Chapter 118 – Rainy Season (1)
The day after Jennifer left, the sky was dark and gloomy gray, unlike the blue sky of yesterday.
“…”
Isabella got out of bed at the same time as yesterday and noticed that her room was darker than usual, so she went to the window, opened her curtains, and unlocked the latch. She felt the scent of dawn lingering in the air and the slightly cold wind rush into the room.
Bush Luck-.
When I turned my head to the sound of cloth rubbing against cloth coming from behind, I saw Mason hurriedly getting up from the bed.
Lately, when she wakes up, her appearance has never been peaceful. It was as if her wanted person fell asleep from exhaustion and quickly woke up to recognize her own situation.
Isabella leaned against her open window sill, staring intently at Mason who was desperately trying to wake her from her slumber. Mason, noticing her gaze, tightened the blanket covering her and opened his mouth towards Isabella.
“… “Don’t look.”
Her sleepy voice sounded even more serious, but what caught Isabella’s attention more than anything was her attitude.
The hostility in her clear brown eyes was clearly different from before, when she was helplessly afraid of her.
And Isabella no longer laughed at her.
Now, we have come to a situation where such behavior cannot simply be dismissed as a toothless threat.
A place where she can tell her story, albeit in her own mansion, now that Germaine, who she believed would not intervene if not on her full side, said she would no longer stand by and watch.
Was nowhere to be found.
Even with Jennifer, the only one on her side, currently away, Isabella was now at her most vulnerable to external threats.
Isabella furrowed her eyebrows as she suddenly remembered Grace, who had laid her down and was looking down at her from above with her eyes full of pleasure.
She was by far the biggest threat to herself at the moment. In the first place, as an outsider to this area, her weaknesses and even her motivations for helping this sister were unclear.
She hasn’t heard much since she kept Mason hostage in her mansion, but she had no doubt that she was up to something, so it’s hard to call no news good news. It was a part.
… How did things get so complicated?
After asking herself a question, Isabella’s gaze turned to her Mason, who was still sitting on her bed, watching her.
Okay. If I had to choose the source of my unhappiness, it was definitely you.
Isabella looked at her with all her strength in her hands, which were on her window sill.
The first friend she had in her childhood, the first object of admiration, and the first object of separation.
The ugly and disgusting things that have happened to this small, ordinary town that I am experiencing right now, that you are experiencing, were masterpieces that could have been created because of you.
Even if you hadn’t left this village, maybe even if you hadn’t brought Siana back with you.
We might have found an ending that was a little more peaceful, and maybe both sides were satisfied with.
But, what about us now?
Even though I love you this much, you came to hate me this much.
I didn’t want this.
I am…
Isabella stood up from the window sill and looked out the open window. She patted her cheek as the wind blew slightly, her hair fluttering. As she was hit by the wind, she felt like her mind became clearer.
Isabella closed the open window, looking at the cloudy sky as if ink had been dissolved in water. Her face reflected in the glass looked even more serious against the dark morning beyond the window.
She had to stay calm. It’s funny that she’s so shaken up by these things now. If something was going to go wrong, there were dozens of more moments when it should have gone wrong a long time ago.
Come to your senses.
Are you going to give up now?
Since when did you become this weak? Just because you felt anxious a while ago, are you going to let that anxiety eat away at you?
You know it yourself. You have stepped into a swamp so deep that you can no longer escape.
Are you afraid now?
Which one? Siana dying? Do you want other people to see your crazy behavior? Or losing to Grace?
Come to your senses, there must be a way.
I muttered to myself as if I was hypnotizing myself. Isabella got up and headed to the bathroom. After pouring cold water on her head, her confusion calmed down a bit.
Isabella wiped the moisture from her hair and face with a towel and fell into her thoughts again.
Grace didn’t know exactly where and what she was doing,
Mason and Sianna are currently at the mansion, but Mason’s behavior has been somewhat strange recently.
Jennifer, who was thought to be the least likely to betray her, was currently away from her mansion.
After thinking about it, two options came to mind.
Lucia.
Mason’s younger brother, who naturally escaped her attention after she tied Mason up to her mansion.
And, Becky, who always remained as a convenient pet dog, remained.
“…”
Isabella quietly considered the two options. None of them appealed to her.
Lucia was her most ardent admirer, but her recent treatment of her could not be called good, even to say the least.
Before her eyes, she only gives affection to Sianna, denigrating her self-esteem and humiliating her. She was so convinced that Lucia could not leave her that she may have made a mistake in provoking her feelings of dependence, shame, and jealousy.
But even so, she wasn’t too worried. Lucia’s affection for her was more effective than she had intended. Therefore, her conclusion was that there was always a chance to give her reward.
However, going to see Lucia was an option she did not want to take. The anxiety that Germain or Grace might try to steal Sianna and Mason while she was away was weighing on her.
Then the only remaining option is Becky.
Isabella stopped drying her hair with her towel and lost herself in her thoughts.
Becky.
For Isabella, Becky has never been an attractive option.
Like Mason, she wasn’t someone who was imprinted as a unique being in her deficient childhood and encouraged her twisted desires, and like Lucia, she wasn’t someone who had fun squeezing into someone else’s empty space and filling it with herself.
Moreover, he wasn’t someone who was completely out of his mind like Jennifer, encouraging her behavior and finding satisfaction in putting her under his control.
Or, like Sianna, she is not so pure and innocent that she feels as if her heart has been stabbed by every plan she has made, but rather she is so obedient and ordinary.
Becky was the most monochromatic of the mosaic murals, the smallest piece of tile on the edge that no one paid any attention to. Even if one or two of them are broken or destroyed, no one cares, and it is okay to not have them in order to fully enjoy the meaning and emotion of the paintings.
At that moment, perhaps for the first time, she thought about what Becky meant to her.
Becky, why were you so cooperative with me?
I didn’t intentionally destroy you like Lucia or Siana.
Or, I couldn’t find those gory eyes on you that I saw on Jennifer.
Even though I searched through her memories and thought about the woman who had been praised so much by others since her childhood, I couldn’t find an answer that could clear up her questions.
Isabella moved her hands that were still in the air and wiped the moisture from her hair again.
Anyway, even if I think about it, there is no way I can come up with an answer right now.
There was no reason to bother myself, who was already full of complexity.
After quickly wiping her hair thoroughly, I leave the bathroom and take out her clothes.
It was time to go see Siana.
At that time, a letter sent from a small town was placed on a round table with many people sitting around in a building in the capital. Even before the regular meeting of the decision-makers of the water investigation team, this letter was a topic of considerable discussion among officials.
As for whether the contents of the letter caused an uproar, it was natural.
It contained serious content, including secret confinement, threats, and exploitation, and the fact that the victim was a former saint of a large religious order that disappeared several years ago was enough to arouse interest in the provocative content, let alone the seriousness of the case. I did it.
However, it was the sender of this letter that caught the attention of decision-makers who had already wrestled with issues on a larger scale and more serious issues.
The headache of the capital investigation team.
She proved her abilities with her competent performance and animal instincts, but because her lofty goals offended some people, she was relegated to a small, rural village.
When she received a letter saying she was involved in this incident and requested assistance from the capital investigation team, all of her superiors could not help but think of a proverb.
It is said that a cow caught a mouse while backing up.
“So.”
One of the decision makers on the capital investigation team spoke. His complexion was full of fatigue.
“… “Do we all agree on dispatching personnel?”
What comes back is a nod in silence. Since we were in charge of the water investigation team, we agreed to dispatch personnel for a detailed investigation, but even so, it was not good news.
The current situation is that people want to avoid being involved with her, who, with her arbitrary investigative powers, tried to confront the incorruptible corruption of a group created by strong power and closedness.
In addition, as investment in industrialization, led by the textile industry, is gradually being made in the region recently, the interest of high-ranking officials is also increasing.
In such a situation, it was natural that there would be a lukewarm response to the response.
The decision-maker who opened his mouth sighed about the current situation that was clearly shared by everyone, but eventually took the document lying next to the letter, signed with a quill pen, stamped his stamp on the ink, and stamped it at the bottom of the document.
“… Then, we will decide to dispatch personnel as soon as they are ready tomorrow, and then we will move on to the agenda.”
With everyone’s attention focused on the red stamp on the document, the decision maker made the announcement.
