Chapter 513: A Surprise Comeback

The hooded man lifted a gloved hand and pushed his dark mantle back over his shoulders, letting the fabric slide down to reveal a sharp, angular face marred by dark circles and an ugly, sneering mouth.

"You don’t need to worry about your little friends back there," he said smoothly, looking far too pleased with himself. "They’re just in a very deep, quiet sleep right now. Hopefully having a miserable nightmare."

Cherion stared at him, his initial shock lingering for a brief second before his eyebrows pulled together. He squinted at the man’s face, taking in the greasy hair, the frayed collar, and the desperate, gaunt hollows of his cheeks.

"I think... I think I’ve seen you somewhere before," Cherion said slowly, tilting his head. He scratched the side of his neck, his tone completely flat as he added, "Who are you again?"

The dramatic tension in the washroom shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.

The man’s smug, arrogant sneer instantly collapsed. His jaw dropped, his face flushing a violent, mottled red as his nostrils flared with absolute rage. "What?" he spat, his raspy voice cracking on the syllable. "Who am I? How dare you forget my face after what you did to me?!"

Great, Cherion thought internally, suppressing a heavy sigh as he rubbed his temple. Another victim from OG Cherion’s disastrous past coming back to haunt me. Which poor soul did that bastard ruin now?

He squinted harder, sifting through the chaotic filing cabinet of his absorbed memories. The face was familiar, linked to a gathering, a tea, and a sudden...

Cherion gasped, his eyes widening in sudden realization. "Ah! Heinrich? Heinrich Bramwell?"

Heinrich’s chest heaved with ragged breath, a hysterical, bitter grin stretching across his cracked lips. "Finally! Finally, your rotten brain remembers!"

"Wait a minute," Cherion said, taking a half-step back while keeping his hands loose at his sides. "Should I even be calling you Heinrich anymore? I mean... with the rich part included? Considering you’re not exactly rich these days."

"You monstrous viper!" Heinrich roared, taking an aggressive step forward, his fists clenching so tight his knuckles popped. "You sit there and mock me after destroying my entire life?!"

"Oh, please," Cherion scoffed, rolling his eyes as he took another careful step backward toward the marble basin. "Don’t flip the story on me, you dipsh*t. You’re the one who picked a fight with the wrong person, and now you’re suffering the consequences of your own stupidity. Are you seriously still blaming everyone else for your own downfall?"

"I almost only spilled tea on you!" Heinrich screamed, his voice echoing loudly against the cold stone tiles of the washroom. "A single cup of tea! And because of that, you dragged my family into the dirt!"

Cherion stopped, holding up his right hand with two fingers extended to shut him down. "First of all, let’s get the facts straight. It wasn’t ’just tea’, it was boiling hot tea. Second, you didn’t ’spill’ it. You deliberately poured it straight at my face! If I hadn’t brought an umbrella with me that day to shield myself, I would’ve been permanently scarred!"

"It was a minor inconvenience!" Heinrich shrieked.

"It was assault, you idiot," Cherion shot back, his tone sharp and scathing. "And third, I didn’t destroy your family. Your own disgusting greed did that."

Cherion remembered the details clearly now. After the tea incident, Zarius hadn’t simply let the insult slide. The Duke had ordered a thorough, quiet investigation into the Bramwell family’s affairs to see why a minor noble felt so comfortable attacking his fiancé in public.

What the Imperial Ministry of Justice uncovered wasn’t a noble family being framed, but a disgusting mountain of crime. Heinrich had been drowning in massive lower-district gambling debts and embezzling funds straight from his father’s real estate firm. Worse, he had been caught selling completely falsified land deeds to newly arrived minor nobles just to pay off loan sharks.

When the evidence was processed, Viscount Bramwell had been dragged out of the council chambers in tears, begging the ministers for mercy. The high court didn’t just fine them, they stripped the Bramwell family of their noble title entirely and seized their entire fortune to pay back the scammed victims.

"My father was ruined because of your fiancé’s hounds!" Heinrich spat, his eyes bloodshot and unhinged. "Our title was taken! Our estate was seized by the crown! My mother had to move to a damp, rotting cottage in the lower slums, and I am hunted by debt collectors every single night! All because Zarius wanted to show off his authority for you!"

"Your family was running an illegal fraud ring, Heinrich!" Cherion snapped back, keeping his voice steady while his eyes darted toward the exit door behind Heinrich’s broad shoulders. "You scammed dozens of innocent people out of their life savings! You didn’t lose your status because of a cup of tea. You lost it because you’re a criminal family!"

"Shut up! Shut your filthy mouth!" Heinrich screamed, trembling violently from head to toe. "You don’t get to preach to me! You’re a toxic, arrogant monster who walked on everyone’s necks in the capital, yet you get to sleep in a palace, eat gourmet meals, and marry the most powerful man in the empire! Where is the justice in that?!"

There is no point in talking to this lunatic, Cherion realized, his chest tightening as he glanced down at the floor.

Derrick was slumped uselessly against the middle stall, completely out cold. Reiner was lying motionless near the curtained alcove. Neither of them was waking up anytime soon, and Heinrich was clearly completely out of his mind on rage and desperation.

Cherion didn’t hesitate. He suddenly feinted to the left, planting his foot heavily against the stone floor before bolting at full speed toward the right side of the exit door, intending to shoulder his way past Heinrich and scream for Ezek in the corridor outside.

"Oh no you don’t!" Heinrich shrieked.

Just as Cherion lunged past him, Heinrich reached out with a desperate, wild hook, his fingers clawing through the air until they caught a fistful of Cherion’s dark hair at the back of his head.

"Agh!" Cherion gasped as a sharp, blinding pain shot through his scalp.

With a vicious, animalistic grunt, Heinrich yanked backward with all his weight. Cherion’s feet slipped out from under him on the smooth tile, his body flying backward before slamming hard onto his back against the stone floor. The breath exploded out of his lungs in a sharp, ragged gasp, spots dancing across his vision.

Before Cherion could recover or push himself up, Heinrich lunged forward, dropping to his knees and trapping Cherion’s legs beneath his heavy weight.

With a raspy laugh, Heinrich reached beneath his dark mantle and pulled out a long, narrow iron blade, the cold metal reflecting the faint candlelight above.

"You’re going to pay for your sins today, Cherion!" Heinrich snarled, holding the blade high above his head with both hands, his eyes wide and wild with bloodlust. "I’m going to carve that pretty face of yours to pieces!"