As they exchanged silent understandings through the pressure of their intertwined hands, the car pulled up before the company headquarters. The door opened and Kushi was the first to emerge.

The black dog surveyed the perimeter, then gave a short, affirmative wag of his tail, an action that seemed to signal a clear path. Ian stepped out, strode around the vehicle, opened Jina’s door, and took her hand.

Passersby who recognized Ian stopped dead, staring at the scene with disbelief and astonishment.

Sensitive to the sudden focus, Jina quickly withdrew her hand and took a hurried step back. Ian reached to reclaim her, but a secretary rushing from the building intercepted him, handing over a paper bag. Ian glanced inside, then gave the bag to Jina.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Your mobile phone,” he replied. “For now, only my number is saved. I’ll contact you after work. Don’t stray far from the Aylesford building, and keep that with you.”

The urgency in his tone was unmistakable. Moments later, other secretaries and employees poured out, swarming him with updates.

Jina gave Ian, who was now swallowed by the bustle of the crowd, a quick, acknowledging look and walked toward the nearby park, Kushi trotting faithfully beside her.

Her first thought was to check the phone. As Jina searched for a place to sit, she passed the newsstand outside the convenience store.

Her eyes caught the headlines: COUNT CARRINGTON, DECEASED. But it wasn’t the headline that stopped her. It was the photo of the man beneath it and the family crest visible behind him.

Jina had definitely seen that symbol before. Where?

A cold shock coursed through her body. The person who had come for her during the kidnapping, the one who had grabbed her chin and coldly inspected her—that person had worn a ring with that exact crest.

Jina made her way to an empty bench and pulled the phone from her bag. She barely registered the device—the latest, top-of-the-line model—before her focus narrowed to the screen.

She typed the Count’s name into a search portal. Countless photos appeared, but Jina’s attention was fixed not on his face, but on his hands.

She scrolled rapidly until she stopped at an image of the Count giving a lecture. His hand, gripping the microphone, was adorned with a gold ring. The band was simple, but a gold family crest was engraved onto a thin slice of carnelian on the head.

She checked other, larger-scale photos. The more she saw, the more certain she became. Her memory was clouded, likely by the drugs, but it was definitely the ring.

A new search: [Carrington Family].

The first result led to a real estate company sharing the name. She looked up the executives, then searched their names. Famous industry figures, they all had articles and photos.

Her expression tightened as she examined their hands. They, too, wore similar rings. But none wore the red stone ring she recalled.

Then… was the man who came that day really Count Carrington? Why?

The only Carrington she had a connection to was Jeremy. A name that still left a vile taste in her mouth from the hotel incident.

She had always believed he’d targeted her with the drug accusation, but had the Count been involved, too?

Pushing aside the horrifying possibilities, Jina searched for Jeremy’s recent activities.

“Huh?”

The search result stated he had suddenly collapsed at a banquet, barely regaining consciousness but suffering permanent disabilities and a significantly reduced intellectual capacity. The article’s date was old.

Then Jeremy wouldn’t have told them about me.

If not, then the kidnapping group had acted belatedly on an old score, perhaps based on an excuse Jeremy had made before his collapse. But that felt unlikely.

If the Count had given the order, it would contradict Ian’s description of the rescue. She pondered for a long time, but no clear answer surfaced.

It could just be a delusion. Her memory of the ring was hazy, perhaps a false recollection she was forcing to fit. Where else could she have seen that crest to trigger such a desperate connection?

Jina clutched her throbbing head. A soft, sympathetic whimper escaped Kushi, who had been quietly guarding her side. Jina offered the well-behaved dog a wry smile.

I guess I thought of you as a monster back then, too.

She clearly hadn’t been thinking straight.

Ian seemed reluctant to discuss it further. He had said he’d sought help from those who worked in the shadows.

Dealing with people involved in illicit activities, his reluctance to elaborate was understandable.

Jina stayed on the bench, skimming a few more articles on the Carringtons. The news cycle was predictable: days after the Count’s death, the papers were more concerned with the distribution of his vast fortune than his passing.

I should just go buy a new SIM card instead of this.

Only Ian’s number was saved on the new phone. She needed a new SIM to receive texts and calls from her contacts.

Jina prepared to stand, but Kushi, who had been a quiet shadow, suddenly rose and let out a low growl.

“Kushi, what is it?”

Turning to see what had agitated him, Jina saw a woman standing with her arms crossed, staring directly at her. The woman glared at the dog and took a step forward.

Grrrrr.

The initial warning intensified into a guttural, aggressive sound, ready to snap, and the woman flinched back.

“Kushi, quiet.” Jina quickly restrained the dog, regretting that she hadn’t asked for a leash. She made a mental note to remedy that immediately upon returning to the mansion. She sat the dog down beside her.

“Sit. Don’t move.”

The intelligent dog obeyed, yet its hostility toward the approaching woman was undisguised.

Why the sudden reaction?

At first, she thought it was the woman’s abrupt approach, but Kushi hadn’t reacted like this to the secretaries.

As Jina tried to calm the dog, the woman spoke, her lips curling into a sneer.

“Naming a black dog Kushi. That’s revolting taste.”

“Why? Does the name mean something?”

“What? You didn’t know when you picked it?”

“I didn’t. Someone else did.”

“Surely not Ian?”

Jina turned sharply at the mention of his name. “You know Ian?”

“What? Did Ian actually name him? That’s impossible… Ian hated black dogs. And Kushi, of all names?”

Displeasure tightened in Jina’s gut as the woman spoke with such familiar ownership of Ian’s preferences.

Who is she?

A sudden stranger, hostile, and intimate with Ian’s details.

Jina felt a flicker of recognition in the woman’s face. She’d seen her, but where?

Then it hit her: the image of a woman tearfully addressing a camera, mourning her colleagues, announcing a hiatus, and desperately hoping for a missing person to contact them.

“Camilla Jenkins!” Jina uttered the name that sprang to mind.

Camilla looked momentarily taken aback. “You know me?”

“I saw you in a video. The one about exploring abandoned houses.”

“That’s odd. It wasn’t a huge channel.”

“Well…” After a pause, Jina decided to be blunt. “Kno Diag, the place you went into, is mine.”

She hadn’t wanted to reveal her connection to the place, an event she’d rather forget. But Camilla’s aggressive posture—arms crossed, eyes blazing—left Jina feeling no obligation to be polite.

Kushi’s growling was suddenly justified. Jina found the whole confrontation absurd. Why was she being treated like this by a woman she’d never met?

“So… you’re Jina Troll?”

Jina expected a flash of apology. Instead, Camilla’s eyes narrowed, sweeping over Jina from head to toe.

“Ian’s taste has certainly changed. An Asian fling.”

“……Excuse me?”

“Isn’t it a bit much? Considering how… well-endowed Ian is.”

Jina’s gaze hardened at the overt sexual commentary. Why is she behaving this way? Camilla, a stranger, spoke of Ian and directed blatant hostility at her—the classic confrontation of a woman facing her man’s mistress.

“I have no reason to listen to this….”

“Oh, but you do.” Camilla scoffed. “I was with Ian up until a week ago. Isn’t it only natural to be curious about the new woman?”

Jina stared at her, bewildered. “Weren’t you Colin Parker’s girlfriend?”

The police had explicitly identified her as the missing man’s partner.

Why was Ian’s name in the conversation? And until a week ago?

Camilla noticed Jina’s shock and gave a derisive laugh.

“Are you truly naive? Or are you playing the part?”

Jina offered no response, and Camilla’s eyes grew sharper. “He definitely seems to have changed his preference. He usually favors experienced partners. He gets bored teaching the novices.”

Jina’s face twisted in understanding of the implied insult. She knew Ian had been with many women, but her silence was rooted in the timing Camilla had mentioned.

A week ago?

She had been with him at the Chelsea mansion for the last few days.

A week ago was just days before he came to her rescue.

Was he with this woman then?

The realization hit her like a bucket of ice water in the dead of winter. Her blood went instantly cold.

“What in God’s name…” Jina clamped her mouth shut.

Logically, she had no grounds for anger. She knew Ian’s nature. She had seen dozens of photos of him with a revolving door of women.

He said he liked me, but…

He had never claimed exclusivity.

Flattering words were cheap, easily spoken to entice a partner, and ultimately meaningless to someone like him.

After a moment of rapid internal organization, a dry, hollow laugh escaped her.

I never fully trusted him, did I?

She had never envisioned eternal love. It was enough that he had rescued her when she was at her most terrified.

She’d settled for finding a moment of mutual solace with him. And yet, the shock of hearing another woman had slept with him only a week ago was profound.

I suppose I like Ian more than I thought.

She was pathetic, surprised by an outcome she’d prepared for from the start. Jina looked at Camilla, who was preening in her self-proclaimed triumph. She was simultaneously pathetic and irritating.

“So?”

“……What?”

“So what about it?”

Jina’s utter indifference caught Camilla speechless.

She had pegged Jina as a typical weak woman—in her experience, East Asian women often dissolved upon learning of a partner’s infidelity. She expected the same, but after a momentary flicker of shock, Jina’s eyes were cold.

“Wow, you’re not what you seem, are you? So innocent-looking. You must have sunk your hooks deep into him, then.”

“What you think is irrelevant to me. So, is that all you came to say?”

“What?”

“Do you have anything more to add?”

Camilla bit her lip, clearly thrown by Jina’s defiant cool.

Camilla’s gaze dropped to Jina’s attire. Her narrowed eyes took on a sharp, predatory glint.

Focused on the hostility, she hadn’t noticed Jina’s clothing when she first saw her exit the car.

Now, up close, she saw the reality: every item—the coat, the shirt, the trousers, even the small handbag—was a famous brand. Luxury labels, conspicuously new, yet tailored to fit Jina flawlessly.

Camilla chewed her lip, the taste of blood mixing with her fury. Ian routinely gifted women he favored, but the type and value of the gifts varied wildly.

Camilla had been ecstatic when Ian tossed her a designer wallet—a sign he intended to keep seeing her.

Now, Jina stood before her, wrapped in items far superior and more expensive than anything Camilla had received.

Grind. The sound of her teeth grinding was barely audible beneath her breath.

She got more than I did?

Jina’s composure was nothing less than a dismissal, and Camilla finally snapped. “Hey, what did you have to do to make Ian shower you with all this? How unbelievable were you in bed?”

Anxiety had been gnawing at her. Ian hadn’t contacted her since the Kno Diag incident, making her fear their affair was over.

Ian never kept a single woman for more than six months; his easily bored nature was his limit, even with a celebrity like herself. Camilla wasn’t naive enough to think she was special.

Instead, she had offered him a different kind of stimulation: the thrill of secretly sleeping with his colleague’s girlfriend, Colin Parker’s girlfriend.

During a business meeting, Ian had once nudged her thigh with the tip of his shoe from across the table.

Camilla, feigning innocence, had subtly spread her legs. No one at that table would have suspected the depraved game unfolding beneath their eyes.

Even for Ian, who had seen it all, this was different, and it had sustained their relationship for months.

He enjoyed the thrill.

More than that, he enjoyed the utter foolishness of the man who believed him a colleague. A truly twisted pleasure.

At least I provided some entertainment, she thought, the sour taste of it still in her mouth. But what the hell did this woman give Ian to warrant so much?

Anxiety and hot irritation coiled in her stomach. Camilla gripped Jina’s arm, nails digging in.

She’d planned to bleed Ian dry, take everything she could, and dump him anyway. Even if she hadn’t ended things, he would have ghosted her first. It was always the plan.

But all she’d gotten from Ian was a new wallet, and now Colin, her safety net, her backup plan, was gone, too.

She had to get more from Ian. She absolutely had to.

I thought I’d finally caught a break after getting him back on the line, and now I have this hanger-on clinging to me?

Staring at what Jina was wearing—clothes that should have been hers, bought with money that should have been hers—Camilla felt a wave of crushing envy, a feeling of being robbed. And behind it, a crushing sense of misery.

If only Colin was still here.

Then she wouldn’t have to chase Ian, hanging on every potential call like a desperate dog. She could have been comfortable, pretending to love Colin for the money he supplied.

The torrent of rising emotions flooded her mind, drowning out all reason. A dangerous, jagged shard of thought tore free and spilled from Camilla’s mouth before she could even process the words herself.

“Hey! If Colin hadn’t died down there, I wouldn’t be in this situation…!”

Woof!

Kushi, who had been watching silently, suddenly let out a deafening, chest-shaking bark at Jina’s command.

The sound bounced off the polished glass and steel of the surrounding buildings, echoing like a gunshot.

“Huh…?”

Camilla, hand raised to shake Jina, froze. Her face was a mask of panic as she darted a flustered look around, suddenly registering the words that had just escaped her.

Jina was equally stunned.

“Died? What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You just said with your own mouth that Mr. Parker died! That he died down there…”

Camilla’s features twisted into a grimace of denial.

“What? When did I say that? Why would Colin die? He ran away from us… Wait. What. Then the person who came down that day… Huh? What?”

Camilla pressed her palm against her forehead, her face a mask of utter confusion, and stumbled backward as if hit by a sudden wave of dizziness.

Kushi let out a low, guttural growl, a sound that vibrated with threat.

It was clear Kushi would have lunged if Jina hadn’t held the massive dog back with both hands.

“Hey! What’s going on over there!”

The security guards, already on alert and keeping a close watch on the woman Ian had arrived with, immediately moved in.

The shift in atmosphere had been enough, but Kushi’s loud bark eliminated any reason for further hesitation.

They swiftly stepped between Jina and Camilla, physically separating the women.

It was obvious they were protecting Jina and treating Camilla as a potential threat.

“Is something wrong, ma’am?”

As the guards swarmed, drawing curious stares from passersby, Camilla shot Jina a venomous glare, then spun on her heel and fled.

“Wait! Tell me more about Mr. Parker…!”

Jina called after her, but Camilla didn’t break stride, melting into the passing crowd and vanishing.

Unable to pursue, Jina stood motionless, staring at the spot where Camilla had disappeared.

In the video, Mr. Parker had explicitly said he ran away from them.

But just now, Camilla had claimed he died. And she had clearly panicked the second the words were out.

At that moment, a forgotten, unsettling memory resurfaced. The desperate request William had made the day he killed himself.

He’d said Colin went down into the mansion… and died there.

Could it be true?

Was Camilla telling the truth?

Jina’s gaze remained fixed on the empty space where Camilla had been.

Kushi waited beside her, watching Jina in quiet silence.

Ian had cut off contact for days, holing up at the Aylesford mansion, and now his work had piled up into a mountain.

Only a few months ago, Ian had been irrelevant to Aylesford’s important matters. He was too busy living a life of self-absorbed debauchery, utterly indifferent to company affairs.

Now, everyone waited for him. The moment Ian stepped into the conference room, every executive at the table stood in unison.

This, too, was a stark change. Previously, his presence in the conference room was barely acknowledged.

When the chairman had coerced him into attending, the executives used to offer fake smiles and say, “Just slip away. We’ll handle the rest.”

Ian, a foolish heir who didn’t realize that his perceived idiocy was slowly costing them their positions, would smile back naively and leave them to it. As soon as the door closed behind him, a deeper, predatory smile would spread across their faces.

The chairman was healthy, but he was still a mortal man, and the time would inevitably come when he would have to step down due to age.

Until then, Ian had been diligently wasting his life in debauchery. And Aylesford would be theirs to carve up.

…Or so they had thought.

Ian took the head seat, and the executives who had risen now settled back into their chairs, visibly tense.

These were men who commanded considerable respect outside the company. Unless they held a position directly under the chairman, they would never stand to greet anyone first.

But since Ian’s metamorphosis, they had unconsciously begun treating him as the Chairman’s equal.

The first day it happened, one of the executives had muttered to the others:

“Everyone’s working hard to curry favor with Ian.”

It was a cynical jab, mocking their sudden shift after years of complete disregard for him. The words landed with a heavy sense of collective unease.

Were they truly watching Ian’s mood?

Impossible. They wouldn’t openly mock him, of course, but they certainly had no intention of bowing down to someone so young and, until recently, so incompetent.

Yet, before they knew what they were doing, they were scrutinizing Ian’s every movement so closely it was getting difficult to breathe in his presence.

They knew it was absurd, but the dynamic was the same at the next meeting.

When Ian spoke, they found themselves nodding with an eager, strained difficulty, desperate to agree.

Of course, Ian was no longer the fool they remembered. He was reviewing documents, proposing new projects, and suggesting strategic directions that often surpassed their own expectations.

Even so…

Gulp.

Someone, oppressed by the sheer force of the atmosphere, swallowed audibly. Ian’s sharp gaze snapped briefly in his direction.

A man who had climbed to this position shouldn’t be faint-hearted, yet he frantically wiped the sweat trickling down his temple and cautiously addressed the table, “I apologize, but I’m not feeling well today. I’d like to leave early.”

Ian gave a curt nod instead of a reply. The other executives watched the man hurry out, their eyes burning with ill-concealed envy.

A few more agenda items followed.

All were related to Aylesford’s core business: the food farms.

“Then, let’s try to schedule a direct inspection in the near future.”

Ian signed the final report on his tablet and snapped the screen shut.

“Let’s conclude today’s meeting. I have another appointment, so I must be going.”

His words confirmed the executives’ suspicion that he was in an unusual hurry.

Since he’d actively taken the reins of Aylesford management, he usually ran these meetings for hours, as if determined to absorb everything from the ground up.

But today, he had only covered the most urgent items and was already on his feet.

“Hoo…”

Ian offered a perfunctory greeting and exited. The air immediately deflated as the executives’ suppressed breaths hissed out into the massive conference room. They exchanged awkward, brittle smiles.

“Well, that was mercifully short.”

“Indeed. I thought we’d be trapped here until midnight, like last time.”

A hollow, nervous laugh broke the silence.

“No, seriously. Even considering the accident… how can a man change so completely?”

“Honestly, I still don’t think this will last. The Chairman will complete the succession within two years; he’s probably just playing the dutiful heir until then.”

“More importantly, why the rush today?”

“And Burnett, who bailed out early. He was fine before the meeting started, so why did he suddenly look like he’d seen a ghost?”

The executive who had been sitting next to Burnett clicked his tongue, annoyance coloring his face.

“Has that old man finally lost it? Did you hear him muttering about a dog barking in the middle of a strategic planning meeting?”

“A dog? Even if one was outside, the sound wouldn’t penetrate this room.”

“He muttered something about a black dog, and after that, he just completely checked out.”

“Burnett has been acting strange lately, hasn’t he?”

“He hasn’t looked well in months. Since when? Since Ian actually started showing up?”

“He’s always been ambitious. He tried to push Ian out completely, but it seems he’s struggling to adjust to the new reality, so his mind must be spiraling.”

Just then, a secretary from the head office entered the room, offered a nervous greeting, and stammered:

“Um… Mr. Burnett said he was resigning and just left. Was there… a particular reason?”

“Resign? What in God’s name are you talking about?”

The executives exchanged shocked glances.

It hadn’t even been thirty minutes since he’d walked out.

Resign so suddenly? Especially him, the most relentlessly ambitious man in the room.

“We don’t understand the reason either. He said he’d handle the paperwork through his secretary… and according to her, he’s leaving the country immediately via Heathrow.”

“Ha, incredible. No, seriously. What was the reason for his sudden resignation? Was it his health?”

The employee looked even more troubled before replying:

“Well… he just said that the black dog had cried twice already, and then he left.”

Ian hurried downstairs, his pace quick and purposeful.

It cried twice.

He thought of Kushi, the beast he’d left with Jina.

He hadn’t assigned Jina a separate security detail for a reason: he’d assigned her Kushi instead.

One dog was worth more than a hundred guards.

Before the meeting, Ian had given Kushi a very specific command: Monitor everything around Jina. Protect her.

Count Carrington was dead, which eliminated the major threat, but Ian still had a gnawing, fundamental concern. He worried about what else might try to approach her.

As expected, while he’d been trapped in the conference room, Kushi had sounded the alarm twice.

From that moment, Ian’s chest had been a cage of anxiety. Who the hell had approached Jina?

He reached the first floor and immediately scanned for Jina. He didn’t have to look far. She was standing right there, surrounded by guards, with Kushi at her side.

“Jina.”

He moved toward her at once. The meeting hadn’t been long, but the time apart felt like an eternity he’d been trapped inside.

As he got closer, he could catch her unique, sweet fragrance, layered over his own scent which she was still deeply masked in.

Ian smiled, reaching out for her hand.

“When are we going back? I want to go back soon if it gets any later.”

Her voice was cold, nothing like the easy intimacy they’d shared that morning.

“…I’m done. We can leave right now.”

“Understood.”

And that was all she offered.

Ian looked down at Kushi, standing quietly beside her.

Tell me what you saw, he commanded with his eyes. Kushi let out a low whine and moved toward Ian.

The dog nuzzled his massive nose into the hand Ian extended.

Just then, Jina spoke, as if suddenly remembering something.

“Before we go, I want to buy Kushi’s food. And a leash. I’ll go with you, so don’t rush…”

“No, we’ll go together. We can buy the leash first. And I don’t think we need to buy food right away.”

Ian said, his hand stroking Kushi’s massive head.

“Kushi will eat something else tonight.”

Bang!

Camilla slammed the door of her apartment with enough force to shatter the frame.

Her hands trembling violently, she threw the deadbolt.

Click, click.

She engaged every lock installed, even the rusty old bolt she never used, before scrambling into her bedroom and burrowing under the covers.

“What is it… What is this madness…”

Two distinct memories were tearing at her mind, violently clashing.

One memory was certain: At Kno Diag, Colin had turned and run, vanishing after watching their crew fall from the heights to the ground. He had never come back.

That’s what happened. That’s the truth.

But there was another memory, faint and terrifying, struggling to surface.

Colin screaming frantically for the people who had fallen underground, begging them to answer, to say they were visible.

That memory had surfaced before, but she’d dismissed it as a pathetic delusion, a trick of the mind born from her deep-seated sense of betrayal.

But that’s not it. It had to be that way…

The faint memory was hardening into a horrifying clarity.

Colin, speaking those strange, frantic words as if he couldn’t see them.

The man who had descended into the dark ground.

And who had been dragged into the darkness…

Jiiiiing!

“….!”

Her mobile phone, stuffed deep in the tossed-aside bag, vibrated with a loud, insistent buzz.

Still huddled beneath the covers, Camilla tentatively stretched out a hand, fumbling blindly for the bag she’d thrown down. She managed to yank the phone out and immediately retreated back under the flimsy protection of the duvet.

As if the thick blanket could shield her from whatever was outside.

She peered at the name displayed on the screen.

📱[Rob]

A flicker of desperate relief crossed her face.

Rob was one of the team members from Kno Diag. He hadn’t been seriously injured, and Ian’s unusual consideration had landed him a job at Aylesford.

She hadn’t bothered to contact him since her family had finished boasting about her brief success.

“Rob!”

Camilla answered, her voice tight with frantic urgency.

“Can you come over right now? To the house Colin and I shared—I haven’t moved out! Please, just come now, and we can talk about what happened…”

“C-Camilla.”

A voice, trembling as badly as her own, cut through the phone line.

“P-Please look at what I sent you!”

“No, that’s not important! When we went to that damn mansion—”

“Just look!”

Rob’s voice suddenly surged with volume, sharp and terrified, making Camilla flinch under the covers.

Rob was the youngest on the team, barely twenty, fresh out of college and new to the world.

Maybe it was the age gap, but he was painfully shy and deeply introverted.

The Rob Camilla knew spoke in a low voice, sticking to brief, necessary statements.

“Rob?”

She was truly taken aback by his current state of agitation; it was unlike anything she’d ever witnessed from him.

“Ah, sorry for shouting. B-But… you need to confirm this… God, what am I even looking at…”

“Rob? What are you talking about? Explain it clearly.”

Just then, her phone buzzed with the sound of a new notification. The photo Rob had sent had arrived.

What could it possibly be?

Why was Rob so agitated?

She decided to glance at the photo, if only to calm him down enough to talk sense.

Camilla pulled the phone away from her ear just long enough to look at the image Rob had sent.

“……?”

As Camilla stared at the screen, her bewilderment deepened. The photo showed fragments of ancient-looking paper and a notebook—more precisely, sketches and script drawn on them.

“What the hell is this?”

Camilla used her thumb and forefinger to zoom in on the image.

The drawings on the paper snapped into clearer focus.

“This is…”

Given her line of work, collecting and cataloging ghost stories and lore related to ruins, she was intimately familiar with old, esoteric texts.

She had enough knowledge to roughly guess the origin and age of a language just by studying the script’s form.

What Rob had sent resembled ancient script used in the northern regions. But judging by the styling, it looked far more archaic.

But it wasn’t the age that riveted her gaze.

I’ve seen something like this before. Where?

As Camilla fought to drag the memory to the surface, Rob’s voice came through the line, strained and thin.

“Camilla, d-do you remember the story about my g-grandmother?”

Rob’s grandmother?

“Ah.”

It was a vague, distant memory, but she recalled it clearly now.

Among a pool of similarly qualified applicants, they’d hired Rob, despite his lack of experience, not just for the cost-saving advantage of paying him less. There was another, more specific reason.

On the application form, under the section ‘Extra points for unusual personal or surrounding experiences in the occult,’ he had written something truly peculiar, distinct from all the others.

He wrote: My grandmother often says she is a direct descendant of a Dál Riata diviner—yes, from the ancient kingdom in western Scotland. They were like druids, I think? When I was young, I thought it was just a story to tease me, but sometimes her predictions were terrifyingly accurate. The most memorable incident was when she suddenly threw paint all over our car, forcing us to cancel a trip we’d planned. It sounds crazy, but the hotel we had booked burned down that night, completely destroyed.

During the interview, Rob had brought it up cautiously, glancing around the room as if worried they might burst out laughing at the sheer absurdity of his story.

Colin’s lips stretched into a wide, hungry grin when he heard the words. Jackpot.

“Dál Riata! A kingdom with virtually no historical records left. Fourth or fifth century, right? Ancient Gaelic Sphere. God, that’s incredible. You have to tell me more about your grandmother’s stories.”

The other applicants were all interchangeable. Colin had chosen Rob purely because of this single, bizarre detail. He’d gambled that the old woman’s esoteric lore could translate into marketable content—videos, relics, something bankable.

“But…”

“Didn’t you say your grandmother had a stroke?”

He definitely had.

When Colin had tried to press for more details, Rob had told him she’d collapsed from a cerebral infarction. He’d said she was unresponsive, barely reacting to stimuli, simply breathing with open eyes.

“Y-yes, that’s right… A few days ago, she suddenly woke up. Completely coherent, her mind was back, and she—she got up… And then… she killed herself.”

Camilla’s jaw tightened with a fresh wave of irritation. Why was this weeping idiot calling her with unsolicited tragedy? “So what? What does that have to do with anything!” Her voice was sharper than she intended, a jagged cut of pure frustration.

“Th-that’s why I went to collect her belongings with my family. My father handed me her book, and this… this was inside it…” Rob’s voice was barely a sob now. “Camilla. Please. Anything is fine. Look at Ian’s photo right after you look at the photo I sent.”

His voice, choked and frantic, made her want to scream at him to stop being so damn strange.

But the terror in his voice was too real. Why was he acting like this? She pulled up the photo he’d sent again. Looking at the strange, archaic script, the sense of recognition was stronger. She had seen something similar…

That mansion.

The dilapidated place where this all started. The scrawled drawings on the wall—the one Ian had pissed on. Now that she focused, the writing in Rob’s notebook was similar. Horrifyingly similar.

“Camilla, did you… did you see it?”

“Hold on.” Rob’s impatience grated on her nerves. She typed Ian’s name into the search bar. A recent photo popped up—Ian, impeccably dressed, commuting to Aylesford HQ. Camilla bit her lip, rage mixing with unwilling admiration. His outer shell was always flawless, regardless of the garbage inside.

“Yeah, I saw it. So what?”

“Look closer. Right after looking at the photo I sent.”

She was ready to hang up. “Why are you making me do this—Gasp!” The retort died in her throat. Her eyes went wide. The phone slipped from her grip, and she clapped both hands over her mouth, a silent scream caught behind her knuckles.

“Wh-what the hell…”

The photo of Ian shimmered. In the space of a heartbeat, his appearance warped.

“Ah, ah, ah…” Her body was shaking too violently to scream. Her teeth chattered, a frantic, uncontrollable rhythm. A sudden, cold terror, unlike anything she’d ever known, seized her whole body.

“What is this…?”

Where Ian’s face had been, something indescribably black and writhing pulsed. It wasn’t a video, but the thing in the picture was moving.

Camilla lashed out, scrambling to flip the phone over, face down.

“Wh-what is this?” Rob was shouting something from the other end, muffled by the blanket and the turned-over phone.

She gulped a breath, her lungs burning, and picked the phone up again.

It has to be a mistake.

I’m losing my mind. That’s the only explanation.

She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing the power button until the screen went dark. The light vanished. Rob’s terrified voice vanished.

“Hah… Hah…” Huddled beneath the covers, Camilla slowly dragged air back into her lungs.

Get a grip, she commanded herself.

She turned the mobile phone back on. The light calmed her, a flickering return to reality. A message immediately buzzed in.

📱[Rob: You saw it, right? That monster? What do I do? Should we go to the police?]

The police? What would she tell them? Ian looks like a monster?

“They’d just send me straight to a psych ward.”

Her hands were still shaking, but she forced herself to open Rob’s photo again. “Let me check one more time.” It was a hallucination. A prank.

She searched Ian’s name and, deliberately closing her eyes, quickly scrolled down the screen. She tapped a random photo. Slowly, Camilla opened her tightly shut eyes.

“Haa…” She let out a relieved sigh.

The photo was normal. A photo from months ago, maybe summer. Ian was with a woman she recognized from social media, her arm looped intimately through his.

“Why did it look so strange just now?”

Relaxing slightly, she touched her phone again, scrolling to the next image. The moment she did, she threw the phone down with a shriek.

“Ack!”

It tumbled out of the blanket, clattering against the floor.

“Why, why is it happening again…”

The new photo was recent, sharp. And just like the first time, the moment she saw it, something black and shimmering appeared around Ian’s frame. It was indistinct, yet she could sense its shape.

It was utterly non-human. Dark, terrifying, with countless sharp teeth, saliva dripping from its unseen maw.

The sheer, unbearable dread engulfed her. Camilla curled into a fetal position, gasping. Her mind was blank. What in the hell was this? What had Ian become? Was that even Ian?

After trembling for what felt like an hour, Camilla reached her hand out from under the blanket, fumbling on the floor.

“I-I’ll go to the police first…” She didn’t care if they locked her away; if they saw the same thing, they couldn’t call her crazy.

“Where is it?” She felt around the carpet near the bed. Nothing.

Thud.

Her searching hands found something at the same time.

“…”

What is this?

Camilla, who hated clutter, pulled the object grasped in her right hand closer. Rob’s photo was displayed on her mobile screen.

“Then…” What was in her left hand? Something furry…

A low, menacing Grrr vibrated through the floor.

Camilla slowly pulled the blanket away from her face. Directly in front of her, crouched low, a giant black dog with glowing red eyes stared at her, drooling. Its mouth was open, revealing sharp, unnaturally long teeth she hadn’t seen earlier that day.

Woof!

Ian smiled faintly at the distant sound of Kushi’s bark. She’s finished her fun.

The smile died instantly as he turned his head to look at Jina. Confusion replaced it.

Jina was sitting with her back to him, staring out the car window, chin resting on her palm—a posture she’d maintained the entire drive from the office. He’d expected the usual lively chatter she reserved for moments of excitement.

“Jina.”

“Can’t we talk when we get there? I feel carsick right now.”

He’d asked cautiously, only to receive that cold, dismissive reply.

Jina had remained silent after that. The only words she’d uttered were about Kushi. He’d explained Kushi was with the secretary for vaccinations and a leash, and that he couldn’t tell Camilla where the dog was. She’d nodded with an indifferent hmmm, and then the silence returned.

Since Kushi had projected all the sensory memories of the encounter, Ian knew exactly what had been said. Jina had clearly withdrawn after the conversation with Camilla. The content of that conversation was the poison, but it was difficult to isolate the exact issue. Camilla spoke as if they were intimate, and Jina responded with an air of “so what.”

He was hit by complex emotions: anger at Camilla’s lie, disappointment in Jina’s nonchalance. And deep confusion as to why she hadn’t answered his mental question about whether he was good in bed. This complex swirl of human emotion—anger, disappointment, confusion—was a complete novelty for Ian.

By the time they approached the Hampstead Heath mansion, Jina still hadn’t spoken.

“Let me off before we get to the mansion. It’s… awkward to be seen getting out in front of other people.”

“Why…?” His voice cracked, wounded by her obvious reluctance to be associated with him. He had marked Jina, thoroughly, completely. His scent was still thick within her. How could she not know she was his?

“We won’t get good reactions. You don’t want to be the subject of company gossip, and I don’t want to hear whispers while I work.” She rattled off her prepared excuses, the reasons for wanting a separate entrance. She was determined. Seeing he wouldn’t stop, she opened the door and stepped out while the car was stopped at a traffic light.

“Jina…!”

“Go on. I’ll walk slowly and come in.” The door slammed shut with a bang. Considering how silent the car usually was, she had slammed it deliberately hard. He knew now that this violence was her tell when she was truly angry. But the reason for the fury was still a cipher.

Her avoidance continued inside the mansion. Dinner was served, heavily infused with Jina’s scent, yet that was the end of it. Jina vanished. There was no contact.

Returning to his room, his patience evaporated. He sent a text message.

📱[Come to my room.]

After sending it, he sank onto the sofa and dragged his hands over his face—another acquired human gesture of frustration.

He remembered the phone he’d destroyed. He’d ordered a new one for her with only his number, but then he’d found her old one. A message from a man’s name: Long time no talk, meeting up soon in London. The ordinary text had twisted something cold inside him. He’d reviewed her contacts. Too many people. He had blocked them, then deleted them all. Then, he’d deactivated her account and thrown the phone into the nearby pond. Permanently gone.

Only then did he feel a brief measure of relief. But it was temporary. If she buys a new one, she’ll restore the contacts. When that happens… I’ll just throw it away again. Her mobile phone would simply be cursed—stolen or lost with alarming frequency, never to be found.

Jing. His phone rang. He snatched it up.

📱[Why?]

He stared at the short reply. He’d expected I’m coming or Five minutes.

Not just “Why?” He ran through all his observations of human intimacy. They became inseparable after sleeping together. They acted as if no one else existed.

But Jina… she’s acting as if nothing lingers.

He felt like he was losing his mind, consumed by the need to have her near.

He wanted to run to her, disregard the humans in the house, and take her again. The memory of the taste he’d filled his mouth with for days made his jaw ache with pooling saliva.

He recalled how he’d bitten her soft flesh, trying not to be rough, but sometimes, unable to resist his surging hunger, he’d gnawed on her. Her chest was covered in his bite marks.

When she’d cried out, he’d had to stop, only to lick the marks under the pretense of soothing her.

When she slept, he’d gently stroked the bruises, watching them turn a darker red. She’d look sad when she saw them, and he would smile.

Did I bite too much? That was a plausible reason. She’d cried out in pain several times.

If I promise to only kiss, will she come? All she had to do was lie still. He would be doing all the moving. It wouldn’t be difficult for her. But he remembered the stark terror in her eyes every time he positioned himself between her legs.

Lost in the thoughts, he realized he hadn’t replied.

📱[Then I will come to you.]

The reply was immediate.

📱[Are you crazy?]

Ian stared at her reply, pressing a hand to his forehead, then suddenly stood. “Damn it.”

He was done with this ridiculous game. It hadn’t been a full day since he’d held her, and the hunger was killing him.

I should do as I’ve always done.

He recalled his original existence. He did as he pleased. Eat, kill. That was all.

He reached out a hand. Dark energy began to swirl between his fingers. He could simply subdue the minds of the humans in the mansion. Did he even need Aylesford? He could just hide here with Jina forever.

Just as his patience was about to break…

Tap, tap, tap.

Kushi’s claws clicked on the marble floor as he entered the room.

Whine.

Kushi sat before Ian, making a sound similar to a real dog—taking the command to appear as a black dog seriously. The dog’s belly was noticeably distended.

“Ah.”

He’d told the beast to go eat the disgusting female. Kushi looked entirely too satisfied, ignoring Ian’s dark mood. It had eaten well. Kushi’s return was enough to make Ian withdraw his power and refocus.

Jina’s coldness started with Camilla.

“Haa.” With a frustrated sigh, Ian sat back down. He replayed the conversation Kushi had delivered.

He had to find out.

Why was she angry?

The screen’s light flickered in the dark room. Jina set her phone beside the pillow, then, a moment later, snatched it up again. With a frustrated sigh, she tossed it back onto the comforter.

Under the covers, she kept obsessively checking the phone.

Her last exchange with Ian had ended with, “[Are you crazy?]”

He hadn’t replied since.

“Hoo…”

Jina turned off the screen and sighed into the quiet darkness. What in the world am I doing?

She had been so quick to retort to Camilla with a casual, “So what?” but she couldn’t bring herself to say a single sharp word to him.

Well, Ian never promised to be exclusive. If he wants to be with other women, I can’t stop him…

Yet, the mere thought of him touching anyone else sent a tight, cold coil of pain through her chest.

No, even so…!

A fresh wave of emotion crashed over her, and Jina sat bolt upright in bed.

Knock, knock.

“……?”

Someone was rapping on her door. No one ever came to her room at this hour.

A low, familiar voice answered from the hallway.

“It’s a crazy bastard.”

“……!”

She knew immediately. Jina scrambled out of bed, fumbling with the lock.

Ian stood there, arms crossed, a faint, amused smile playing on his lips.

But why “crazy bastard”?

Then she remembered the last text she had sent him: Are you crazy?

Oh, God. He came here because I called him crazy.

Jina reached out and grabbed his large forearm, pulling him swiftly inside. His imposing frame moved with a surprising, fluid ease, following her direction.

She poked her head out, scanning the hallway left and right. Her room was tucked into a quiet corner of the house, meaning fewer servants and staff passed by. Fortunately, the corridor was, as usual, empty. Jina immediately slammed the door shut and faced him, her voice a hushed fury.

“Are you truly insane? What are you doing coming here? What if someone sees you…!”

“What if they do?”

“Are you asking because you genuinely don’t know?”

“I’m asking because I do. What does it matter if other people see? They’ll just assume I came here because I wanted to see you.”

Ian’s confident, utterly careless demeanor gave Jina a blinding headache. It was clear that unless she drew a firm boundary, Ian would simply keep coming.

Before Jina could figure out how to even begin the conversation, he cut in.

“What did Camilla say to you?”

“……!” He had brought up the exact topic she was most desperate to avoid, with zero hesitation.

“Jina. You’ve been avoiding me since that encounter. What on earth did she say to make you act like this?”

“……She didn’t say much.” As he pressed, Jina instinctively took a step back. Ian closed the distance she created, deliberate and inescapable.

“That’s a lie.”

“Why would I lie… Ugh, fine.” Jina stopped arguing, shaking her head with a resigned sigh.

This is a disaster.

She looked like a completely heartbroken fool, wounded by his behavior. She had wanted a simple arrangement born of gratitude and loneliness, but this was becoming indistinguishable from genuine romantic feeling.

Jina crossed her arms, meeting his gaze directly.

“Camilla told me she was sleeping with you up until a week ago. Look, I’m not asking you for exclusivity, but if you’re going to sleep with other women, at least give me a heads-up…”

“That’s a lie.”

He replied before she could even finish her sentence.

“What…?”

“What Camilla told you is a lie.”

Ian ran a hand over his face and sighed. Jina subtly watched his expression. He looked thoughtful, as if weighing an important decision, before he finally spoke.

“To be honest, it is true that I had a past relationship with her.”

Jina tried hard not to let her composure crack, but she winced slightly. It wasn’t because of the admission itself, but because she was surprised he would confess the truth so readily. I thought he would deny it completely. His straightforwardness made her feel awkward and disarmed.

“It’s also true that I met her a week ago. But we didn’t sleep together.”

Is that really true? Sensing the doubt in her eyes, Ian continued.

“The reason I didn’t tell you is… I met her to discuss matters related to Kno Diag.”

At the mention of Kno Diag, Jina instinctively dropped her gaze. The suffocating weight of the debt still remained.

Even the money from the hotel and the advance on her new salary wouldn’t cover the total cost incurred because of that cursed place.

“See. I knew you’d make that face, which is why I didn’t tell you.” Ian’s voice was laced with an unexpected bitterness.

Jina understood his feeling a little. Even though he had helped her, the debt—the leash that kept her bound—was a constant reminder of his power, and that couldn’t feel good to him.

“Among the people who went in, I found Rob a job at an Aylesford subsidiary. He thanked me, and we haven’t spoken since. But Camilla was different.”

Jina listened, walking over to a small table in the corner. She turned to him.

“……Would you like some tea?”

Ian looked at her, and a faint smile touched his lips. He understood. It wasn’t just an offer of tea, but a quiet, tacit permission for him to stay.

“I’ll drink whatever you offer.”

“I only have one kind anyway. I just got it from the kitchen. But it’s the same brand the Chairman drinks, so I’m sure it will suit your taste.”

The Chairman was generous with his provisions. Jina poured the water into the electric kettle. A moment later, a bubbling sound filled the air.

Ian, still standing, spoke to her while she prepared the mugs.

“Camilla claimed she was contacting me to sort out things like channel management, which she was handling with Colin. She wanted me to step in as an investor. It wasn’t entirely untrue, so I had my secretary deal with it. But she kept deliberately creating problems and calling me. So, I decided to meet her directly to resolve the situation without further delay.”

Tap.

Jina placed the tea, perfectly steeped, in front of him.

“I have real porcelain cups… but that’s too much work. We’ll drink out of mugs.”

Ian was used to silver trays and pristine porcelain. But Jina deliberately poured the high-quality tea into a worn, battered mug with a cartoon character from an American comic.

It was a small act of defiance. Let the young master of Aylesford drink his fancy tea from a cheap mug for once.

“As you command.”

He seemed to understand. Ian immediately picked up the mug. Jina let out a small, silent chuckle and took her own. A moment of silence settled, the rich, warm aroma filling the room.

As he sipped, Ian glanced at Jina. She thought her facade was intact, but her entire demeanor had softened significantly since he’d entered.

This was the right answer.

He had agonized over the approach on his way here. He could have denied everything. Or, if that was too complicated, he could have just suppressed her consciousness and erased her memory of meeting Camilla entirely. But he had spent a long time deliberating to choose the best answer—one for Jina, not for himself.

He had chosen the half-truth, half-lie.

It was a tactic he’d learned from dealing with humans. When you lie, they become wary. The funny thing is, they don’t like the complete truth either.

The trick is to combine the two. Use the truth to destroy their initial wariness, then offer them a pleasant lie they want to believe. They trust you for the truth and feel favorably towards you for the lie.

The method was correct. If he had flatly denied meeting Camilla, Jina’s suspicion would have festered.

Conversely, what if he had said he met Camilla and slept with her?

Ian’s gaze fell on the cartoon mug. He certainly wouldn’t have been offered this tea, and he would have been tossed out of the room already.

Ian smiled, finishing the mug. Tea was merely an incomprehensible human indulgence to him, but the tea in this mug, given by Jina, had somehow become water with a “pleasant aroma.”

He felt a sudden flash of absurdity. He had spent his time agonizing over how to gain human “favor.” And even this absurd feeling—this flutter of strangeness—was foreign and intriguing.

He stood up and walked toward Jina. Had she been lying down to sleep? Her clothes were loose and thin, visibly wrinkled.

He reached out toward the foolish prey, who made no move to evade him. His fingertips brushed her cheek, flushed, soft, and warm. At the same time, a sharp pang struck a corner of his chest. It was similar to pain, yet distinctly different.

He slowly lowered his head and whispered to the defenseless prey.

“Jina, I will never see that woman again. And she will never come looking for you.”

This was the truth. Because Camilla had already vanished without a trace in Kushi’s belly. He had no doubt this was the reassurance Jina craved. He watched for the tell: the moment he spoke, the rigid line of her lips softened slightly.

Yet, despite her relaxed expression, she remained silent. She rested her chin on her hand, staring up at him as if observing a fascinating specimen.

“……”

“……”

Silence stretched, thick and charged, under her scrutiny. Ian swallowed dryly, discomforted by the unfamiliar sensation.

This feeling I’m experiencing now is also unfamiliar.

His blood began to race under her gaze, his breath grew short. His muscles tensed, and his body automatically stiffened. This must be… Nervousness?

It was absurd. He, the absolute Predator, the apex being, could never feel this.

But why?

As Ian instinctively straightened his back, Jina let out a soft, breathy laugh.

“You don’t have to.”

“……?”

“What’s wrong? We can still just meet. We’re not anything to each other, are we?”

Ian paused, considering his response. He had scoured Colin’s scant, devoured memories for insight, desperate for the correct human tactic.

He was so desperate for an answer that he almost considered finding another human to tear into.

But he couldn’t back down. Even though he could simply take her life or ravage her body at will, he found it difficult to withdraw.

If he continued like this, Jina would keep asking troublesome questions. Yet, the only reason he didn’t suppress her mind was because she looked at him with such clear, challenging eyes.

No one had ever truly looked at him like this since he was born. This, Jina, was the first.

Ian found all these new feelings interesting. He exhaled slowly, searching for an answer. He settled on the unvarnished truth of his desire.

“If I meet someone else, you’ll do the same, won’t you?”

“……”

“Won’t you?”

“……”

“I don’t like that.”

At Ian’s possessive declaration, Jina, who had been resting her chin on her hand, sat up straight. He saw the corner of her lip—the one that had been stubbornly unchanging—finally lift into a slight smirk.

Jina reached out and covered his hand resting on the table, her fingers intertwining with his. Ian held still, allowing the contact.

Yes. He liked this.

This sweet thing that fearlessly offered itself to him.

Before long, the two were seated side-by-side on the small sofa. Jina cupped Ian’s face with both hands.

As he instinctively leaned closer, wondering if she would kiss him, she tightened her grip, pulling his cheeks into a comical fish-mouth pout. She burst into laughter, clearly amused by his odd expression.

He fidgeted restlessly. Jina patted the cushion next to her: a signal for him to put his legs up.

As he did as instructed, she quickly climbed onto him and leaned forward, bracing herself. Their chests met, her face directly beneath his.

The room was warm despite the winter air, and she wore only thin, loose sleepwear. The soft fabric shirt, unsuited for pajamas, clung perfectly to her curves pressed against his body.

Ian couldn’t tear his gaze away from the intoxicating sight. He repeatedly bit down on his own lip, fighting a furious internal battle.

Seeing his struggle, she deliberately moved her hips against him, tracing the lines of his body.

“Aaah…”

Ian groaned as his lower body responded instantly. His hand, which had been resting on her waist, rose to brush a strand of hair from her cheek. He spoke, his voice thick.

“This is the first time you’ve initiated something like this in this room.”

Jina looked puzzled. He continued, “I’ve done this often in my dreams.”

“Wh-how do you know…!”

She tried to sit up, shocked by his intimate knowledge, but Ian’s hand clamped around her waist, refusing to release her. They writhed together, their lower halves pressed tightly.

“How? What kind of dreams have you been having?” he asked innocently, even as Jina’s face flamed crimson.

Since arriving, her nights had been plagued by embarrassingly explicit dreams. At first, she felt subjugated, but at some point, she found herself desperately clinging to him. The sole purpose of their dream actions was to satisfy him.

Why did I do that?

In her dreams, Jina was always frantic, giving everything she had as if her life depended on it.

She’d done things she never would have imagined—willingly giving herself because he liked it when she licked him, positioning herself perfectly so he could lick her deeper, more comfortably. That’s why she was mimicking the movements now.

“Tell me, Jina. What did you dream about?”

“……” She couldn’t possibly tell him. How could she describe those wet, frantic nights?

“You don’t want to say? Then, should I tell you what I dreamed about?”

Ian’s hand, which had been holding her waist, slid down to cup her rounded buttock. He pulled her body in even tighter, grinding her against his lower half.

“Hh!”

Her sensitive vulva was pressed hard against his already engorged penis and rubbed. Her body stiffened with tension, certain he was about to tear through the fabric and thrust inside.

“Ian. N-no. Today, really…”

Her body was exhausted from Chelsea, and her lower regions were still swollen from holding him almost all day.

She was terrified that if she accepted him again in this state, something would truly tear.

“I won’t put it in.” he suddenly said.

Jina, who’d just been on the verge of relaxing, snapped back to lucidity.

The dreams.

The same exact situation had unfolded night after night in her sleep. In those fantasies, he had always performed every depraved act imaginable, yet stopped short of the final boundary.

She would flinch, staring at the sheer size of him—a massive, engorged length that promised penetration—and he would lean close, promising her not to worry, that he wouldn’t insert it, just like he was doing now.

The trouble was what came next. Instead of plunging inside her, he always demanded other things.

He’d tell her to spread herself. Below, then above. He’d instruct her to lick, and then command her to move on her own, dictating the tempo and the stroke.

To keep him from crossing that final, terrifying line, she had followed every one of his commands without fail.

If she started moving like she had in the dream now…

“Hngh!”

His fingers pressed down on her vulva, and the abrupt sensation made her jump, a sudden squirm of discomfort and arousal.

“It’s wet here.”

As his fingers ground against her secret opening through the thin fabric, a startled gasp broke past Jina’s lips.

“You said you wouldn’t insert!”

“I haven’t inserted.”

His words were technically correct.

He was only fumbling, grinding, and rubbing the friction right there, above the entrance. But he kept probing the slick, tender spot beneath, as if he was daring himself to break the promise at any second.

His fingernails scraped the thin, drenched cloth, and Jina’s legs thrashed. A sharp, stinging thrill instantly shot through her.

“Stop…!”

“Why the fuss? I haven’t inserted yet.”

She tried to force the word stop out, overwhelmed by a maddening tickle that blurred her thoughts, but she was met only with a low, knowing smirk, as if he could feel the frantic confusion inside her head.

Desperate, she scrambled to move, angling her body downward, exactly as she had in her dream.

In the dream, he had loved it when she rubbed his hardness with her breasts. Then, when she took his fully erect cock into her mouth, he would let out a guttural, strangled groan and press her head down, commanding her to swallow deeper.

Yes, that was the move. She had to move like that this time, too…

Jina’s momentum, already heading south, came to an abrupt, screeching halt.

Ian watched Jina’s attempt to follow his implied instructions, taking his time.

The way her body temperature spiked the moment he brought up her dreams was almost cute. He’d visited her every night for weeks to ensure she didn’t forget a single detail, and it seemed the lesson had stuck.

He inhaled deeply.

This room was humble, a far cry from his own lavish apartments. Yet, whenever he came here, Jina always slept with a deep, utterly satisfied expression, as if this were the most comfortable place on earth.

Maybe that was why. Because Jina stayed here.

Now, her distinct, intoxicating scent wasn’t just on her; it had permeated every corner of the room. He had grown to like this place more and more because of it.

The air was thick with her now. Even the low-slung sofa he lay on was drenched in the musk of her skin.

In a space entirely consumed by her scent, for her to finally…

He looked at Jina, his eyes languid and soft, anticipating the sweet heat that was about to take him. But then, she suddenly straightened up and climbed back onto his chest.

She leaned in, kissed his lips lightly, cupped his face in her hands, and said,

“Ian, I like doing it while looking at you, too.”

In that moment, his heart hammered a frantic, heavy rhythm against his ribs.

Jina chuckled at his stunned expression. Settling her weight back onto his body, she lowered her head and kissed his forehead.

Peck.

It was a light touch, an innocent, playful kiss, and Ian felt the strength drain out of him completely.

This was a new form of strange helplessness, one he’d never experienced.

If something made him weak, his instinct was to push it back, to crush it completely. Instead, he lay still, calmly surrendering his body to her whim.

Her lips drifted down from his forehead, gliding past his eyelids, over the bridge of his nose, nearing his mouth.

His body tensed, anticipating the taste of her tongue again, but Jina’s lips deliberately side-stepped his mouth and lingered on his cheek.

Ian gulped, it’s a stark movement of realization.

“Jina…”

She ignored him, taking her time to kiss various spots on his face. Then, she tilted her head just slightly and purred,

“I think you’re curious about what I did to you in my dream. So I’m going to show you. I’ll act it out.”

With that, she planted kisses along his jaw and down his neck.

She’s lying.

His dreams hadn’t been like this. It was true she had kissed all over his body, but she had also used her tongue, deeply. She had tried to slip her tongue into every opening on his body, as if determined to possess them all.

And when Jina couldn’t take any more, breathless and begging, he would be the one to pull away, ravaging her full breasts, biting and chewing them until they were swollen and weeping.

Compared to the scorching acts of her dreams, this was a feather-light touch, less than a child’s game.

Yet… he liked it.

As Jina shifted, his hand traced the curve of her lower back.

Smack. Smack.

Each time her lips brushed his skin, he rubbed her back in quiet praise, squeezing and releasing her buttocks in a repetitive rhythm.

Even without seeing, he knew. Her lower half was growing slick, the fabric clinging to her like a second skin.

He wanted to sit up, flip her, lay her beneath him, lift her legs and expose the sweetest part of her body to his tongue.

At Chelsea’s mansion, when he looked down, she would cry out, mortified, begging him to turn off the lights.

And if he did that now, would he be able to resist inserting? His lower body, hidden beneath his tracksuit, was as taut and demanding as it always was around Jina.

He could feel the careless drool of his own arousal, as if the front of his pants was screaming to devour the woman right in front of him, leaving a wet stain on his sweatpants just like the one forming on her.

Should I just insert it, then?

The second the thought crossed his mind, Jina’s lips moved further down. They drifted past the tickle of his Adam’s apple and lingered over the firm, tightly-corded muscles of his chest.

Then, with a deliberate, long, wet sound, she kissed his nipple.

“……!”

His body convulsed, a violent, instantaneous jolt.

For a moment, Jina, perched above him, almost tumbled sideways. He clamped his hands onto her waist, holding her tightly so she wouldn’t slip away.

Jina gripped his shoulders in surprise, then lifted her head. She gave him a bright, wicked smile, gesturing with her chin as if asking why he’d paused.

He’s surprised.

She found his reaction—the violent twitch followed by the attempt to play it off—infuriatingly amusing. She wanted to shatter that composed face. To make him just as messy and breathless and panting as she was.

Jina paused, considering her options, and then a sly smile spread across her mouth. She slipped her hand inside his shirt.

Her fingers fumbled upward, quickly locating the protrusion she had just kissed.

As she gripped it, taking the tender flesh in both hands and twisting, his composed smile crumbled.

Jina felt a rush of strange amusement as his usually perfect composure fell apart. She twisted and turned the thing her fingers held.

She had never touched a man’s chest like this before, nor had she considered this area might be sensitive.

She hadn’t had high expectations, but with every movement of her hand, Ian’s squirming became more pronounced, a barely contained tremor in the muscle.

“It might be… better to stop.”

His voice was dangerously low, a deep sound that cracked with strain.

“Are you warning me?”

Jina scoffed at his low growl. He was wriggling, completely incapacitated by her touch. His threat was empty.

She continued her torment. His chest was too hard to get a good hold of, but she could scratch at him with her nails, rub and twist the nipple, and tease the surrounding skin until it was raw.

“Hngh…”

Each time she tightened her grip, his lower half gave a more desperate twitch. Watching his movements, she wondered if she possessed an unexpected streak of sadism.

She found a strange, compelling pleasure in seeing him so utterly helpless in her hands.

After she’d been engrossed for a while, Jina’s hand twisted one final, strong time. His lower body spasmed violently, and he released a long, shuddering sigh.

Sitting on his thighs, she felt it: his body beneath her stiffened, quivering.

A moment later, the rigid tension in him eased, collapsing into relaxation. Realizing he had ejaculated, Jina subtly pulled her hand from inside his t-shirt.

Was that… too much?

She hadn’t expected him to climax from just that.

Feeling a sudden, awkward uncertainty, she tried to slide off him, but in one quick, shocking motion, he sat up.

Then he grabbed Jina, laid her flat on the sofa, and positioned himself over her. In the blink of an eye, their positions had been brutally reversed.

Ian trapped her firmly between his thighs and immediately ripped off his shirt. His chest, still flushed a deep, tormented red from her ruthless attention moments ago, was fully exposed.

Ian looked down at her, the shirt discarded, and smiled. It was a bright, terrifying smile.

“That was fun. And it felt good, too.”

“Ian…?”

Her body locked up, paralyzed the instant she saw the predatory sharpness of his grin.

“I think it’s my turn now. You were quite skilled. Have you done this often?”

“That’s what you always did to me in my dreams…!” Jina cried out, a cry of unfair accusation, but the words were already out, and she snapped her mouth shut.

“In your dreams? I did this to you?”

She’d desperately wanted to keep the wild, explicit nature of those dreams a secret, especially before they’d even become physical. Now, she had confessed everything.

“No.”

“What?”

“I think I did something else.”

He pressed down on her chest with one hand, anchoring her body, and with the other, he stripped off her lower garments.

All of them. Her underwear went with the sweatpants.

Jina was so utterly flustered by the swiftness of his action—as if he’d been practicing this his entire life—that she couldn’t even manage to close her gaping mouth.

Her shock didn’t matter. He picked up the shirt he’d torn off and laid it out beneath her body.

Then, he picked up her discarded clothes and buried his face in them.

“You’re crazy! What are you doing!”

Jina screamed, watching him use his tongue on the part of the fabric where the wet, tell-tale stain was most obvious. Then, realizing her volume, she clapped a hand over her mouth.

Ian looked up at her, his smile widening, becoming impossibly bright.

“I told you I was crazy. Oh, but aren’t you curious about what I did in your dreams?”

Without waiting for a response, he grabbed Jina’s knees and hauled them apart.

Less than a day had passed since he’d tasted her, yet his insides were already burning with a desperate, familiar hunger.

“As promised, I won’t insert. Instead…”

He ran his tongue over his bottom lip.

“You’re probably going to spill quite a lot.”

Several hours later, he held Jina, who had finally gone limp in his arms, fallen into a deep sleep as if she’d simply fainted.

Her eyes were swollen, raw, and crusted with dried tears.

He still didn’t understand why Jina had cried so relentlessly. He hadn’t expected her to squirm so violently simply because he licked her armpits and her toes.

‘It’s dirty! Stop it!’

He’d simply slipped his hand between her buttocks, not answering. As he pressed against the tightly clenched opening, she had begged him, crying that it was absolutely forbidden. All the while, she kept screaming that he was crazy.

It was a compliment he treasured.

So, he had continued to torment her body, determined not to let her praise go to waste.

Then, when he’d lifted her and sat her on his face, she had truly gasped for air, unable to comprehend what was happening.

She had been sobbing hysterically, crying buckets, so he had asked if she wanted to do something else if she hated that so much. She had nodded frantically.

But moments later, he had to listen to her muffled sobs, insisting that this wasn’t right, that he was truly a madman.

He simply couldn’t comprehend why she found it so shameful for her to lick his groin, or for him to lick hers.

Regardless, after several relentless hours of activity, Jina had finally surrendered.

“Just insert it already!”

“What are you asking me to insert…?”

When he’d shrugged, feigning ignorance, she had pounded his body with furious, flailing fists.

Of course, it hadn’t hurt.

“I promised. Today, I won’t insert my cock.”

His voice was gentle, a low caress, but his words were an absolute refusal.

Ian lowered his head and licked her still-raw eyes. The salt of her tears was a strange pleasure. He extended his long tongue, consuming everything she had shed.

Every drop of sweat, every salty tear.

He picked Jina up and carried her to her bed. It would have been simpler to lie down together right there on the sofa, but knowing Jina’s reaction, she would have been utterly horrified and made a hysterical scene.

He laid her naked body down. Then, spotting his discarded shirt on the sofa, he retrieved it and stood beside the bed.

He brought the shirt up to his face. Jina had likely assumed he’d only used it to protect her sofa, but that wasn’t the truth.

He buried his face deep into the fabric.

As he inhaled, Jina’s scent poured off the thoroughly soaked garment. After savoring the smell for a long moment, he lowered his trousers and wrapped the fabric around his throbbing cock.

Swish. Swish.

As he rubbed his groin with the shirt, saturated with her scent, his cock—which had just climaxed several times—hardened again.

Moments later, a fresh, sticky stain appeared on the fabric. But he kept moving. He wouldn’t stop until the entire garment was completely re-dyed with his own scent.

When the shirt was so slick it felt like it would weep if squeezed, he carefully placed it on the sleeping Jina.

Then, he collected her discarded sweatpants and underwear from beside the sofa.

It was only natural to take Jina’s clothes after leaving her with his own. He buried his face in her garments and headed toward his room.

He had all night to enjoy himself with these.

The next morning.

Jina climbed out of bed, muttering under her breath as she looked down at herself.

“Crazy bastard…”

She looked at the shirt she was wearing. It was undeniably the one Ian had worn last night.

The why of her wearing it didn’t matter. What mattered was the condition of the shirt.

It was damp and sticky, clinging to her skin. The thoroughly soaked garment reeked of Ian.

Jina cautiously gripped the hem of the shirt and peeled it off.

Despite her best effort to avoid contact, sticky, undried fluid smeared onto her fingers and the back of her hand.

“Ugh…”

Jina flung the contaminated shirt off the bed. But the lingering scent of him, emanating from her own skin, wasn’t going to vanish that easily.

Feeling a sudden, profound discomfort, Jina tried to stand. That’s when she realized her lower body, unlike her torso, was completely bare.

“What? Where did they go?”

It wasn’t just her sweatpants that were missing. Her panties were gone, too. She checked under the sofa, thinking they might have fallen, but there was nothing.

Then she remembered the shirt she’d just taken off. If he had given her his shirt, then…

Jina pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Was he not crazy, but just a pervert…”

She muttered the thought in disbelief, then walked to the window and threw it open. The cold winter wind rushed in, a blast meant to purge the lingering scent of last night’s degradation from the air.

Then, she rushed into the bathroom. She needed to wash off every single trace of him left on her body.

Under the spray of the shower, Jina examined the marks scattered across her skin.

It’s not a dream anymore. She remembered the fantasies she’d had when she first arrived, the ones that made her question her own sexual deprivation the moment she woke up.

“Haa…”

With a heavy sigh, Jina rested her forehead against the cool tile wall.

Now, it wasn’t just a dream. The real Ian was far more terrifying than any fantasy her subconscious had conjured. Even after washing for a long time, her face was still swollen. Her throat was raw.

After finally getting dressed, Jina picked up the shirt she’d tossed beside the bed.

The fabric was thick with sticky fluid, far too much to toss directly into the machine. Jina began to rub it vigorously in the sink.

“…He really made a mess.”

She genuinely couldn’t believe a single person was capable of producing so much.

After finishing the frantic hand wash, she glanced at the clock. Considering how long she’d been tormented, she’d woken up relatively early. There was still time.

She went quickly to the bed, stripped the duvet and the mattress cover, tucked the semi-washed shirt between the layers, and headed for the basement laundry room.

If I start the washing machine now, and run the dryer in between, it should be done by noon.

As she walked with the heavy bundle of laundry, a residual tingling prickled across her body.

He’s truly insane…

She had thought that avoiding insertion would make it tolerable, but instead, he had simply found a whole new repertoire of perversions.

Briefly reliving the previous night, Jina finished loading the machine and headed straight for the kitchen.

“Jina, it’s been a while! You were staying at Chelsea’s place since the young master was there, so you were over on that side for a bit, yes?”

“Ah, yes. That’s how it turned out…”

Jina let her voice trail off and nodded. It wasn’t an outright lie, but there were far too many omitted details in between the lines.

She couldn’t exactly say, ‘I was kidnapped, almost died, Ian saved me, and I’ve been having sex with him for days, including all night after I returned yesterday!’

“But what’s wrong with your face?”

“Huh? Why?”

“Did you cry? Your eyes are so swollen,” the woman observed, her gaze sharp.

“Oh, well… I think I fell asleep while watching some terribly sad movie,” Jina lied, the excuse tasting stale in her mouth.

“You didn’t watch it in the dark, did you? That’ll ruin your eyesight. You watch with the lights on, understand?”

“Haha, yes,” Jina managed, offering an awkward, strained smile before turning away. She went to the wall where the day’s schedule was posted.

The secretary had posted the Chairman’s and Ian’s daily itineraries early that morning.

Breakfast here, lunch out, dinner back at the mansion. She thought she’d be swamped, making up for her days away at Chelsea, but he was returning early tonight.

Surely he’s not coming to my room again.

A shiver of both dread and perverse anticipation traced its way down her spine.

Jina pulled her mobile phone from her pocket. I really have to get to the phone store.

She had installed a new app, but somehow, all her registered contacts had vanished. Some had even been unsubscribed.

Worse, the conversation history seemed to be permanently deleted; no recovery was possible.

I didn’t do anything. It has to be some sort of error…

She needed a store employee to look at the data restore options. She would have time once the morning duties were complete.

“Alright, let’s get this done!”

Thankfully, the other chefs hadn’t questioned her absence over the past few days. They seemed to assume she’d been dragged away on some tiresome, arbitrary whim of Ian’s and had suffered for it, even offering to cover her if she felt tired. Their genuine sympathy allowed Jina to finally relax and focus on her work.

Breakfast was prepared quickly, the standard fare needing no special changes. She was serving the meals to the staff and cleaning the kitchen when a secretary burst through the door.

“Miss Troll!”

“I think I need to go upstairs,” Jina said, already unnerved by his unusual urgency. “What is it? Is there a problem?”

She mentally reviewed the meal she’d sent up. It was exactly as usual: toasted artisan bread, a small salad, scrambled eggs, grilled sausage, blistered tomatoes, eggs, and hash browns. Nothing could possibly be wrong. Then why is Ian sending for me?

While she racked her brain, the secretary hesitated, then spoke again.

“Well… it’s the Chairman calling for you.”

Jina’s breath stalled in her throat.

Jina followed the secretary, a silent shadow. She’d worked in this mansion for months, but her access had been strictly limited to her room, the basement kitchen, and the staff quarters.

So this is the rest of it. Unlike the slick, modern interiors of the Chelsea mansion, this Hampstead Heath residence was the definitive picture of old-world British charm: vast, imposing, and steeped in wealth.

After a long walk down an unfamiliar corridor, they reached a door where another secretary was posted. He rushed toward them the moment he saw them.

“Why are you so late?”

She’d practically sprinted the moment she was called, ripping off her apron as she went, yet she was late. The secretary’s flustered face sent Jina’s anxiety plummeting.

It’s not Ian, it’s the Chairman. Why would he call me?

She had an awful, sinking idea. Her multi-day absence at the Chelsea mansion with Ian must have reached the old man’s ears.

He’s very concerned about his only grandson, I’ve heard. She knew the scuttlebutt: the Chairman was reportedly pleased Ian was finally “coming to his senses.”

The chefs catering to the Chairman often noted how easy their work had become because he was in such a good mood lately.

Jina’s mind conjured up melodramatic scenes from television dramas.

Am I going to be fired today?

Even the thought of dismissal wasn’t as daunting as it once was, but now, it wasn’t the money she would miss. It was the forced separation from Ian.

As her mind spun through every catastrophic scenario, the secretary who had stepped inside re-emerged. “You can go in now.”

Her heart pounded a frantic, heavy rhythm. Had she ever been this nervous in her life?

She pushed the door open. Inside, a dining table that looked like it belonged on the cover of a high-end magazine dominated the room. At its far end sat Chairman Aylesford. And opposite him sat Ian.

…He was here?

She had thought the Chairman summoned her alone. But Ian was here.

Ian caught her eye and gave a slight, dismissive wave. “Jina, come here.”

She hesitated, caught between the gravity of the man who had summoned her and the demand of the man who conTrolld her.

Deciding she had to approach the table regardless, she moved forward, sparing a quick, nervous glance at the Chairman.

As Jina drew near, he neatly wiped his mouth with a napkin and looked up.

“…”

Under his cold, assessing gaze, Jina involuntarily stopped, settling beside Ian.

Was I too familiar? Did I just reveal everything?

She simply stood, a frozen statue, until the Chairman finally broke the silence.

“I apologize for calling you in so suddenly. I haven’t had a chance to thank you properly for helping Ian eat well again, so I called you here, albeit belatedly.”

Jina met his gaze again. The Chairman’s eyes were emotionless, utterly unreadable.

The situation was perplexing, laced with a tension that was entirely different from the firing she’d anticipated.

While she watched, utterly confused, he continued.

“Truly, we would have been at a loss without Jina. Everything else tasted terrible to him…”

It was at that moment that Ian’s hand found the back of Jina’s thigh. Concealed from the Chairman’s view, his fingers snaked beneath the fabric, slipping into her inner thigh, dangerously close to her most intimate core.

He began to rub the exact spot he had been sucking and licking just last night. Ian looked up at her, his eyes innocent, and finished the thought.

“Jina, everything you make is delicious.”

A hot, consuming flush climbed Jina’s neck and face. She knew exactly what he was referencing. It was the territory his fingers now claimed.

It was the things she had made the previous night—the screams, the gasps, the tears, the sweat—all of which he had swallowed without hesitation.

As the obscene scenes from the night before flashed through her mind, Jina instinctively lowered her head.

The Chairman likely mistook her reaction for humility at a sincere compliment. He placed his napkin on the table and chuckled, a dry, dismissive sound.

“There’s no need to be so humble. Whatever you say, you’ve gotten Ian to eat again, and that is a monumental achievement in itself.”

The Chairman’s eyes rested naturally on Jina, standing close to his grandson. He stood up, feigning a sudden need for haste.

“I must be going. I have a schedule.”

He paused before reaching the door, turning back to Jina. “Please take good care of him from now on, Miss Troll. You can expect a special bonus next time.”

With those words, the Chairman departed.

The moment the door clicked shut, Jina looked up and violently slapped the offensive hand lingering by her crotch.

Slap!

The sound cracked in the vast, silent dining room. Ian winced, rubbing the back of his reddened hand, his expression a theatrical mask of false pain.

“Ouch.”

His insincere cry, entirely devoid of genuine hurt, made Jina’s eyes narrow into slits.

“Are you insane? What were you doing in front of your grandfather?!”

Jina cried out without thinking, then clamped her mouth shut. She suppressed the rising tide of anger and peered into the corridor.

He truly must have been in a hurry; moments later, she saw the Chairman leaving the entrance and climbing into a waiting car.

“What did I do?”

“What did you do? You…!”

Jina snapped her jaw shut again. She didn’t have the courage to voice the crude, public obscenity he had just committed.

“Why can’t you speak?” Ian asked, his voice low and sly.

Jina abandoned the effort to answer, running her hands down her face in exhaustion.

“…The Chairman knew, didn’t he?”

“Knew what?”

“What else? About your little arrangement.”

“He probably doesn’t not know.”

At Ian’s casual confirmation, Jina pressed her temples. She had suspected it, but hearing it said aloud filled her with inexplicable shame. The Chairman had smiled and promised a special bonus.

Jina’s heart grew heavy with a crushing certainty. It’s payment for playing with his grandson.

A wry, miserable smile touched Jina’s lips. Just then, Ian stood, pulling her back against his chest in a powerful, encompassing hug.

“But he probably doesn’t know about last night.”

With that, Ian gently sank his teeth into her earlobe.

“Hngh!”

He had hit the most sensitive point of her body with surgical precision, making her legs weak and her body sway. As if anticipating her collapse, Ian tightened his grip on her waist, holding her anchored.

“Do you know how hard it was to get back to my room yesterday, knowing you were just down the hall?”

Ignoring her strangled gasp, he bit her ear harder. Jina gritted her teeth, suppressing the moan that clawed its way up her throat.

Her body, hyper-aware after the night’s activity, instantly heated up. Her lower abdomen pulsed with a dull ache, and her legs involuntarily buckled.

Just as she was about to lean into him, her eyes scanned their surroundings.

“……!”

The sudden realization of where she was, of the time of day, shocked her back to reality. Jina flailed in panic and shoved Ian away.

What is wrong with me?

Jina snatched Ian’s water glass from the table and gulped down the remaining liquid. The cool stream down her throat finally helped her regain her senses.

Still not satisfied, Jina pinched the back of her hand hard, needing the sharp pain to ground her.

She was falling for Ian faster than she should be. It wasn’t just the physical ecstasy; it was the fact that he had reached out to her at her absolute lowest, drowning her in an overwhelming, excessive devotion.

Ian was different.

When they were together, he acted as if she were the only woman in the world.

That blind, destructive, possessive obsession… she liked it.

A sharp knock came at the door. The secretary waiting for Ian spoke up.

“It’s time to leave, sir.”

Ian glanced at his watch and clicked his tongue, a sign of profound annoyance. He turned to Jina. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“Uh…”

At his words, Jina’s expression clouded with faint worry, and Ian’s eyes immediately narrowed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ah, I was thinking of going to the mobile phone store this afternoon. For some reason, many of my contacts and messages were deleted, so I wanted to ask if data recovery was possible.”

At her explanation, Ian’s entire demeanor hardened, going utterly still.

“……Don’t go out.”

“Huh? Why?” Jina asked.

Ian gently took hold of her shoulders, pulling her close. “I couldn’t tell you before because I was afraid you’d panic, but the people who kidnapped you… they seem to be boasting about getting revenge.”

“……!”

At his carefully placed lie, Jina froze. The nightmare of the kidnapping, which she had momentarily suppressed, returned with sickening clarity.

The roads around the mansion were quiet, rarely traveled. If she went out alone again and was seized—Ian had acted quickly before, but would she be so lucky a second time?

“It would be difficult for them to attempt another full kidnapping, but it’s still best to be cautious. For your safety, I’d prefer you stay inside the mansion for a while.”

As he finished his subtle manipulation, Jina nodded, though the movement was difficult.

“Alright. I won’t go out for a while.”

Even if she couldn’t get to the store, she could contact her friends on her laptop; there was no need to venture out today. Ian patted Jina’s trembling shoulders and whispered in her ear, “Yes. Don’t go anywhere, just stay here.” His gentle voice was thick with unadulterated satisfaction.

“Andy!”

Andy Haywood, who had been lying face-down on his cluttered desk, managed only to raise a hand in a sluggish, weary greeting. A colleague tutted, walked over to the nearest vending machine, and returned moments later with two cups of warm, frothy flat white.

“Get up and drink this. Detective Inspector Haywood, the man who’ll die without caffeine.”

At the mention of his title, Andy shot upright. He received the cup from his colleague with the reverence of a disciple accepting a holy relic. He gulped the hot liquid down in a single, desperate swallow.

“Phew. I feel alive now.”

He finished the coffee and fanned his mouth, trying to cool the burn.

“There hasn’t been a major incident in weeks, has there? Why are you this exhausted?”

“No major incidents? The Chief would string you up for that. What, Count Carrington’s death? That case is closed, isn’t it?”

After the Count’s death, before the body was even cold, lawsuits had erupted, shattering the group’s power structure. London’s major law firms, Andy knew, would make a killing in fees for the next year.

“That’s true… but something about it feels off.”

“What does?”

“Everyone who investigated the case is telling the exact same story.”

“They saw the exact same video, so they’d say the exact same thing. What, are they supposed to invent something new?”

At his colleague’s sharp retort, Andy crumpled the coffee-stained paper cup. His colleague was right, of course.

They all saw the same footage. But could every witness really use the exact same phrasing, down to the last syllable?

“Maybe… I got a copy of the video too. I thought I might be able to find something they missed.”

“Don’t waste your time. You think they’ll thank you? You’ll just get screamed at for interfering with a closed case. Focus on your own work. Is that Aylesford young master’s case completely wrapped up? The little bastard who ran off and abandoned his friends is still missing?”

“Yeah. No sightings, no card usage. He might have fled the country, but… honestly, I don’t think so. If he saw the news, he’d know he’d receive minimal punishment. So why is he still in hiding?”

His colleague sighed, leaning back against the wall. “Isn’t he already dead? You know, sometimes the weak-minded ones kill themselves out of sheer fear.”

“Then they would have found the body nearby.”

“Who knows. Maybe he went back to the mansion after the police search and died there. No one’s checking around that area now, are they? Maybe you should request another search later?”

“The Metropolitan Police would love that. They’d just get annoyed that an Englishman is causing them trouble by coming up here to check.”

“Fair point.”

As Andy exchanged this trivial, cynical banter with his colleague, the mobile phone in his pocket began to blare. He pulled it out, immediately recognizing the name displayed on the screen.

[Rob Fisher / 21 / Male – Kno Diarg Mansion Incident Victim]

He answered the call instantly.

“Yes, this is Detective Inspector Andy Haywood.”

📱—Inspector!

The man’s voice on the other end was a terrified, hysterical cry.

📱—Camilla is gone! That monster! It ate Camilla!