A sudden jolt shot through his chest, as if his heart had dropped to the floor. How long had he been standing there? What had he been thinking as he watched?
Startled, Seol Yu-jin instinctively flinched, and the sight made Winston Campbell’s brows furrow.
Yu-jin’s fear only deepened.
“……Hiiik!”
Winston began to rise, parting his lips to speak, but at almost the exact same moment, Yu-jin let out a shriek, his breath hitching in his throat.
He tried to scramble backwards in a panic, still seated, but the surge of pain that followed robbed him of even the strength to scream. He collapsed without a sound.
“Yu-jin!”
“D-Don’t come any c-closer!”
He gasped, choking on his cries, but all that came out were broken, ragged breaths—his voice barely coherent.
Coughs racked his body between sharp inhalations, and Winston halted, unwilling to move any closer.
“What the hell…”
He watched for a moment in silence, then finally let out a sigh and spoke for the first time, just as Yu-jin’s breathing began to settle.
But Winston couldn’t go on. He ran a hand through his hair, looked briefly away, and only then turned his gaze back to Yu-jin.
Yu-jin was still deathly pale, his body curled in tightly on itself, staring at Winston with wide, terrified eyes. Only then did Winston speak again, his tone subdued, the sharp edge gone from his voice.
“I just wanted to ask how you were feeling. I don’t understand why you’re so scared. I wasn’t the one who attacked you.”
His final words sounded bitter, like they left a bad taste in his mouth. But Yu-jin didn’t know either.
Why was his heart pounding like this? Why was he so afraid?
The more the memories crept back, the worse the tremors became.
He couldn’t breathe properly, overwhelmed by the terrifying sense that Charlotte might stab him in the heart at any moment.
“Cha—Charlotte… Charlotte, she…”
His voice trembled as he barely managed to stammer out her name, and Winston replied in a quiet tone.
“She’s not here.”
Then where was she?
The ambiguity of the answer gave him no relief. Yu-jin pulled the sheet up to his neck and anxiously scanned the room.
Only then did Winston speak again, slowly and deliberately.
“She’s with Gordon. He said he wanted to find out for himself why she did something like that.”
Yu-jin blinked a few times before finally asking,
“Is it… over?”
His voice sounded drained, as if all the energy had been sapped from him.
Winston knew why.
She’d tried to kill someone—and yet, she hadn’t even been taken to the police station. No repercussions. No charges. She simply returned home. Safe and untouched.
So that’s how she could do something like that.
It had been reckless. Brazen beyond belief. Attempting to kill someone, out in the open like that.
But behind her stood the Campbell family.
Would she have dared such a thing if she didn’t believe this incident would be swept under the rug, that she could walk away without consequence?
What if I had died right there…?
Goosebumps crawled over his entire body as he began to tremble uncontrollably.
Somewhere in that vast Delights estate, they could’ve buried Yu-jin’s corpse and ended it all like nothing had ever happened.
Yeah, it happens all the time in novels. They bring in a lookalike and pretend it’s the real person, or something like that. There are countless ways.
After all, people like them have the money and power to pull it off.
Suddenly, tears welled up in his eyes, rushing forth like a wave.
What am I to these people, really?
Just as that thought crossed his mind—
“…That’s what Gordon wanted to do.”
Winston’s slow, deliberate voice made Yu-jin lift his head without thinking.
His vision was blurry with tears, so he hurriedly blinked them away, but the next moment, fat teardrops rolled down his cheeks.
Winston abruptly fell silent at the sight.
His face had gone blank, as if something had struck him dumb. Yu-jin, confused, stared at him.
What’s with him all of a sudden?
Blinking rapidly, Yu-jin waited for him to continue. But when the silence dragged on, his unease grew stronger by the second.
“So?”
“…What?”
Unable to bear it any longer, Yu-jin finally asked, and Winston startled, blinking in surprise as if someone had doused him in cold water.
Seeing that reaction, Yu-jin sighed and pressed on.
“So what happened? You said Gordon wanted to do that.”
“Ah… ahhh…”
Only then did Winston let out a low, breathy moan, like a sigh.
Something about him seemed dazed, almost vacant, and Yu-jin began to grow anxious.
What’s he stalling for? Trying to figure out how to shut me up without damaging the family’s name? Something like that…?
“Bring her.”
The sudden words snapped Yu-jin out of his spiraling thoughts.
Winston was hanging up his phone, slipping it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Yu-jin stared in confusion, but Winston said nothing more. Instead, he gazed toward the door, as if waiting for someone.
Yu-jin’s eyes were drawn in the same direction.
What’s about to happen now?
They didn’t have to wait long. A few moments later, footsteps echoed outside, followed by a knock at the door. There was a brief pause, then the door opened—
And the person he had been dreading came into view.
Charlotte…!!
Yu-jin froze completely, unable even to scream.
Her final image—coming at him with that knife—flashed vividly in his mind, paralyzing him with fear. He couldn’t even breathe. He caught sight of the bodyguard behind her, giving her a slight push on the back. Stumbling forward, she stepped into the room, and the door was shut coldly behind her.
A deathlike silence descended upon the hospital room.
The only sound was Yu-jin’s ragged breathing.
“H-How… How could…”
That was all Yu-jin could manage to say.
Didn’t he say Gordon had taken her?
What the hell is going on?
While Yu-jin floundered in confusion, Winston’s voice cut through the silence.
“She did that to you under my roof. You really think I’d just let her go?”
The chill in his tone made Yu-jin turn his head, but Winston wasn’t even looking at him. His gaze was fixed solely on Charlotte as he continued.
“So? What should we do? You decide—I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Y-You’re not turning her in to the police…?”
The words slipped out before Yu-jin could even process the situation.
Winston let out a soft snort of laughter and replied,
“So, you’re saying we should take her to court? Who knows if that’ll take a year, or ten? Baby, I’m not that patient.”
Though his final words were laced with sweetness, the meaning behind them was anything but. Yu-jin felt the same bone-deep fear as when he had nearly died.
“B-But still, the l-law…”
“And what exactly has the law ever done for you?”
Winston cut him off without mercy.
“What if it just drags on until it fizzles out, and she walks free? After trying to kill you? That’s not happening.”
A golden glint shimmered in Winston’s eyes.
Even Yu-jin, who couldn’t smell his pheromones, could tell just how furious he was. If he had been able to smell them, he might’ve gone into heat on the spot. Thankfully, all Yu-jin felt was the bristling chill of fear crawling across his skin.
Winston wasn’t bluffing.
He had no intention of forgiving Charlotte. Not because she was his sister-in-law, not even because she was family—none of that mattered.
She had dared to do this in his home. That alone made it unforgivable.
Yu-jin thought to himself—there’s no reason for that man to be this angry for my sake.
They’d only joined hands out of mutual convenience…He was a man who had once regarded Yu-jin as something lower than a sewer rat.That bitter thought dulled his fear a little.
Gathering his nerve, Yu-jin opened his mouth.
“So, what are you going to do?”
“What about you?”
Winston threw the question right back at him.
“What do you want to do? Say it—whatever it is, I’ll make it happen.”
Yu-jin just wanted to know the reason. Why she had tried to kill him in the first place.
When he spoke plainly, Winston frowned.
“That’s it?”
“Well, for now…”
Yu-jin faltered, trailing off, and Winston let out an exasperated sigh.
“You’re too soft, Yu-jin.”
“Th-Then what about you? What are you going to do?”
Yu-jin flinched as he stammered, but Winston turned his eyes toward Charlotte once more. Narrowing them slightly, he spoke in a slow, deliberate voice.
“She should receive a punishment equal to what she’s done.”
The room chilled in an instant.
Not only Charlotte, but Yu-jin as well, flinched in terror.
Even though he’d nearly been killed, hearing someone talk about repaying violence with violence was still horrifying. Charlotte, in particular, looked like she might piss herself.
If there had been a seismic sensor next to her, Yu-jin was sure it would be reading a magnitude 7.
“I-I-I was wr—wrong…”
“Save your apology.”
She finally opened her mouth, but Winston didn’t even let her finish.
“Actions are words. And you’ve already said plenty with yours. No need for me to listen to anything more.”
And then Yu-jin saw him reaching for his phone again.
He didn’t need to see what came next to know exactly what was about to happen.
In a flash, an image surged through his mind—Charlotte being dragged away, brutalized, left in some unspeakable state—
And before he even realized it, Yu-jin cried out.
“W-Wait, stop…! Don’t do it, I said stop!”
