It's Too Late for Regrets - Chapter 7.7

Half of the people who had stayed behind in the mansion with Kyra died by his hand. The rest, those whose crimes were less severe, were dragged to the underground prison.

 

But Ines hadn’t asked him just to keep Caesar safe from danger.
She had told him to visit often and hold the child in his arms…

 

Even now, he could feel the presence of the child quietly waiting behind the door.
Rayan pressed his still-warm eyelids with his palm, trying to rid himself of the lingering murderous energy.

 

Only after quite some time did Rayan finally manage to speak.

 

“…Caesar.”

 

There was a rustling sound from behind the door.

 

“Can I come in?”

 

He heard a small mumbling voice, but it was so soft he couldn’t make out the words.

 

Rayan carefully turned the doorknob. The door creaked slightly as it opened.

 

Through the half-open door stood a child with black hair just like Ines’s. The child’s green eyes, so similar to his own, looked straight at him.

 

Rayan didn’t enter the room. Instead, he slowly knelt down.
His young son was so small that even while Rayan was kneeling, the child still had to look down to see him.

 

What were you doing? It must have been loud outside. Did you hear it?
He had many things he wanted to ask, but no words came out right.

 

Instead, Rayan reached out his hand.

 

“Caesar.”

 

Just as he had known little about Ines, Rayan also knew almost nothing about Caesar.
All he knew about his son was his name, his birthday, and that he looked just like Ines.

 

In truth, Rayan Eleanor barely knew anything about children at all. He had rarely seen one this small up close.

 

That’s why he had no idea how his son would understand or accept his mother’s death.

 

He slowly opened his mouth.

 

“The nanny will be here soon.”

 

“Nanny?”

 

“Yes. And you’ll have guards to protect you too.”

 

Guards. Caesar repeated the unfamiliar word awkwardly.

 

Rayan’s fingers just barely touched the tips of the child’s small ones before they dropped away.

 

“If there’s anything you want to learn, I’ll find you a teacher. If you want to eat something, just say it. If there’s anything you want…”

 

He had promised himself not to cry in front of the child, yet his voice trembled. Rayan barely held back the rising wave of emotion.

 

“Just say it. Anything. Even something small…”

 

The child, who looked just like Ines, tilted his head. After thinking for a moment, he parted his small lips.

 

Rayan waited anxiously for what his son would say.

 

“…I’m hungry.”

 

The words left him speechless.

 

Rayan barely stopped himself from cursing at his own stupidity.
While he had turned the upper floor into a sea of blood in his rage, the child had been in this room the entire time.

 

The sun had already set. Of course he hadn’t eaten all day.

 

“What do you want to eat?”

 

“…Potato salad.”

 

And toasted bread. With ham and cheese inside.
Caesar mumbled a few more things that came to mind, and with each word, Rayan’s face twisted with guilt and sorrow.

 

“As long as it’s not something Great-Aunt gives me, I’m okay with anything.”

 

That last whisper finally broke Rayan. Tears welled up again, and he covered his face with his hand.

 

Rayan Eleanor. You’re…
He barely managed to speak properly.

 

“…Let’s go. Let’s have dinner.”

 

Caesar looked up at the man who was now reaching out his arms toward him—a rare sight.

 

His father had never once offered to hold him first.
But his mother had told him to go and hug his father at least twice a month.

 

The child quietly nestled into his father’s arms, burying his face in the broad, slightly trembling shoulder.

 

 

Kyra died on the twentieth day of her imprisonment.
She had been locked up in the lowest dungeon where no light reached and not even a drop of water was given. It was a place meant for her to die, and so Rayan wasn’t surprised when the news came.

 

He didn’t even think about holding a funeral.
Her body, still twisted in pain, was buried in a nameless hill with no tombstone.

 

It was meant as a warning.

 

Once he dug deeper, it became clear that Kyra’s web of connections stretched not only within the ducal estate but throughout the entire duchy.
The largest merchant guild, the information network within the duchy—
All of them had ties to Kyra.

 

The many fake projects she had started using the ducal funds after he became the Duke.
Even the money she secretly funneled out under the guise of charity.
It had all been for one purpose: for her son, the one she had decided would inherit the Eleanor name.

 

Eleanor does not honor traitors in death.

 

Just like Millian before her, Kyra returned to the earth with nothing to mark her grave.

 

 

Rayan decided there was no point in trying to fix what Kyra had touched.

 

Instead, he chose to wipe it all out.

 

From the moment Ines died, he had started identifying the traitors one by one. That process continued for several more days.

 

And it took exactly one month.

 

Fifteen years of Eleanor’s foundation were torn out at the root, and a new base was built in just one month.

 

It was such a simple thing, in the end.

 

If only he had looked back just once.
If only he had listened to what Ines used to say.
Then it never would have come to this.

 

What had he done during the fifteen years he sat in the Duke’s seat?

 

All he had left now, after losing everything he thought was his by right, was emptiness.

 

But in the end, regret meant nothing. Rayan forced those thoughts away.

 

He steeled himself again.

 

The dead cannot be helped. What’s lost can’t be helped. I have to forget.
Let the past go, and protect what remains.

 

His nation. His home. His son.

 

This self-persuasion was what barely kept Rayan Eleanor’s mind from breaking.
But more than anything, the reason he had to stay sane was because of his son.

 

“Her Grace used to say she hoped the young master would resemble you, Your Grace. It’s an old story now.”

 

That was what Berry, the maid now serving as Caesar’s nanny, had said.

 

Ines had once said that maybe if the child looked like his father, Rayan might look at him at least once.

 

But Ines had been wrong.

 

Because Caesar looked just like her, Rayan could never ignore or abandon him.

 

Rayan Eleanor was helpless before his son. And probably always would be, until the day he died.

 

 

Caesar once again looked at his unsteady father.
On the table, the desserts he had casually mentioned wanting were piled high. They were much prettier, fancier, and tastier than he had imagined.

 

After some thought, he picked up a brownie and popped it into his mouth. His father’s expression softened just a little.

 

His father only looked like a living person when he was in front of him.

 

Caesar thought deeply about it and realized that his father had changed the day his mother disappeared.

 

He didn’t know why, really. His father had hated both him and his mother.

 

“Father.”

 

Caesar mumbled while chewing the brownie.

 

Rayan’s green eyes, which had been layered with the image of his wife on the child’s face, lit up.

 

He leaned toward the boy right away.

 

“Yes, Caesar? What is it?”

 

“Are you thinking about Mom?”

 

Though the question sounded light, Rayan couldn’t answer. He fell silent.

 

Sometimes, his young son was more perceptive than his age would suggest.
Caesar set down the brownie and said quietly,

 

“Father. Mom’s been gone a long time now.”

 

“…She’s not far.”

 

Rayan barely managed to answer.

 

“She’ll… be back soon.”

 

His father was saying the same thing Kian always did.

 

That Mom wasn’t far. That if he wished for it, she’d come back soon.

 

But to Caesar, what Kian said and what Rayan said were worlds apart.

 

His face hardened a little.

 

“Is Mom… coming back here?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Rayan couldn’t bring himself to tell the boy that Ines would never return.
The child was only four. He didn’t need to carry the truth of death so soon. Time would help him forget naturally.

 

But what Rayan didn’t know was that Caesar had been born with a deep sensitivity to things like death, despair, and fear.

 

Caesar stared intently at his father.
He could feel the heavy despair still hanging on Rayan’s body.

 

His thoughts, as a child, weren’t detailed.
But he remembered how his parents had once fought loudly. He remembered his mother crying.

 

He also remembered a night when his mother had talked quietly with Kian by the window.

 

“Maybe I’ve been waiting for this day my whole life.”

 

The longing to see his mother slowly faded.
Yeah. That’s how it is.

 

She wouldn’t want to come back.
Especially not to be near Father.

 

Rayan watched, breath catching, as the flicker in his son’s green eyes gradually settled.
A clear wall had formed behind those young eyes.

 

Caesar grabbed the large, veiny hand reaching out to him. He flinched at how cold it was, but he didn’t let go.

 

He nestled into his father’s arms and whispered softly,

 

“Mom’s not coming back, Father.”

 

His voice was small but clear.

 

With those words, Rayan realized that Caesar had felt Ines’s death as deeply as he had.

 

But the four-year-old had handled it better.
Unlike his pathetic self, lost in grief, unable to see what was around him.

 

“So you should stop now too, Father.”

 

With those words, everything Rayan had tried so hard to forget came rushing back.

 

The truth was, he had never stopped thinking about Ines, not even for a day. He had only tried to force himself to look away.

 

“…Alright.”

 

Rayan replied hoarsely.

 

Caesar climbed down from his chair and walked closer.
Rayan picked him up and buried his face in the child’s small shoulder.

 

“Alright…”

 

Caesar felt the tears wetting his neck and shoulder and thought:

 

Mom, I’ll stay with Father.
So please, go to a better place.