Chapter 24
===
Aileen tended to remember her childhood well. The memories she shared with Cesare were especially vivid, as they were all happy moments.
But among them, one memory stood out particularly clearly.
"Aileen."
A voice calling her name cut through the dark abyss. Aileen, who had been crying, looked towards the light.
Once her eyes, trapped in darkness, had finished adjusting, Cesare was standing there.
At that moment, twelve-year-old Aileen felt the most complex and overwhelming emotions of her short life. Unable to coherently organize the words surging within her, she ended up asking him a bizarre question.
"Why did you come...?"
Not even a thank you, but why did he come? It was a truly foolish question. Cesare slowly closed and opened his eyes at the nonsensical question.
"I wonder."
He gazed intently at Aileen, as if looking at an incomprehensible being. His calmly sunken red eyes flickered with emotions that young Aileen couldn't understand. Cesare murmured, as if he himself didn't understand.
"Why did I come?"
After looking down at Aileen for a while, he wordlessly bent his knees and sat down. He untied the ropes binding Aileen's body and pulled her into his arms. Aileen hugged Cesare back with all her might.
Having been tied up for so long, she couldn't put any strength into her hands. With trembling fingers, she clutched at Cesare's clothes. She thought she was gripping them tightly, but in reality, it was no more than scratching at the fabric with her fingernails.
Cesare gently took her small, falling hand into his own. He massaged her spasming hand and said nonchalantly.
"Let's go back."
I heard the Grand Duke went to war, how did he get here? Even my parents and the police couldn't find me, how did he manage to find me? Was I so precious to him that he rushed here in such haste?
There were many things she wanted to ask, but she couldn't utter a single word. She fainted and when she regained consciousness, she was already home.
She heard that Cesare had entered the Imperial Palace and then returned to the battlefield. She was worried whether it was okay for him to wander around as he pleased during the war, but even if she asked the soldiers, they wouldn't explain.
Aileen, with unresolved questions, meticulously described and recorded the events of that day in her diary with a drawing. The figure of the Grand Duke, like a starlight illuminating the dark abyss.
"Grand Duke..."
Aileen groaned and opened her eyes. But the world was all blurry. She blinked several times to clear her vision. Then, little by little, she could see her surroundings.
It was an old house. It seemed to have been unused for a long time, with white cloths covering the furniture and a layer of dust on the floor. Only the moonlight streaming in through the window and a small oil lamp placed far away illuminated the inside.
Aileen touched her forehead with her hand. She felt a slight dizziness. She had learned from medical books that compressing the carotid artery could cause fainting, but she couldn't believe it when it happened to her.
As she touched her forehead, she felt the emptiness on her face and groped around her eyes. Her glasses were gone. They must have fallen off somewhere while she was being dragged here. It felt like the shield that had been hiding her, even a little, had disappeared.
Her chest tightened with tension and fear. Just then, the door opened with a commotion of voices. Nearly ten men crowded into the small house.
"She's awake?"
The man who seemed to be the leader of the group smiled at Aileen. With a frivolous look, he approached Aileen and looked down at her arrogantly. Aileen, sitting on the floor, looked up at him and opened her mouth.
"...I don't know what you want."
Trying to speak without stuttering, she pronounced each word clearly.
"Don't you know? His Grace, the Grand Duke is a cold man. No matter how much of a woman the Grand Duchess will be, he will not negotiate while accepting ridiculous losses. He would rather take another woman as his wife."
To the opponent who was clearly Cesare's enemy, Aileen made her worth known.
"I am a worthless hostage."
The man sniffed. He stood with one leg cocked and said.
"I thought so too, but it seems not?"
He said something incomprehensible.
"They say Cesare deserted because of you."
Deserted?
Her eyes widened at the first time she had heard of it. But the man didn't bother to explain in detail for Aileen's sake. He continued, sniffing repeatedly.
"Actually, I don't want to get anything. I just want to ruin things."
The eyes seething with malice were already consumed by abnormal madness.
"My life is about to be ruined because of that bastard, so it's only fair that he loses something too."
The man bent his knees and squatted down. He spat thick phlegm on the floor.
"If, Aileen."
Aileen thought of Cesare. The things she had been taught by him since the kidnapping at the age of twelve.
"If you are caught by others and it seems like something bad is going to happen to you. Don't resist, just stay still."
He said that provoking the other party could lead to something more dangerous. Something worse than something bad. For example, being killed. Or irreversible damage to the body.
But unlike the dire warnings, Cesare concluded with gentle yet firm words.
"But I promise. That won't happen."
"If you wait quietly, I will come to save you."
He said that he would come in time to prevent something bad from happening, so don't rashly resist on your own and just wait for him quietly. Aileen trembled all over, repeating Cesare's words over and over again.
He will definitely come.
If I wait, he will come and save me.
But unlike her firm belief, her body was already completely consumed by fear. The man pushed the trembling Aileen over, causing her to fall backward, and unbuttoned his pants.
The man cursed as he was about to undo his belt. He scanned Aileen up and down, grumbling discontentedly.
"Ha, shit, how am I supposed to get hard like this? Cesare has a good appetite. Eating something like this."
He gestured to the other men and ordered.
"Brush her hair back or something. I can't get turned on at all."
Then two men approached and grabbed Aileen's arms from either side. They forcibly sat her up and roughly swept back the bangs that covered her face.
"......"
At that moment, the old house fell silent. Aileen immediately turned her head to the side, but her chin was grabbed by a rough hand.
The man looked at Aileen in disbelief. He was blank as if his soul had left his body, then suddenly murmured.
"There was a reason he paid so much..."
The movement of the hand gripping her chin changed subtly. It caressed her cheek and rubbed her ear. The man gave a sly smile.
"Don't cry, okay? Since it's come to this, let's make each other feel good."
Aileen bit her lower lip tightly and glared at the man. Just in case, though it was unlikely, if Cesare really couldn't come to save her.
She would never do or say anything that would bring dishonor to him. She would not show any reaction that would give them the satisfaction of defiling the Grand Duke's woman.
Aileen suppressed the urge to scream and clenched her teeth. It was the moment the man, with an excited moan, was about to bring his lips to hers.
"Aileen."
A voice like a hallucination was heard. Aileen called out to Cesare with all her strength.
"Your Grace, the Grand Duke..."
She called him as she had in her young days at the age of twelve. The call that came out of her fear-stricken throat was very small and faint. But that alone was enough.
Bang!
A gunshot shook the silence of the night. With each successive gunshot, the kidnappers fell one by one like scarecrows.
The old house was filled with terrible screams. Those who had been shot in the legs scattered blood and thrashed on the floor. The men who had been holding Aileen on either side were no different, wriggling like worms.
The only person who was not hit by a bullet was the man right in front of Aileen.
"Shit...!"
He hurriedly used Aileen as a shield and backed away. Soon the gunshots stopped, and the sound of footsteps was heard.
Bang, the door, tattered with bullet holes, was kicked open. A long shadow cast from the doorway covered Aileen and the man.
The owner of the shadow was Cesare, standing against the moonlight.
