I Just Needed Someone to Hate - Episode 8.3

As the light revealed his vest and shirt, Vivianne unconsciously adjusted her posture. It wasn’t so much tension as suppressing the urge to run.

“But even though I knew the law, I didn’t want to be a legislator or a member of the appellate council. I knew I always had to do things my way to feel satisfied.”

His cufflinks were placed on the bedside console, and he loosened his belt. Vivianne desperately clung to the common sense belief that he wouldn’t dare lay a hand on a woman of noble lineage.

“In business, I could carry the noble name my father gave me and stay true to my nature.”

The end of the leather belt dragged on the ground. He leisurely walked forward and lifted Vivianne’s chin, forcing her to meet his eyes.

“But look at you.”

His grip was so strong that Vivianne couldn’t move. He stared at her with a rigid expression, his lips barely moving as he spoke.

“You have the eyes of a beast that needs to be tamed, don’t you?”

It was at that moment that Ludwig caught a whiff of an unfamiliar herbal scent from Vivianne. As his expression turned questioning, Vivianne, as if she had been waiting for this, took a piece of shale paper from her clutch and placed it on the table. Her hand was trembling, but her voice wasn’t.

“I met your boss.”

Judging by the size of the paper, it wasn’t from a reputable newspaper but a tabloid. The front page featured an article titled <The Eternal Dilemma of Journalism: Illuminating the Mastermind of the Underworld> along with Vivianne’s face.

“And I’ll meet him again. I’ll tell him that the noble-blooded mastermind who built the imperial underworld isn’t Ludwig, nor is it me.”

“…”

“I’ll also offer to be a media smokescreen to hide the real one.”

Ludwig’s face twisted. Regardless, Vivianne continued with the same expression.

“I trust you know that getting a random woman pregnant and losing your title won’t suddenly give you dignity. When the Prime Minister is re-elected, he’ll need a name to pin the blame on and discard, just like before. I’ll continue to sign the contracts as before, so let’s not meet at hotels like this anymore.”

“Heh,” Ludwig scoffed, his voice lowered even further.

“To foresee a future where a Prime Minister who has only been called incompetent for the past two years, and will be for the next year, gets re-elected. My fiancé is truly remarkable.”

“…”

“The future I see is one where, in just one year, the opposition party wins, and you and your entire family are in my hands.”

“How generous. In the future I see, you don’t exist.”

“Is that a challenge, Mergoville?”

“Yes.”

Vivianne glanced at the bloodshot hand gripping her shoulder and then looked up at Ludwig’s handsome face.

“It is a challenge.”

Vivianne was afraid of him. But she even felt relieved that he was targeting her and not that agent.

The agent who had disguised himself as Edmund Colt had an affiliation, so he would be safe. He would be secure. Only that thought brought her comfort.

Whether it was because of the tranquilizers or not, her head felt trapped in a gray cloud. She couldn’t even remember how the conversation had gone, but she decided not to think about it for a while.

She had found the tranquilizers in the pocket of the coat that man had sent. There were three pink cigarettes in the familiar case she had seen back then. She searched the pocket again for any notes, but there was only the case. Vivianne secretly took matches from the kitchen and glanced at the cigarettes.

Perhaps because she was more accustomed to it this time, she didn’t cough as much. As the day passed, everything she had envisioned in her mind was finished.

Vivianne Mergoville stared blankly at the darkness falling beyond the terrace of the Salenner Hotel.

After their conversation, her fiancé had taken a call and gone outside, and she had walked to the terrace where she had first met the agent and leaned against the railing. Perhaps because the tension had eased, her arm touching the cold railing didn’t feel cold at all.

‘Was the proper dosage about one cigarette?’

One before leaving the mansion.

Perhaps it was a problem that she had used another one in Langston on the way to meet Ludwig Rex, but she felt drowsy. The snow was falling relentlessly.

‘I miss him.’

She missed him. If Edmund were by her side, he wouldn’t have let Ludwig come near her. He would have shown her talking movies, and when she was lonely, he would have held her and stroked her back.

As she struggled to keep her closing eyes open and regain her senses, Vivianne realized that it was strangely quiet around her. Vivianne turned around as if possessed. And in the bright light, she watched as a person approached her.

‘From now on, I should only use one tranquilizer, no matter where I get them.’

Vivianne blinked. Even after blinking several times, the person in front of her didn’t disappear.

‘Edmund.’

She couldn’t speak. Vivianne desperately moved her feet, not wanting to lose sight of him. In the end, her legs gave way, and she practically collapsed into his arms.

She wondered if she had mistaken someone else for him, but she could tell it was the same person from the familiar scent. She had so much she wanted to ask, but knowing that her body had reached its limit, her mind faded away. The last thing she remembered was his touch.

❖ ❖ ❖

Vivianne smelled of the tranquilizing herbs, an unfamiliar scent to her, from how desperately she had smoked them.

Edmund sat in the back seat of the car, holding Vivianne as he had carried her out of the hotel hallway terrace. Every time he tried to sit her somewhere else, Vivianne would clutch at his vest, leaving him no choice.

After confirming that her clothes were torn but there were no signs of resistance or injury, Edmund kissed Vivianne’s forehead. It was then that Icarus, who had been sitting in the passenger seat of the Langston limousine, spoke.

“The Rex family has asked us to investigate the articles on the front page of the yellow press. They are curious about the informant and the people behind the editor who approved it.”

“Tell them I did it.”

“May I ask why?”

“Have you usually asked me the reason when I do something?”

“I stand corrected.”

“Let’s go.”

As the car began to move, Icarus, who had been watching the rearview mirror, spoke again.

“Was letting the articles be published really with the intention of using the Mergoville heiress?”

“If so.”

“How about we turn the car around as it is?”

And take Vivianne to his mansion and confine her.

Edmund recalled the memory of Vivianne coming into his arms earlier. He could confine her to his mansion so that no one could harm her. He could give her only the best of the best and reveal his identity to her when she asked why.

But from that moment on, Vivianne would never come to him again. She would rebel, saying that she had been betrayed by him in that short time, that it wasn’t him she wanted.

He couldn’t imagine how he would react if the woman he was holding like an angel in his arms were to change her face and reject him someday. He would surely make her cry. Maybe he would tie her up and gently urge her to look only at him. That wasn’t the ending he wanted.

Edmund had no intention of changing his mind.

“I don’t think I ever said I wouldn’t kill the Mergoville heiress.”

“I don’t understand.”

That was the answer he received. He assumed that his actions seemed to be solely aimed at saving Vivianne, so he thought the previous statement was contradictory.

“I could have said that too.”

“…”

“I’m saying I’ll keep her alive for the time being.”

Vivianne Mergoville’s motive for using the media is simple. She needed to prove her usefulness to him, even if it meant risking everything. Above all, it was to protect herself from Ludwig Rex.

He was going to do just that. He would let her use him to ruin the Rex family.

“Even with her fiancé, who was tormenting the heiress to the point of death, out of the way?”

“Yes. You hit the nail on the head.”

“I don’t see how that benefits the boss or the organization.”

“And I suppose you know how immediately killing a woman who makes you this horny would be helpful.”

“…”

“One can share feelings.”

Edmund said, shifting his gaze to the car window.

“They will dull over time. If my feelings are the same after a year, then I will personally eliminate the Mergoville heiress.”

Because that woman would inevitably interfere with his work.

“You will regret it.”

“I probably will.”

Even so, it was better to erase the woman he cherished so much without a trace than to have her remember him as a ruthless underworld boss. Not right now, but around the time she faded from his mind.

Nothing is permanent in this world, and that goes for this lie of playing agent as well.

If he forgot her, no matter how she found out or remembered him later, her disappointment would not affect him in any way. Then he might be able to keep her alive. She might keep the secret as she did when they parted.

But if the opposite were true. If his feelings for her were still there, then he, and no one else, would have to erase her as painlessly as possible. When those feelings had lessened even a little, so that she would be remembered as the agent she loved. Not letting Rex carelessly throw her to some kid as a way to get out of it without getting his hands dirty. If she were to get hurt or taken hostage, his judgment would be clouded, and he would make irrational decisions.

So, for now, he intended to keep Vivianne alive, using her usefulness as an external justification for a grace period.

With the intention of forgetting her as much as possible, not wanting to ruin her life with his selfishness.

“I want to know if the work I ordered Harvey Kane Cole to do has been properly handled.”

He was talking about the branch manager of the district. Icarus quickly indicated his agreement. Edmund, who had turned his gaze to the car window, sensed that farewell was near and left one last soft kiss on Vivianne’s nose.

The marble house, boasting its pure white beauty even in the darkness, soon came into view, and a long wall followed the side of the building that quickly passed by. There were iron gates between the walls, which were taller than a person’s head, and no one guarding them.

The car, which had stopped for a moment, headed inside the main gate. Because the Mergoville family’s Langston limousine was leading the way, the process was carried out without any unnecessary steps.

The car leading the way stopped, and a Mergoville family bodyguard got out of the driver’s seat and opened the door of this car. Behind him was a man in a police uniform. Unlike Vivianne, he was blonde, but Edmund knew at a glance that he was her older brother.

In the complete darkness, brown eyes gleamed menacingly beneath the brim of his hat. Without a word, Edmund took out his bloodstained agent ID from his inside jacket pocket, and after examining it, he nodded once. The disgust in his eyes was as if he had witnessed a huge snake wrapped around his sister.

As the man returned the agent ID, Edmund put it in Vivianne’s coat pocket. The man raised an eyebrow but didn’t stop him.

Soon, after receiving Vivianne and holding her in his arms, he turned his back and headed towards the Mergoville mansion. As the Mergoville family bodyguard approached and closed the door, Edmund took out a cigarette and lit it. It was a Mainsail. Feeling the acrid smoke scratch his lungs as it went down, he neatly straightened the vest that had been disheveled because Vivianne had been holding onto it until the last moment.

He thought it was fortunate that Vivianne had a relative who could step in at times like this. If the person he had to hand her over to had been a dark-skinned stranger like that bodyguard, he might have changed his mind and pushed his way through, even now.

He had been thinking about it, but now that he was about to hand over the person he was holding in his arms, he felt terrible. His mouth tasted bitter.

❖ ❖ ❖

‘My head hurts…’

Vivianne opened her eyes in her bed. Even as she slowly blinked and tried to grasp the situation, she couldn’t remember anything other than losing consciousness on the balcony of the Salenner Hotel. Judging by the fact that nothing hurt, it seemed that the worst hadn’t happened.

Her mind was still hazy, as if the effects of the tranquilizers hadn’t worn off yet. It wasn’t easy to move her body, as she had reached her limit and lost consciousness. She realized that she had been very nervous when she faced Ludwig, and that she had endured it thanks to her mental strength.

Vivianne leaned against the headboard of the bed, staggering.

‘The last thing I saw was definitely that person.’

She wondered if she had had a good dream, but she faintly smelled that man’s scent on her body. Was her sense of smell broken after the hallucination? Vivianne chuckled to herself and groped in her pocket.

A cold case was caught in her hand. When she opened the lid, there was only one herbal cigarette left. As she was about to put it back in her pocket, she felt something in the other pocket.

‘There was definitely nothing there.’

Vivianne quickly put her hand in the other pocket. And realizing that there was something there, she quickly took it out.

The object was visible in the dim moonlight entering the room. It was a card. To be exact, it was that man’s agent ID.

There was blood on it, so Vivianne rubbed the plastic shell with her thumb. She could see the man’s code name, affiliation, and unique number.

Besides that, there was the man’s fake passport. A letter from the Prime Minister ordering the agent’s mission was in her pocket. She stroked the Prime Minister’s signature with her hand several times. Feeling a bit choked up, she looked around, but the man wasn’t there. She quickly ran out of the room, but the servants only looked at her with puzzled eyes.

The sound of footsteps running down the stairs, Vivianne’s voice, and the voice presumed to be her brother’s echoed outside the room. The man’s urging voice continued. The sound of crying. A voice calling someone’s name. The sound of servants hurriedly moving soon followed.

The letter, passport, and agent ID placed on Vivianne’s bed cast shadows in the deepening night.

“I told you not to disturb me this evening.”

Ludwig’s aide, who had moved from Ludwig’s office to the Prime Minister’s residence and was finishing his work, was dumbfounded by the unexpected thunderbolt.

He was a good worker, and he had never been grabbed by the collar by his boss. Looking down at the two hands with white veins bulging out, he shifted his gaze to his boss and said calmly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You did it, you. The phone call.”

With each word, the shirt was crumpled more strongly in his hand. His neck was tightening more.

“To the Salenner reception. Don’t you remember that?”

“I don’t know.”

“That there was something urgent to tell you, that the higher-ups had contacted you, so you had to come to the residence.”

“B-but, wouldn’t it be better to let go of this a little and talk? If there was such a thing, I would have taken care of it myself. There’s a misunderstanding.”

“You also mentioned the article on the front page of today’s tabloid. I told you to keep the Mergoville bitch in check so she couldn’t do anything foolish, but you let her crawl all the way to the newspaper? Which bastard told you to release the article?”

“I was also wondering about that, so as soon as I heard the news, I contacted the higher-ups, cough.”

“If I had known you would be this busy, I should have come a little later.”

At the interrupting voice, both men’s gazes turned towards the door. It was an unfamiliar face, but Ludwig could recognize the other person’s identity by his voice.

“Icarus.”

It was that foreign lawyer. He had met many foreign lawyers sent by the higher-ups, but it was the first time he was directly confronting that man he had only heard about. He had heard that his work was legendary. At one time, he had even doubted whether he was a real person, so it was quite ceremonial that he had shown up.

“Judging by the atmosphere, it seems you received the message I left at the reception under Mr. Kinear’s name.”

“…”

“As you know, he is your Excellency’s aide.”

With those words, Ludwig’s hand, which had been gripping the man’s collar, dropped. He moved and sat opposite Icarus.

“Do you have time to talk?”

Icarus said, picking up the whiskey bottle on the table and filling the glass placed on Ludwig’s side. The red eyes, which had been staring at it, turned to Icarus. He smiled neatly and continued.

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