattle.

The barred door shut right in front of him. Ethan was inside a cell. He still couldn’t believe this reality.

Me? In prison?

“You’ll end up in prison someday too, just like your father.”

He had spent his whole life defiantly walking the opposite path of the curses and reproaches that followed him, stepping only on the righteous road. That was Ethan Fairchild’s resistance to the entire world—and the only proof that he was not like his father.

And it had all been a meaningless, futile attempt.

No one becomes a criminal on their own—the world makes them one. The world rejected Ethan’s efforts, and in an instant, he crashed into the dead end he had run from his entire life.

All because he loved a woman he should never have loved.

Until now, he’d thought the traps that could turn him into a criminal like his father were only the humiliations inflicted by Harry and the duke. So he had gritted his teeth and endured that treatment—no better than what they’d give a dog—crouching like a mangy mutt without a shred of dignity. He believed that as long as he didn’t fall into that trap, he’d be fine.

But now Ethan Fairchild was a criminal. Just like the father he had despised.

Ethan—who had become a criminal in the eyes of his mother, who had died ill but refused their father’s help to the very end in order to live a righteous life, and in the eyes of the Captain, who had sacrificed himself to save his grandson—could not lift his head.

The honor that his mother and grandfather had tried to protect at the cost of their lives, their irreversible sacrifice—all of it had crumbled to dust because of a single sheet of paper.

In the end, his own foolish love had brought him down.

People say “dump your lover,” but no one actually throws them in the trash. Yet the duke’s daughter, wanting to completely erase her shameful past, had thrown her former lover into prison.

“This love isn’t easy for me either. Loving you—for me, it’s a fall.”

Do you even know what a fall is?

Her fall and his fall weren’t the same thing. Lady Evelyn’s fall, at worst, was a stain on her reputation. Ethan Fairchild’s fall was a prison floor.

Yes, you—not wanting even that scratch—shoved me into this hell and flew away alone.

Dwelling on the woman who had betrayed him in the face of survival was an unforgivable luxury.

“What are you in for?” asked the old man sharing his cell. He grinned nastily, baring yellow teeth. The kind of grin perverts gave when looking at young girls in dark alleys.

Even living outside the criminal world, Ethan knew what prison was like. He’d heard that even men got raped here if they were young, weak, and pretty.

Can’t show weakness.

“Kidnapping and false imprisonment.”

You couldn’t claim innocence here. Protesting injustice was a sign of weakness—and besides, there wasn’t anyone here who didn’t insist they were innocent.

“A kid? Or a woman?”

“A woman.”

Hearing the charge, the man cackled obscenely.

“Young, but already rotten through. I’m John Mason. Call me Butcher John.”

He extended a hand for a handshake. Touching that filthy skin was nauseating, but refusing would be seen as weakness. Ethan grabbed Butcher John’s hand. As expected, the man gripped back, testing his strength. Ethan responded, squeezing his hand as if to crush it. The man’s eyes bulged, and he burst out laughing.

“Wow, young and strong—nice. What’s your name, pretty boy?”

“Ethan Fairchild. Call me ‘pretty boy’ again, and I’ll knock out one of those rotten teeth for each time.”

Butcher John flinched. Was he scared of the strength? Or was he just bluffing?

But Ethan couldn’t relax. He spent his first night in prison without sleep. But the beast in the same cage didn’t attack him.

The incident he feared happened the next morning, in the yard surrounded by chain-link fence.

“Hey, new fish.”

A stocky man whose forearms were thicker than Ethan’s head crooked his finger at him. This was the type who’d radiated the aura of this prison’s “king” even on the way to the yard—the one Ethan had been trying to avoid.

“Now that you’re here, you should say hello and go through initiation. What are you staring at?”

The man by the wall was surrounded by his crew. It was obvious what they were planning—forming a human wall to hide him from the guards.

Ethan didn’t move an inch. Even if they eventually overpowered him, his pride—wounded but still alive—wouldn’t let him give up without a fight.

Ethan wrapped the makeshift protection he’d made by tearing up his sheet around his hands and fixed the prison “king” with a venomous stare. Come on, then. Try me.

The man burst out laughing—”look at this pathetic attempt.” His underlings didn’t laugh. Even before the “king” gave the order, they cracked their knuckles and moved toward him. Four large men were already surrounding Ethan.

“Stop!”

His new cellmate, Butcher John, his face pale, ran to the ringleader and shouted:

“This kid is Jack Fairchild’s son!”

The air between the prisoners froze instantly. The thugs threatening Ethan pulled back as if they’d nearly touched a dangerous bomb, adopting submissive postures.

The criminals cowered and avoided him as if he were the son of the Duke of Kentrell. In that moment, an insight struck Ethan—one that would turn his life upside down.

“You. Come here.”

He nodded at the prison “king.” The man—treated like a dog—didn’t even get angry. Instead, he glanced at him warily and crawled over obediently. That brute groveled like a kicked hound.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know—I made a mistake. I’m sorry, ugh!”

The sound of tearing flesh echoed through the frozen yard. The man who’d made a name for himself in fights and kept hardened criminals in fear—after taking a hit from Ethan, didn’t even try to fight back.

So this is the life of the powerful.

Ah, so this was what Harry’s life was like.

“Ha…”

Ethan laughed. A laugh that sounded like sobbing.

Beating someone down with power, and feeling not guilt but release.

Yes, they were right. In the end, I am my father’s son.

Why had I taken the hard path when there was an easy one? What had I been struggling for, running from him all this time? I could have put everyone under my heel, but I chose the life of a worthless worm being trampled.

He was furious at himself for only realizing this after everything had been taken from him. He was furious at the world that had so easily devalued his long struggle.

Kingsbridge expelled Ethan without even waiting for a verdict. His only pride—the one he had built with his own hands—was taken from him overnight.

If I had lived like my father from the start, would it at least hurt less?

On the other hand, he was almost grateful to that stupid “respectable” world for cutting off his path back.

No matter what—born in the gutter, even if you claw your way to the top of the social ladder, you’ll spend your whole life just licking aristocrats’ boots and living as their slave.

But in the criminal world, Ethan Fairchild was born a crown prince.

In prison, his father’s bad reputation protected his body. And his sister’s cry protected his spirit.

“The Sherwoods all deserve to die!”

I have to live. Live to take revenge.

The moment I get out, I’ll grind every last Sherwood into the dirt beneath my feet.

---

After a month of endless training and honing his thirst for revenge, a day came.

“Inmate number one-eight-one-nine. Exit.”

The judge dismissed the case. Lack of evidence.

Ethan was acquitted. Luck doesn’t come to the powerless for nothing.

Stepping out of the prison gates, he saw a road shrouded in thick gray fog. Under the murky light of a streetlamp, two figures leaned against a black sedan. Becky and a stranger in a fedora—whom Ethan recognized.

The man who had existed only as a shadow to him. It was his father.

An expensive suit with a gold watch chain dangling from the vest, a cigar clutched in his gold-ringed hand, bodyguards standing behind him, and the gleaming luxury sedan.

Not a trace remained of the dockworker from his childhood memories—rotting from the wounds of a hard life. The man before him was exquisitely draped in the weight of power.

Ethan felt it. Before this man—who radiated a heavy, sharp authority without a single word—the Duke of Kentrell was nothing but an old boar. Had even the air itself retreated, cowed by Jack Fairchild’s presence? Ethan could barely breathe.

He wasn’t the only one shocked by the transformation of his own flesh and blood.

Ethan—what the hell happened to you in prison?

Becky had planned to run to her brother the moment he came out, hug him, and see for herself that he was all right—but she hesitated, stunned by the bloodlust radiating from him.

Because of that, his father reached Ethan first. He tossed away his cigar and cupped his son’s face with both hands—the boy had become a man.

“Ethan, my son.”

In his eyes—the same as Ethan’s—joy and remorse swirled.

“You look so much like your mother.”

His father hugged the dazed Ethan tightly and patted his back.

“You’ve suffered. Ethan—is there anything you want? Your father can give you anything now.”

He knew. Judging by the fact that his father had won the war of bribing the judge against the Duke of Kentrell, he was a man who could give Ethan anything.

I wonder—can he give me that too?