An indifferent gaze swept over the bound man.

 

The man was begging for his life, dripping with something that could have been tears, snot, or blood. 

 

Unfortunately, his desperate, throat-tearing screams didn’t even reach Theodoro’s ears.

 

‘…Why?’

 

As could be seen from his unfocused pupils, his mind was entirely elsewhere.

 

Why was Liliana pushing him away? 

 

That unanswered question kept dragging Theodoro into a whirlpool of thoughts at the most random moments.

 

‘I’m pretty sure I told her last time. To do whatever her heart wants.’

 

There was only one reason he had been able to say those words with confidence. 

 

Because he had vaguely sensed that Liliana’s heart was leaning toward him. Because he believed that if she followed her heart, she would eventually come to him.

 

But for some reason, she showed no sign of closing the distance between them. 

 

No, instead of closing it, she kept stepping backward. It would have been better if she had just stayed still, but she kept trying to pull away.

 

“…Damn it.”

 

Why was she so frantic about not being able to reject him? 

 

Why did she look like the world was collapsing every time he worried about her or took care of her?

 

The endless questions and unresolved frustration fueled his rage, and that anger was directed at the wrong man. 

 

Theodoro’s fist mercilessly slammed into the man’s face.

 

“Ugh…!”

 

The man, who had been kneeling while bound, toppled backward.

 

There wasn’t even a shred of pity in the eyes looking down at him. Theodoro removed his watch and slipped it over his knuckles, then bent at the waist. He threw another merciless punch.

 

Every swing of his arm produced a disturbing crack—the sound of bones breaking. 

 

Yet the punches showed no sign of stopping.

 

Blood splattered. The man’s facial features gradually caved in, losing all shape. Theodoro twisted his face in pain, as if he himself were the one being beaten.

 

Liliana.

 

Is this what you want? Is this what you hoped for? Are you satisfied now?

 

If I do this, will you be able to cleanly cut ties with me like you wanted?

 

He continued the act for a long time, only stopping once the man’s facial bones were completely crushed.

 

Theodoro roughly swept back his hair with a hand soaked in blood. On his now-exposed face lingered deep exhaustion and emptiness.

 

“Haa…”

 

How long had it been since he personally beat someone like this?

 

These days, he rarely handled this kind of dirty work himself. Unlike the old days, he now had countless subordinates, and simply giving orders or watching was enough.

 

“Are your hands okay?”

 

“…”

 

“You didn’t have to go this far.”

 

Theodoro responded to Paul’s reproach with silence, but deep down, he strongly agreed. He should have felt at least a little relief after doing the troublesome work himself, but his mood hadn’t improved at all. 

 

If anything, he only felt dirtier than before.

 

He twisted his lips, clicked his tongue once, and tossed the watch he had worn on his fist to Paul.

 

“…Just get rid of this.”

 

A sigh and grumbling followed, but, like before, it failed to catch Theodoro’s attention at all.

 

Wiping the blood off his hands with a handkerchief was also a purely mechanical motion. His mind had once again sunk into the swamp of thoughts.

 

Theodoro couldn’t understand why he was so angry.

 

He couldn’t understand why he was reacting so sensitively either. 

 

What was the point of searching for the reason Liliana was distancing herself from him? 

 

Whatever the reason, if she really didn’t want him, he could just say “Fine, then. Take care.” and turn away.

 

It wasn’t like this was his first time with women… 

 

Hadn’t he handled things that way in the past?

 

His brother would point out women who might be useful to the organization and tell him to meet them. Since they were useful for expanding his network, he would keep them around and treat them decently. 

 

But that was it.

 

He didn’t particularly care if they had other lovers or slept around. Even if they left him, saying they were scared after seeing him pull out a gun, he never stopped them.

 

As long as they didn’t cause him any trouble, what they did didn’t matter much.

 

But why…?

 

Why couldn’t he act as indifferently now as he had back then, when he never tried to stop those who wanted to leave?

 

Why did he want to forcibly drag Liliana’s elusive heart right in front of him?

 

“…Sir?”

 

“…”

 

“Theodoro, sir?”

 

“Ah.”

 

“How should we handle this? He’s stopped breathing.”

 

The businesslike voice slipped through the gaps in his distracted thoughts, and light returned to Theodoro’s eyes. 

 

He looked around briefly, then rubbed his face in a tired gesture.

 

“Whew…”

 

“What should we do?”

 

“…Wrap the corpse nicely and dump it in front of Gasparo Corella’s house. Or… put it in that bastard’s car trunk as a gift.”

 

“Hmm, then—”

 

“Ah, no. The second option is better.”

 

“Understood.”

 

Paul answered immediately and signaled to the nearby subordinates with his eyes, passing on the instructions.

 

With the sound of their busy movements behind them, Paul and Theodoro quietly gazed at the sea beyond the harbor. Several layers of blue waves rolled dreamily.

 

In front of a scenery that clashed completely with the murder scene, their conversation continued.

 

“I don’t understand their intention. We couldn’t just sit still either, so we took action… but isn’t this just asking for a dogfight?”

 

“A dogfight, huh. Maybe it is…”

 

Theodoro trailed off and took out a cigarette.

 

In the past few days, the people he and Liliana had carefully persuaded had begun dying one by one at the hands of Gasparo’s hit team. 

 

They couldn’t just take it lying down, so they were repaying the favor by sending a corpse, just like the one they had sent to the Lord moments ago…. 

 

If this wasn’t a dogfight, what was?

 

Paul shook his head with a worried expression.

 

“I don’t understand the purpose…. Are they trying to wipe out one side completely until the other surrenders, or what?”

 

“…”

 

“What do you think?”

 

“…Who knows.”

 

At the half-hearted reply, Paul’s eyebrows shot up.

 

He glanced sideways, but Theodoro was staring blankly ahead like a man possessed. He didn’t even seem to care that the cigarette between his fingers was burning down.

 

“Um… Are you listening?”

 

“…”

 

“Theodoro, sir? What’s wrong?”

 

When even this received no answer, and Paul closed his eyes tightly in frustration…

 

“What kind of flower is that?”

 

“…Excuse me?”

 

Could anything be more out of place? 

 

Out of nowhere, he was asking the name of a flower. And in the middle of discussing Gasparo and Luciano, no less.

 

Paul scrunched his face as if he had heard something absurd and followed Theodoro’s gaze.

 

Had he been looking at that flower the whole time? His eyes were fixed on the small yellow flowers blooming in a patch of grass near the dock.

 

Paul narrowed his eyes, assessing the flower, and answered curtly.

 

“Looks like daffodils.”

 

“Daffodils?”

 

“It’s almost May, so they should be done blooming, but those are still there.”

 

“Daffodils… huh.”

 

It was truly sudden, but the moment Theodoro found the answer to his earlier question was right then.

 

He felt uncontrollable rage because Liliana kept rejecting him. 

 

Why couldn’t he endure this situation to the point that he sometimes wanted to snap her neck?

 

The answer came completely out of nowhere… yet naturally.

 

They hadn’t even been talking about Liliana. Not a single word that could have reminded him of her had been mentioned in the conversation with Paul.

 

Yet the moment his eyes caught the daffodil, that bright yellow flower, he was seized by the illusion that Liliana, who wasn’t even there, was standing with her back to him.

 

He pictured her brilliant golden hair fluttering in the gentle breeze.

 

He imagined her soft, subtle scent carried by the wind, brushing against the tip of his nose.

 

He saw the glimpse of her pale white nape whenever her hair swayed, and the soft touch of that skin lingered at his fingertips.

 

When he closed his eyes, those sensations became even clearer.

 

It felt like he could reach out and touch her,

 

Her hair draped over her shoulders would flutter brilliantly, and then… she would turn around and look up at him with those unusually large eyes.

 

Theodoro opened his eyes again and groped at the empty air where nothing actually was.

 

“Ah…”

 

Only then did he realize it.

 

He had reached the point where he could feel her presence even in a mere blade of grass blooming by the water’s edge, meaning she had already filled his entire world.

 

In other words, he was in love with her.

 

And because he loved her, he couldn’t control the anger he felt.

 

💫

 

That day was truly a fateful one.

 

He couldn’t bring himself to break the stem, so he dug up the daffodil bulb with his bare hands, disregarding dignity, and brought it back in the car.

 

He stopped by a flower shop in the city, transferred the dirt-covered daffodil into a pot, and personally carried the large pot to his office.

 

He wondered if it was too plain as a birthday gift, but he still planned to give it to her, along with the somewhat embarrassing words that seeing the flower had made him think of her.

 

“Sorry for the late hour, Theodoro, sir. Something urgent came up that I had to report immediately.”

 

It was 11 p.m., after a busy day, and he was waiting for her to stop by the office as planned.

 

Paul, who should have already left work, knocked on the office door and arrived before her.

 

If he had sent Paul away that day, perhaps, just for that one day, he could have been happily drunk on the love he had only just realized.

 

“Julian Arke. The background check came back saying no such person exists.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Exactly what it says—no such real person exists. The data came from the police department, so it shouldn’t be false information.”

 

“…”

 

“It took a while because we ran additional background checks…”

 

“…Get to the conclusion.”

 

“His real name is Wayne Boyd. He belongs to the Federal Bureau of Investigation…”

 

That day was truly a fateful one.