Atonement, About it's Cruelty - Chapter 11
It seemed the man was unconcerned about whether the Grand Duke would survive the night or not. So much so, that even if the Grand Duke wakes tomorrow remembering everything from today, it seemed certain that he wouldn’t care. She would bet her entire fortune that this man doesn’t even fear the King of Felpe.
With a thud, the door closed, and she finally vomited all the alcohol she had consumed.
Outside, as Oscar emerged through the door, four men waiting immediately bowed deeply, their eyes fixed only on their master’s feet visible in their line of sight. They straightened up and followed right behind him only after Oscar had moved away.
The robust men crossed the corridor, and Catherine, the owner of Amant Rose Mansion, felt as if a chasm was moving around her. She hesitated at the door, not yet opened by the Grand Duke, glanced back and forth between the retreating count and the door, and finally decided to follow the Marquis.
“Your, Your Excellency…!”
She called out pathetically, but even Anna couldn’t capture the Marquis’s attention with a glance. He seemed to be walking leisurely, yet she couldn’t catch up to him no matter how hard she tried.
Following was all she could do.
Catherine staggered down the stairs and saw the Marquis’ black carriage through the wide-open door. One of the men who had been following the Marquis went ahead and opened the carriage door, and the Marquis ascended effortlessly. He was displaying the nonchalance of someone who had completed his business.
Unable to muster the courage to call out again, Catherine stopped.
And Oscar, who had never shown the slightest interest in her from the start, asked as soon as he boarded the carriage.
“The key?”
“It’s being marked.”
Simon, who had followed Oscar into the carriage and sat across from him as the door closed and the carriage began to move.
As the lights from the mansion receded, Oscar seemed enveloped in darkness, resembling a deathly reaper or perhaps darkness itself. Simon, in the presence of such a master, shrank and held his breath.
As the carriage wheels rolled over the cobblestones, breaking the silence, Oscar muttered to himself, not in jest but with a spark of intrigue in his eyes.
“That had been fun.”
He wasn’t being sarcastic. Oscar turned his eyes as he rested his elbow on the window of the carriage and stroked his chin.
“It’s fun.”
It had been a staggering day, blindsided by a fool’s antics. Yet when one door closes, another opens unexpectedly.
The Felpe Bank’s safe 5555.
It has become akin to insurance now—useful if accessible, but not essential. Yet, there was a time when Oscar had been desperate to find that key.
That damned safe was established the year his father, the previous Marquis Reinhardt, had passed away. The traitor who led his father to his demise had once been an agent of the Reinhardt household.
Codename: Peter. Safe 5555 belonged to him.
Peter, who knew better than anyone how relentless and brutal his former comrades could be in dealing with traitors, had created a lifeline for himself by secretly establishing a safe at Felpe Bank to hide his contingency plan.
If Reinhardt hadn’t stood at the forefront of war on behalf of the Luxen royal family, if the Marquis hadn’t died, if the key agents hadn’t fallen in battle alongside him. Or, if there hadn’t been only a six-year-old heir left behind. If the only adult capable of leading the household hadn’t abandoned her son and disappeared as if she had been waiting for her husband’s death.
Peter would never have been able to escape across the Norfolk continent.
Ultimately, Oscar had captured him. But he had also lost him.
More precisely, it was unclear whether he had truly lost him, as the ship carrying him had sunk.
It seemed likely that he had died.
But at that time, Oscar couldn’t accept it. To chalk up the death of the traitor who had brought his family to ruin as mere circumstance was too harsh a reality to accept without concrete proof. And back then, he desperately needed access to that safe. To revive his ruined family, he needed whatever assets were locked inside.
So, in a fit of rage, he had half-demanded that the body and the key be retrieved.
But as time passed, no news came. Then, three years ago, a report came from an agent who had been tracking Peter since his disappearance, suggesting that Peter had likely perished at sea, possibly taking the key with him.
The young Marquis who had issued the order in anger was now approaching thirty, matured by time.
Time changes many things.
The vengeance for a possibly dead man was no longer a priority compared to the myriad of pressing matters that needed his attention. The money in the safe, once seen as vital for reviving his family’s fortune, now seemed inconsequential.
However, the documents presumed to be in the safe remained crucial.
They were assumed to be correspondences between the former King of Luxen and Peter, who had likely stashed them as a lifeline.
These documents could potentially provide a way to manipulate or even coerce the King of Luxen—grounds, rationale, and means all rolled into one.
Thus, even as mere insurance, they were necessary. Now, with the key surfacing in the hands of a woman, it was important that he personally open the safe.
“Is this the place?”
The carriage stopped near Amant Rose mansion, in a district not far from a luxurious area of pleasure houses. The subtle lights of the pleasure district cast shadows over Oscar’s face.
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
As Oscar looked out at the grand brothel, a sneer crept into his eyes.
“Watching others’ pleasures is a novelty that wears off after the first time.”
“I’ll send someone to bring them here.”
“No.”
What once came to him whenever he closed his eyelids, what once he so desperately wanted to hold in his hands.
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