Try Begging Novel - Chapter 80

Disgusting. Disgusting.

Grace muttered, standing under the pouring water.

“Ugh…”

Her face twisted even more as soon as she removed the finger she had been stirring between her legs. White, sticky fluid still came out.

“Don’t feel pleasure without my permission.”

Winston, leaning against the wall opposite the bathroom, where Grace’s naked body was perfectly visible during her shower, sneered. Grace glared at the man who briefly averted his sticky gaze to put on his wristwatch. She felt disgusted that his semen remained inside her body.

As soon as she put her hand back inside her vagina to scrape it out, she again let out a moan. The sensation of the hard rubber cap against her fingertips was unpleasant. Having to wear this for at least six more hours was beyond unpleasant—it was horrific. It was two in the morning, so she wouldn’t be able to remove it until she woke up, and Winston would surely put it back in soon after she took it out. After living this life for a few days, she truly felt like his exclusive whore.

Well, can I even say I’m not anymore?

She gave up on scraping out the semen. She picked up a sponge to soap her body when she heard footsteps behind her. They were receding footsteps. She turned around to see that Winston was gone, leaving only cigar smoke behind.

What awaited Grace, as she emerged wrapped in a towel, was not an empty room, but Winston sitting on the edge of the bed, reading a magazine.

“Put them on.”

She didn’t need to ask what he meant. He had left the shackles in the middle of the new sheet, perfectly visible. She had hoped he’d forgotten to put them on, but he was still here.

“Stockings.”

She heard the command the moment she took a step towards the bed. Grace changed direction and headed for the dresser by the door.

This door, I didn’t lock it.

Isn’t this a good chance to run out, now that I’m not shackled?

But I wouldn’t even make it to the bars before being caught.

He’s a man who hasn’t taken his eyes off me for a single moment.

Her mind was noisy as she sat on the chair and put on her stockings. Grace, dressed in the uniform of Leon Winston’s exclusive whore—a uniform she wore more often than she took off—sat on the headboard of the bed, far from him. As she began to put the shackles on her ankles, Winston’s gaze returned to the magazine. It was the magazine Grace had been reading before he came in.

[Leon Winston is an idiot.]

What kind of face would he make when he discovered the hidden message? He’d probably just return her mockery with his usual twisted smile. What she anticipated was not such an obvious outcome, but the process. The process from the moment he found the first letter to finding the last.

He’ll probably get nervous, thinking I’m trying to send a code to Jimmy again.

She wanted to stand on top of the man who trampled her, just once. Could it be a small revenge?

She was thinking it was too small, too insignificant, when the hand carelessly turning the pages stopped. Winston’s gaze was fixed on a corner of the magazine.

‘He found it.’

Grace quietly observed the man’s expression. His face hardened, then slowly drained of color. After a page or two more were turned, his face suddenly flushed. It was a raw reaction rarely seen from Winston.

‘Now you know how it feels.’

She had been played by him every day, and now, for the first time, she had timidly repaid him. The insignificant sense of superiority tasted like the cheap chocolate she had bought with pocket money saved from childhood chores.

But the moment Winston lifted his head, the cheap sweetness turned bitter. Grace was flustered. He wasn’t a man to be seriously affected by such a childish provocation, yet his eyes burned with rage.

‘Yes, I’m an idiot.’

Leon finally realized.

[Jimmy, my heart is always with you.]

It was a message from her to him, not her fiancé. She had tested him. Trapped in his grasp, yet fearless. It was a declaration that she would never love him. Fearlessly. And he, truly an idiot as her words implied, had fallen for the test instantly, revealing his true feelings. That his feelings for Grace Lee were not just hatred.

It felt like a shameful secret, hidden deep in a closet, had been exposed. Winston had no conscience. Therefore, he had no shame. But why, in front of this woman, did he repeatedly get caught up in such unfamiliar emotions? The sense of powerlessness he felt for the first time in his life, she had given him in his childhood. He hated himself for turning into that naive boy from back then whenever he stood before her.

Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.

Leon finally understood the meaning of that verse. It was a stern warning from his past self to his future self. He silently screamed the words trapped inside him, with only his eyes, at the woman who blinked her large eyes, feigning innocence.

Yes, damn it. I still like you.

And you’ll still try to shatter my heart. Because even now, you mock me as an idiot, floundering after a woman who doesn’t even like me, three times over.

Do you still love that bastard?

No, what does that have to do with me?

Even if you love me someday, will our relationship change?

At the bottom of this relationship, hatred, more putrid than the dregs at the bottom of a sewer, has accumulated.

Even if love were to sprout in that sewer of hatred, it would wither and die, unable to withstand the poison.

So don’t dig it up. Don’t provoke it.

“You find me amusing, don’t you?”

Leon, who had barely regained his composure, asked in a cold voice with a bitter smile.

“I’ve imagined killing you so much I’m sick of it.”

Because I’m afraid you’ll trample my heart and tear me to shreds, leaving me battered and bruised.

“Only imagined it.”

The man, who had been speaking through gritted teeth as if he wanted to chew her to death, suddenly spoke in a powerless voice and laughed. It was a self-deprecating smile.

“Yes, I find myself amusing too.”

Winston put down the magazine and stood up. Seeing his back as he headed for the door, Grace was suddenly afraid.

‘He might not come back.’

Grace rushed and grabbed him.

“Master, Bella was wrong.”

She blocked the man who was about to open the door and clung to him.

“Master, please don’t go.”

If he left now, he wouldn’t come back. Neither for meals nor for conversation. The thought of days spent starving and lonely, trapped in a black prison, made the blood drain from her body.

“Master, please.”

Leon chuckled. This woman, acting like an obedient dog, was trying to manipulate him. Who truly was the master? Perhaps it was her. And perhaps he was the dog that barked loudest when most afraid.

“This act is miserable now.”

Grace stared blankly at the man who shook her off and walked out.

Slam! The door closed.

Always like this.

Grace stared at the closed door with a sense of hopelessness. He had gotten the humiliation he wanted, yet he acted as if he had been humiliated again. She couldn’t understand him.

The dining hall of the Commander’s residence was bustling with officers celebrating the new Commander’s inauguration. The invitation to the party, hosted by Commander George Davenport, had been sent only to key officers of Major rank and above. Leon was the only Captain. This meant the invitation wasn’t sent based solely on rank. Soldiers were also economic beings. Thus, they wanted to build connections, regardless of rank, with the person who held the real economic power in the region.

He hadn’t yet had a chance to greet the Commander who invited him directly. Leon, who had been sipping his whiskey, waiting for his turn, soon grew bored.

“It’s sickening.”

There was one more person already thinking of leaving. His superior, Lieutenant Colonel Humphrey, gestured towards the cigar room outside the dining hall.

“After being stuck with these dark-suited males all day, I have to look at their dark-suited faces all night too.”

Since it wasn’t a place to bring partners, the dining hall was filled only with men in black uniforms. However, the cigar room, already hazy with smoke, was also a den of dark-suited males.

“I heard you even closed the torture chamber for your mother’s sake, and you’ve been working from home more often. It’s hard to see your face.”

The Lieutenant Colonel muttered, lighting a fine cigar offered by a residence servant. Leon smiled silently and declined the cigar offered by the servant.

“I’m planning to have a separate inauguration celebration party with only our intelligence department officers after we’ve made our introductions. What do you think, your thoughts?”

He was suggesting going to a cabaret. Leon leaned against the wall, checked his wristwatch, and then politely declined.

“My engagement is right around the corner, so I think it’s best if I exercise restraint.”

“You young people are so stiff. Leon, as if you were my son, I’d advise…”

Just as the Lieutenant Colonel patted his shoulder, the new Commander entered the cigar room.

“Commander.”

The officers sitting in the wing chairs throughout the cigar room all stood up at once. Leon also straightened his posture and saluted with a disciplined motion.

The elderly man, who had been greeting the officers with his eyes as he entered the room, stopped when his gaze fell upon Leon. The Commander immediately approached and offered his hand for a handshake.

“Captain Leon Winston, head of Domestic Intelligence.”

“Ah, my guess was right. You’re that famous…”

Commander Davenport began to list the rumors he had heard about Leon one by one. Endless words of high praise followed, but they didn’t reach Leon’s ears at all. His attention was solely focused on the Commander’s eyes.

George Davenport. An elite officer from the Royal Guard, a general trusted by the King. Furthermore, a distant relative of the royal family, a collateral branch. In short, a staunch royalist.

And this man had Grace Lee’s eyes.