Chapter 61 - 60: Two Choices

Chapter 61: Chapter 60: Two Choices

The girl’s voice was cautious, the tail end of her words trembling with fear. It caught on the man’s taut nerves like a hook.

He glanced at her.

Her beautiful face was on the verge of tears, her gaze brimming with pleading and hope.

She looked like a kitten that had been caught but still hadn’t figured out the situation, naively believing that a little coaxing would be enough to make someone let her go.

The man tugged at his collar and said coldly, "Shut up. Keep spouting nonsense, and I’ll gag your mouth, too."

Lilia fell silent.

She obediently shut her mouth and even shrank back into the corner, as if terrified by his ferocity.

Her docile demeanor made the man unable to resist looking at her again.

She was too harmless.

So harmless, in fact, that he even felt he was overreacting.

Given her behavior, she probably wouldn’t run away even if her hands and feet weren’t bound. How could a kitten frightened by a single glare from him possibly have the guts for that?

Silence spread through the cramped carriage.

Lilia silently counted her heartbeats, estimating the time.

About an hour later.

The carriage rolled to a halt. The man untied the ropes around her ankles and pulled her down from the vehicle.

Before them lay a dense forest with a narrow, muddy path. If the carriage went any further, the wheels would very likely get stuck in the mud.

When Lilia had arrived at the equestrian club earlier, there was still half an hour before her scheduled meeting with Lucian. By now, he must have noticed she was missing, and it was highly likely he had found the female coach—who was either unconscious or dead—in the women’s changing room.

However, there were no witnesses around when the man kidnapped her, so it would probably be very difficult for Lucian to find her.

"Keep up."

Her thoughts were interrupted by the man’s deep voice calling from ahead.

Lilia snapped back to reality and whispered, "The road is too hard to walk on, and my feet hurt."

She complained internally that if she had known there was still a ways to go, he shouldn’t have bound her ankles in the carriage. It wasn’t like she was going to run away.

The man fell silent.

His tone turned somewhat dangerous. "Are you expecting me to carry you?"

"No need," Lilia replied. "Just walk a little slower."

Her tone couldn’t have been more natural, as if everyone was naturally obligated to take care of her—even her kidnapper.

The man sneered and turned his head back, though his pace did actually slow down a bit.

The two of them traversed through a stretch of dense forest and arrived at a clearing deep within.

There was a small cabin here, likely an abandoned ranger’s hut, though it had long been deserted.

The man pushed open the creaking door, and Lilia followed him inside.

"Find a spot to sit and don’t move," he ordered.

Lilia did as she was told.

The man crouched in front of her and grabbed both of her feet together once more.

Lilia paused. "Are you going to tie them again?"

The man’s movements halted.

Lilia struck while the iron was hot. "I can’t run far anyway. I didn’t even memorize the way here. Besides... it really hurts."

With lowered eyes, the man remained silent for a moment before tossing the rope aside. He issued a cold threat. "Don’t let me catch you trying to escape."

Lilia smiled. "I’ll stay right here and be good."

She glanced at her character panel.

A Charm stat of [100/100] was absolute authority.

Since she wasn’t tied up, it was naturally impossible for the man to let Lilia out of his sight.

He sat down opposite her, his gloomy gaze falling upon her, evaluating and scrutinizing her.

Lilia looked at her wrists, which were still bound by ropes.

After a brief silence, she decided it was time to fish for information. "Have you contacted the Beaumont family yet?"

The girl raised her head, her dark eyes sparkling. "When are they coming to pick me up?"

The man curled the corners of his lips. It was obvious he didn’t smile often, as the curve of his mouth was rather stiff. "Beaumont? What makes you think they’ll come for you?"

Lilia answered, "Because I’m important to them."

The man leaned back against his chair, the dilapidated wood letting out a faint CREAK. His gaze fixed on Lilia’s face as he spoke. "Important to whom? To Count Beaumont, or to Caius Beaumont?

"That kid really does value you, keeping such a close eye on you every single day. If you hadn’t actively ditched him today, I probably would’ve had a hard time finding an opportunity to strike.

"And it’s not just him. There’s Prince Theodore, Marquis Malo...

"I’m truly curious. What makes you so special that so many people look at you in a different light?"

Lilia didn’t know how to respond to that.

It was probably because her Charm was exceptionally high.

She noticed the way the man referred to Declan Marlo.

Lilia had previously assumed he was Marquis Malo’s subordinate, but now it seemed...

She asked curiously, "Are you a mercenary hired to do a job?"

"You don’t need to know."

At some point, the man had drawn a gleaming dagger from his waist.

It was the very same one he had pressed against Lilia’s side to force her submission earlier.

He twirled it nimbly, letting the sharp blade dance in cold flashes of light between his fingertips. "What you should be considering right now is whether the person who received the letter is willing to come and save you."

Lilia tilted her head, feigning curiosity. "Who?"

"Lucian Williams," the man answered truthfully. "Right around the time we arrived here, someone should have delivered a letter to him.

"The letter doesn’t state the exact location where you’re being held, but if he really wants to find you, he should have his ways.

"Even if he exhausts all his connections, it will take him at least two hours to find this place, and before then..."

The man’s movements came to an abrupt halt.

The tip of the knife reflected the light streaming through the window, dazzlingly bright, pointing straight at Lilia’s heart.

"...I’m going to kill you," the man continued with a stiff smile. "The letter to the Beaumont family will be sent out in an hour and a half. By the time they receive it, you should already be dead."

Lilia remained silent for a moment before asking softly, "Why make things so complicated?"

If he simply wanted to ruin the cooperation between Beaumont and Williams, all he had to do was kill her.

He had countless opportunities to do so on the way here.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he went to the great trouble of imprisoning her in this wooden cabin and sending two separate letters to Lucian and Beaumont.

The man resumed twirling the dagger. "Politicians always have complicated thoughts."

Perhaps it was because the girl in front of him was too well-behaved and harmless that he didn’t mind chatting with her... just so he could admire the irresistible look of despair on her face once she learned the whole truth.

That would surely be quite a beautiful sight.

"Killing you would only sabotage their partnership, but my employer requires them to be enemies.

"Williams knows you’ve been captured. Given his intellect, he can surely deduce that you’ll die regardless of whether he arrives in time or not.

"Do you think he’d rather risk losing everything and fight with all his might to come save you, or... completely abandon you, and start figuring out right now how to explain this to the Beaumont family in a way that maximizes the preservation of his own interests?"