Try Begging - Chapter 157.1
“D*mn it…”
The devil buried his face in his hands, overwhelmed by frustration.
Wasn’t it lucky for him that the victim he had tormented for revenge had perfectly facilitated her own vengeance and then vanished?
‘Then, why was I so desperate to find her?’
From the moment that person brought up Grace’s story, the ridiculous doubt that arose slowly turned into confidence.
‘The diary should have been burned after Grace saw it.’
Joe glared at Winston’s back as he confiscated his mother’s diary under the ridiculous pretext of seizing evidence. Winston was leaning against a black sedan parked on the dirt road while the soldiers finished searching the house. He seemed lost in thought, staring into the distance like a man who had lost his way.
“I know that, too.”
Joe recalled a dismissive comment Winston had made earlier. It wasn’t just a typical response to an unwelcome statement. He had acted as if he knew Grace from her childhood.
Sitting on an old rocking chair by the front door, Joe took out a cigarette and began to approach Winston slowly.
“State your business.”
Winston, annoyed, blurted out abruptly as Joe paced in front of him like someone watching monkeys at a zoo. That’s when Joe threw a question that would turn his suspicions into certainty.
“Did you meet Grace when she was a child?”
Instead of answering, Winston glared at him briefly before turning his gaze back to the fields. His silence was as good as an admission.
“You asked about after she visited Abington Beach. Did you meet there? How? Surely the adults weren’t taking their kids to rendezvous.”
Winston, unfazed by the distasteful suggestion, replied sharply.
“Back then, that girl didn’t know the norms of the outside world. She would crash into someone’s private beach to play or climb a tree and spy on me.”
“Ah… She always had a thing for handsome blonde men.”
Winston couldn’t help but let out a short laugh as he was mockingly downplayed as ‘handsome’.
“And to think, the boy she followed around turned out to be the son of a target. Always that kid…”
Grace’s brother muttered to himself before taking a drag on a cheap, foul-smelling cigarette and chuckling.
“So, it was an unforgettable first love, is that it?”
His tone was mocking, as if even he found the idea preposterous.
Why was it preposterous?
It was incredibly distasteful, from the audacity of prying into highly personal matters to the scoffing attitude that seemed to say he found the idea unbelievable.
“Hah, and here I was wondering why you were so obsessed with my sister, the enemy’s daughter. So, there was a backstory. Did you ruin your first love with revenge? Truly sad.”
Leon squinted at the taunting man, rubbing his temples with his hand in frustration.
“You siblings really know how to get on my nerves.”
And as soon as he realized he couldn’t hurt him, the brother’s attitude turned arrogantly annoying, just like his sister’s.
“First love or whatever, like you said earlier, I shouldn’t care. Frankly, I feel like killing you right now.”
The moment the brother showed his true feelings, Leon opened his eyes. The brother’s jaw trembled slightly with anger. Now, it was Leon’s turn to mock.
Running away and still acting tough with a family to worry about.
“If you want to turn your children into orphans and your only nephew into an illegitimate child without a father, that’s fine.”
Leon smiled wryly, hitting a nerve.
“So, you want to take responsibility? But Grace would rather be a single mother with an illegitimate child than be under your care.”
“Did you talk like that at the round table, too? No wonder the elders despised Jonathan Riddle’s son so much. You’re proving the intelligence reports right.”
“Ah, those old men…”
The brother spat as if the words were distasteful.
“The situation has come to this because of mistakes by both the rebels and me, but your fault isn’t trivial either.”
The woman’s brother frowned at Leon’s criticism.
“If you really cared, you should have taken your sister with you when you left.”
He sighed heavily and crushed his cigarette butt under his foot.
“It might sound like an excuse, but it’s not that I didn’t want to, I couldn’t. Grace can be incredibly stubborn.”
“Oh, I know that.”
“Smart but rigid… no, extremely inflexible. Most kids from that village were like that to some extent, but Grace saw the world in stark black and white more than anyone. Turns out the adults had raised her that way….”
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