Try Begging Novel - Chapter 32

“Allow me to formally introduce myself. I am Leon Winston, Captain of the Domestic Intelligence Department of the Western Command, and the son of the man your mother, that demon, cruelly tortured to death.”

“…”

“Ah, is that old news to you?”

Leon looked down at the woman’s wildly heaving chest, a sneer twisting his lips. “Miss Riddle, I’ve always wanted to meet you.”

His gentle voice, like one greeting a benefactor, clashed jarringly with his eyes, which glared at an enemy. The hot, furious breaths warming her ear tightened her throat even further.

“But to think…”

Winston pressed his lower body tightly against her. Something thicker than a gun muzzle pressed into Grace’s lower back.

“…you were within such easy reach.”

He ran the gun muzzle down the buttocks of the maid he had trusted—no, the cunning spy—through her skirt.

“You know what? Every time I saw you, I wanted to shove my pistol into your narrow crotch and stir it around.”

The woman trembled as the gun muzzle rubbed against her flesh, as if caressing it through her skirt.

“But I held back, unable to torment a good girl. Now, I don’t have to hold back anymore. Thank you, Sally.”

What he had thought was a cunning fox was, in fact…

“No, Grace.”

…a sly rat.

Leon gripped the woman’s neck even tighter as she began to twist her body, gritting his teeth. “Don’t even think about denying it.”

“Hmph…”

“Fred Smith. No, Fred Wilkins.”

Grace squeezed her eyes shut as his prediction proved true.

“That bastard spilled your name before I even laid a hand on him.”

Just one more day. Just one more day, and it would have been over. A cold sneer poured into Grace’s ear as she gasped.

“I almost pity Miss Riddle, having such a cowardly comrade, devoid of loyalty or courage.”

“Ugh…”

Winston abruptly twisted Grace’s chin. In her shaking vision, blurred by the shock of her neck twisting, she saw the coldest flames burning.

“According to him, Miss Riddle was responsible for spiriting Blanchard’s rats away from me. Is that right?”

Leon looked down at her teal eyes, wet with tears and terror, and smiled chillingly. “I will personally give you the opportunity to fulfill your final mission.”

As the shriek of the heavy iron door faded, a faint sob could be heard. When the lights came on, the source of the sobbing became clear.

“Hello, Fred.”

Winston casually greeted Fred, who was bound hand and foot to one wall, then roughly shoved Grace inside.

Fred was merely tied, otherwise unharmed. Winston’s words that Fred had revealed Grace’s identity without being touched were true. Relief mingled with a surge of anger.

“H-hic… Please, s-save me…”

The moment the lights came on, Fred gasped and lifted his head, then began to plead with Winston, pale with fear. Then, his gaze fell upon Grace, and he burst into tears.

“Hmph… Grace…”

“Don’t say my name.”

Hatred poured unhindered from Grace’s clenched teeth. “You don’t deserve to.”

“I-I’m sorry. H-hic…”

“Grace.”

Winston, who had been watching the two with amusement, mimicked Fred, calling her name. His tone was full of mockery.

A thick arm encircled Grace’s waist as she stood facing Fred. Winston, holding her forcibly from behind, asked tenderly, “Do I deserve to?”

The pulse thrumming against her back was violent. She could feel, clearly, that despite his outward composure, this man was far from calm inside.

“No, I suppose not.”

As their bodies pressed closer, goosebumps rose on her skin. But Grace, bound by Winston’s wall-like body like Fred was bound to the wall, could not resist.

“I once had a thought while looking at the maid, Sally Bristol. Why did it feel like I was forcing ill-fitting puzzle pieces together every time I tried to define justice?”

Grace’s heart sank at the implication that he had already sensed something amiss about her. His animalistic intuition was already infamous. That’s why she had opposed the infiltration mission into the Winston household, only to be accused of cowardice.

“Normally, my intuition would have told me. This woman is…”

“Hmph…”

“…a spy.”

Grace flinched as her earlobe was suddenly bitten.

“But why did my intuition blur in front of Miss Riddle?”

It’s because you were blinded by lust. Even now, enraged by the spy, his body was aroused in another sense.

“Am I an idiot, or are you a genius?”

A soft chuckle was followed by the sharp scrape of metal against soft leather. Soon, Winston’s military dagger glinted before her eyes.

“Thanks to you, I’m about to become the laughingstock of the entire kingdom. My mission is to capture and interrogate spies, but there was a spy right under my nose. And a fool at that.”

The sharply honed blade pointed at Fred, who was trembling, bound to the wall, then…

“…and a woman.”

…it pricked Grace’s neck. A sharp pain arose as the pointed tip lightly pierced her delicate skin.

“Ugh, stop…”

Trying to avoid it, she twisted in Winston’s embrace. When Grace’s buttocks inadvertently rubbed against his greatly aroused lower body, Winston withdrew the sword and let out a languid sigh.

“Miss Riddle, isn’t this an insult to you as well as to me?”

Grace neither affirmed nor denied. She only watched with trembling eyes as the sword cut through the air between Fred and herself, like a bomb that could drop anywhere.

“The last heir of a notorious gangster family, no less… To be paired with such a novice is a grave insult.”

“I-I’m sorry…”

Throughout Winston’s threats, Fred had only sobbed indistinct words, and now he offered another useless apology.

Grace suppressed the urge to slap Fred with all her might.

I was against this from the start.

As if he understood her unspoken words, Fred weakly dropped his head.

Fred was not suited for espionage. Jimmy knew that too. However, the pressure from Fred’s father, who wanted his only son to achieve great merit, was immense, despite his son’s timid nature.

Jimmy, who had only recently taken over as commander-in-chief after his father’s death, had no choice but to be mindful of the elders.

“Don’t worry, he’ll fail.”

Jimmy, ironically, hoped the enemy army would resolve this awkward situation for him. In other words, he expected Fred to fail recruit training.

But how flustered he had been when Fred passed recruit training.

And how absurd it had been when Fred was assigned to the torture chamber, thanks to his father’s trick of writing “butcher” as his profession on the enlistment application.

She had told him to quit a job that didn’t suit him, even now, but Fred was as stubborn as his father. He insisted he could do it, even while vomiting.

Still, she had trusted him, thinking he was slowly adapting…

Leon looked down at the small, trembling fists, then whispered cruel words into Grace’s ear.

“Miss Riddle, surely you weren’t forgetting your duty and planning to leave the mansion, leaving your comrade in the torture chamber? I’ve told you repeatedly: I do my job, and you do yours.”

Winston’s job was to torture spies; Grace’s job was to thwart him.

“…Are you telling me to do my job here, now?”

When she asked in a trembling voice, Winston nodded boldly from behind her.

“That’s right, Miss Riddle. Your final mission is to get Fred away from me.”

The moment Leon spoke such an absurd thing, hope flickered in Fred’s eyes, and a question in Grace’s.

“Why? Do you want to kill that bastard?”

Indeed, I would too… He muttered and chuckled.

“If you want to kill him, you can refuse your mission. Oh, of course, I don’t care what disciplinary action your commander-in-chief will take for your insubordination. For now, I’ll carve it very clearly on Fred’s corpse to make the facts easy to confirm.”

In front of the increasingly pale Fred, Winston wrote words with the tip of his sword.

“Died at the instigation of Miss Grace Riddle.”

In other words, if she refused the ‘final mission’ Winston was forcing upon her, it was a threat to make Grace a murderer.

So this was his true intention all along.

The reason he was so insistent on saving Fred, even resorting to such a base threat, was obvious. He wanted to demand a price from Grace, one she wouldn’t want to pay, in exchange for Fred’s life.

“So, where should I send his corpse and the condolence money?”

He meant for her to reveal the location of their base. Enraged and aroused. Despite being in a highly personal and emotional state, this man did not forget his reason or his official duties. Such enemies were always more terrifying.

She would never reveal the location of the base. Knowing she was playing into his hands, Grace couldn’t help but ask, “What price do you want to let him go?”

“Quite clever. But why ask a question you already know the answer to? That’s foolish.”

In the end, Grace’s only choices were death or a disgusting bargain.

Grace squeezed her eyes shut. Reading her resignation, Leon buried his lips in her pale neck, where a thin line of red blood now flowed.