Chapter 32

"Let's properly introduce ourselves. I'm Leon Winston, a captain in the Domestic Intelligence Division of the Western Command, and the son of the man your mother, that devil, cruelly tortured to death."

"......"

"Oh, is this a story you already know?"

Leon looked down at the woman's heaving chest and sneered.

"Miss Ridley, I've always wanted to meet you."

His gentle voice, as if addressing a benefactor, contrasted strangely with the glare of enmity in his eyes. As the breath heated by rising anger brushed her ear, she felt her throat tighten even more.

"But to think it would be like this…."

Winston pressed his lower body against hers. Something thicker than a gun barrel pressed into Grace's back.

"It was right there for the taking."

He traced the back of the servant, no, the cunning spy, with the gun barrel.

"You know, every time I see you, I want to shove my pistol into your narrow passage and ravage you."

As the gun barrel caressed her through the fabric of her skirt, the woman shuddered.

"Still, I couldn't torment a good girl, so I held back. But now there's no need to hold back anymore. Thank you, Sally."

He thought she was a cunning fox, but in reality….

"No, Grace."

A cunning rat.

Leon clenched the woman's neck, which was beginning to twist, even more tightly and gritted his teeth.

"Don't think of denying it."

"Hmm…."

"Fred Smith. No, Fred Wilkins."

As the guess proved correct, Grace closed her eyes tightly.

"That bastard was spilling your name before I even touched him?"

Just one more day. Just one more day to hold on, and it would have been over. As Grace sighed, a cold laugh poured into her ear.

"Miss Ridley, it's pitiful to have a coward like that as a comrade."

"Ugh…."

Winston suddenly turned Grace's chin. In the shaking vision from the shock of her neck being twisted, she saw the coldest flame flickering.

"According to that guy, Miss Ridley was involved in diverting Blanchard's rats from me. Is that true?"

Leon looked down at the teal eyes, wet with tears and fear, and smiled coldly.

"I'll personally give you the chance to complete your last mission."

***

The heavy iron door's screech had barely died down when a faint sobbing could be heard. As the lights turned on, the source of the sobbing became clear.

"Hello, Fred."

Winston greeted the bound Fred, who was tied to one wall, lightly and roughly pushed Grace inside.

Fred was unharmed, just bound. The fact that he had revealed Grace's identity without being touched, as Winston claimed, was true. Relief and anger surged within her.

"Hic…. Please, s, save me…."

Fred, who had gasped and raised his head when the lights turned on, began to beg Winston, pale with fear. When his gaze fell on Grace, he burst into tears.

"Sob…. Grace…."

"Don't call my name."

Hate poured out of Grace's clenched teeth without restraint.

"You don't have the right."

"I, I'm sorry. Sob…."

"Grace."

Winston, who had been watching the two with a pleased look, called her, mimicking Fred. His tone was full of mockery.

A thick arm wrapped around Grace's waist, standing face to face with Fred. Winston, who had forcibly embraced her from behind, asked affectionately.

"Do I have the right?"

The heartbeat against her back was violent. Despite his outward calm, she could feel that this man was not at all composed inside.

"No, it seems I don't."

As her body pressed closer, goosebumps rose. But Grace, like Fred bound to the wall, could not resist, trapped in Winston's wall-like body.

"I had such thoughts when I saw the maid Sally Bristol. Why did I feel like I was forcing a puzzle piece that didn't fit?"

Grace's heart sank at the implication that he had already felt a sense of unease from her. This man's animalistic intuition was already infamous. That's why she had opposed the infiltration operation, but only received criticism for being a coward.

"Normally, my intuition would have told me. This woman…."

"Hmm…."

"Is a spy."

When her earlobe was suddenly bitten, Grace flinched.

"But why did my intuition become blurred in front of Miss Ridley?"

Because you were blinded by lust. Even now, enraged by the spy, his body was aroused in a different way.

"Am I a fool, or are you a genius?"

A sharp laugh followed by the sound of a sharp metal object brushing against soft leather. Soon, Winston's military dagger flashed before her eyes.

"Thanks to you, I've become a laughingstock throughout the kingdom. My job is to interrogate spies, yet there was one right under my nose. An idiot, no less."

The sharply honed blade pointed to Fred, who was trembling, bound to the wall….

"A woman."

He stabbed Grace's neck. The sharp tip pierced her tender flesh shallowly, causing a stinging pain.

"Ugh, stop…."

Trying to avoid it, she twisted her body, ending up in Winston's embrace. When her buttocks inadvertently rubbed against his prominent lower body, Winston sheathed his sword and let out a lazy sigh.

"Miss Ridley, isn't this an insult to you as well as to me?"

Grace neither affirmed nor denied. She watched with trembling eyes as the sword, like a bomb that could fall anywhere between Fred and herself, sliced through the air.

"Being the last heir of a notorious gang family… Assigning a rookie like him is a great insult."

"I, I'm sorry…."

Fred, who had been sobbing indistinctly while Winston threatened them, offered another useless apology.

Grace held back the urge to slap Fred's face with all her might.

'I opposed it from the beginning.'

Whether Fred understood her unspoken words or not, he dropped his head weakly.

Fred was not suitable for spy work. Jimmy knew this too. However, the pressure from Fred's father, who wanted his only son to achieve great things, was not easy to resist.

Jimmy, who had recently taken over the position of commander-in-chief in place of his deceased father, had no choice but to consider the opinions of the elders.

"Don't worry, he'll be dismissed."

Jimmy paradoxically hoped that the army would resolve this difficult situation. That is, he expected Fred to fail the new recruit training.

But how flustered he was when Fred passed the new recruit training.

And how absurd he felt when Fred, who had listed his father's occupation as a butcher on the enlistment application, was assigned to the interrogation room.

It was a mismatch, and he had suggested Fred quit, but Fred was as stubborn as his father. He insisted he could do it, even as he vomited.

Still, as Fred seemed to be gradually adapting, he believed him….

Leon looked down at the trembling small fist and whispered cruelly in Grace's ear.

"Miss Ridley, surely you didn't forget your duty and leave the mansion with Fred in the interrogation room? I've told you repeatedly. I do my job, and you do yours."

Winston's job was to interrogate the spy, and Grace's job was to interfere with him.

"…Are you telling me to do my job here and now?"

When she asked in a trembling voice, Winston nodded without hesitation from behind.

"Yes, Miss Ridley. Your last mission is to divert Fred from me."

As Leon spoke absurdly, hope flickered in Fred's eyes, and a question in Grace's.

"Why? Do you want to kill him?"

Well, if I were in your place…. He muttered and laughed.

"If you want to kill him, you can refuse your mission. Of course, I don't know what punishment your commander-in-chief will give you for disobeying orders. But I'll make sure to mark Fred's body clearly to confirm the facts."

In front of the pale Fred, Winston wrote with the tip of his sword.

"Killed by the order of Miss Grace Ridley."

In other words, if Grace refused the 'last mission' that Winston was forcing on her, he would frame her as a murderer.

'So this was your intention all along.'

The reason this man was forcing Fred to live, even resorting to despicable threats, was obvious. By saving Fred, Grace would be forced to give him what he wanted, even though she did not want to.

"So, where should I send the body and the condolence money?"

He was asking for the location of the base. Anger and lust. Despite his highly personal and emotional state, this man did not forget his duty and reason. Such a person was even more terrifying.

I will never reveal the location of the base. Knowing his intentions, Grace could not help but ask.

"What do you want in return to let him go?"

"Pretty smart. But why ask a question you already know? That's foolish."

In the end, the choices given to Grace were death or a repulsive deal.

Grace closed her eyes tightly. Leon, reading her resignation, pressed his lips to her snow-white neck, where a thin line of red blood was flowing.