Rashak looked down at Renoa and spoke casually.
“There’s no reason I can’t tell you.”
Then he leaned back and swept his gaze around the dress shop.
A playful glint appeared in his golden eyes, but it was different from the look he wore when we were alone.
That look… I had seen it before, when we first met.
It was the same gaze he’d had when ordering a knife to be driven deep into Fidel and torturing an assassin.
“Now, how should I show you so you’ll believe me…?”
Just then, Marian summoned up her courage once more.
“L-Lady Renoa!”
She hurried over, grabbed Renoa’s arm, and pulled her away forcefully.
“Please leave for today! I’m begging you…!”
“What’s gotten into you, Marian? Who is that man, anyway?”
Marian bit her lip anxiously before whispering in a low voice.
“He’s the Barsen Boss…!”
Although she was speaking to Renoa, her eyes remained fixed on Rashak.
Her expression seemed to plead, I’m doing everything I can to get this woman out of here. So please, spare my shop. Please let me live.
“Barsen…”
Only then did understanding dawn on Renoa’s face.
One way or another, Renoa had been living in the capital for almost a year. She must have heard of the Barsen organization.
“Don’t tell me the place where you said you got a job, Sister…”
In a way, I was relieved.
If Renoa finally realized who he was and left now, I could probably smooth things over by saying, As you saw last time, she’s a lunatic.
Marian eagerly nodded along.
Her entire body radiated desperation, as though she were silently begging Renoa to get up and leave already.
But the next moment—
“Pfft!”
At the sudden burst of laughter, one of Rashak’s eyebrows rose. Marian’s complexion, meanwhile, turned even paler.
Regardless of everyone else’s reactions, Renoa continued laughing while clutching her stomach.
As though she’d just heard the funniest story in the world.
“My sister went so far as to get involved in the underworld just to make money? That’s almost moving.”
Ah.
Right.
…So you find this funny.
“You really are something. How does a person even come up with something like that? Are you stupid, or is there just nothing inside your head?”
Marian’s hand slowly slipped away from Renoa’s arm.
It was practically an admission of defeat, a declaration that she could no longer do anything to fix this situation.
Because… Rashak’s smile was growing even wider.
As if to say, Go on. Keep talking.
“Allen. You say something, too. You didn’t know my sister would turn out like this either, did you?”
“……”
“I wasn’t wrong to come up with that fake vase incident, after all. Our sister really doesn’t know a thing about how the world works. Look at her. When you leave her alone, she just gets herself into even more trouble.”
And as though he were watching the next act of a play unfold, Rashak shifted his gaze toward Allen.
Allen was… glaring at me with his fists clenched.
As if I had betrayed him in some terrible way.
His fierce expression seemed to unsettle Renoa.
Allen approached and grabbed my wrist at almost the exact moment Renoa opened her mouth.
“Come with me.”
“A-Allen?”
Naturally, I didn’t move. I didn’t say a word, either.
Why on earth would I follow Allen here and now?
He was the one who had betrayed me first.
“Allen! What are you doing?”
“Renoa, wait outside first. Hiel, you come with me, too. Why are you with a dangerous man like him…!”
“Because I hired Hiel.”
Rashak cut Allen off, the corners of his mouth curling upward.
“Isn’t that right?”
It was an undeniable fact.
Not that I had any desire to deny it.
I roughly shook Allen’s hand off my wrist.
“Let go, Allen.”
“Hiel!”
“Stay out of my affairs. You no longer have the right to interfere.”
A life spent serving Allen and Renoa as their subordinates after they married.
The moment Allen proposed that arrangement to me a few days ago, I let go of every lingering attachment I had to him.
If he felt even the slightest bit of remorse toward me, he couldn’t have made such a proposal.
He should have offered to help me leave the capital and start over somewhere far away.
How could he do something like that to me…?
“Then I’m family, so I can keep interfering, right?”
As I bit the tender flesh inside my lip, stung by the humiliation, Renoa’s shrill voice rang through the room once again.
Having regained her composure, she spoke mockingly.
“Sister Hiel, what exactly do you do there? Smuggling, maybe? Something like that? Like a rat in a filthy sewer!”
“……”
“Do you sneak around stealing things at night, too? It’s the underworld, after all. Isn’t that obvious?”
The firm expression I had barely managed to maintain crumbled, and I stared at Renoa in dismay.
Marian looked as though she wanted to faint on the spot, but Renoa remained triumphant.
All she seemed to care about was restoring her wounded pride after Allen had ignored her and tried to drag me away instead.
But… I could no longer treat this as a mere battle of wills.
Her latest remarks had crossed a line so far that they left absolutely no room for me to intervene.
Just as I expected—
“You’re crossing the line again.”
Rashak looked at Renoa with a gaze that had turned cold.
“I’ve heard quite enough of some ignorant beast’s barking.”
“What? Who do you think you are, saying something like that to—!”
“Fidel.”
His voice was by no means loud.
Yet somehow, Mr. Fidel, who had been waiting outside the shop, understood immediately and stepped inside.
“Yes, Boss.”
“Take that woman away.”
That was the end of his command.
At Fidel’s gesture, other members of the organization, who had apparently been waiting for the moment, strode into the room and seized Renoa by both arms.
“W-What…! What do you think you’re doing?!”
Renoa, who hadn’t budged an inch under Marian’s efforts to remove her, was finally hauled to her feet.
That was when Allen stepped in front of Rashak.
“Boss of Barsen. I apologize on behalf of my companion for her rudeness. However, this goes too far.”
“Too far?”
Rashak bent forward slightly and glared at Allen with a murderous expression.
“You should be grateful I haven’t killed her on the spot. Who do you think you are to lecture me?”
“…Renoa is my fiancée. Even if you are the Barsen Boss, you can’t lay a hand on a noblewoman.”
At that, Rashak straightened up and stepped away from Allen.
Then he gave a short, incredulous laugh.
As though he’d just heard the most ridiculous thing in the world.
The murderous glint in his eyes vanished, too.
At this point, Allen wasn’t even an annoying opponent to Rashak.
He was closer to a clueless, foolish young upstart.
“Well, I suppose the Barsen Boss can’t.”
Rashak looked down at Allen with a sinister smile.
“Then shall I do it as Rashak Berzen instead?”
“…What?”
Renoa’s eyes finally widened.
That’s right. No matter how immature you were, even you should recognize the name Berzen.
“Berzen…”
There were two major factions that dominated the empire’s aristocratic council.
And the Duke of Berzen led one of them.
“That Duke of Berzen happens to be my father.”
“……”
“It’s a secret everyone who matters already knows. I suppose both of you must have crawled up here from some backwater to be so ignorant.”
Allen’s face filled with dismay.
The current Duke of Berzen wielded enough power that even the emperor couldn’t deal with him carelessly.
Renoa had mocked his son. And that son also happened to be the head of the organization controlling the underworld.
Which meant that even if Renoa were disposed of without a trace, no one would dare make an issue of it.
“Go ask your grandfather about me, young master of the count’s family. He’ll tell you all about me in considerable detail.”
“……”
“About who you’re so boldly daring to look in the eye and defy right now.”
Allen could no longer utter another word.
His clenched fists trembled, but there was nothing he could do.
Even Renoa’s struggles and shouting had completely died down.
They were both simply stunned by the realization of what they had done.
Amid the silence, Rashak spoke again.
“Take her away.”
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