The location of the number at 1499 Crawford Street, serviced by the company, hasn’t been identified yet, but time will resolve that. So, that wasn’t a problem for Leon. What mattered most to him was not finding the base but having the woman lead the military to it.

Whether willingly or unknowingly, to the rebels, she would appear as a traitor.

Ideally, the betrayed woman would directly betray her comrades, but he didn’t even hope for that. Just having her and the rebel group mark each other as traitors was enough to achieve his objective. However, everything might have gone awry because she knew his plans from the start.

Then, why would she say she was going to her brother’s? She wasn’t foolish to that extent.

“And then she mentioned her stomach kept feeling tight.”

The moment he heard what the lieutenant said, Leon’s train of thought snapped.

“Considering she managed to escape from us, she seems fine, so there’s no need to worry…”

The lieutenant hurriedly added, watching his expression.

“She was fine even after escaping?”

“….”

“Proud of you to say there’s nothing to worry about when you know nothing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Go tell Lieutenant Campbell to search every hospital and maternity clinic, no matter the size.”

“Yes, understood.”

As the lieutenant left and closed the door, Leon hesitated while reaching to pull the knot for his necktie.

His fingertips trembled slightly when it touched the knot.

His hand slid back inside his jacket, and he let out a long sigh. Chewing on a cigar was his habit when feeling upset, but ever since she got nauseous from the smell, he had thrown away his cigar cases.

Instead, he walked to the window and rolled it open. No amount of cold night air that he inhaled seemed to cool his boiling anger and anxiety. A phrase he read from a book lingered in his mind. Could psychological shock be a cause?

Leon thought of the rats that had shocked the woman and clenched his teeth.

He appreciated her for moving according to his calculations, but she should have known when to stop. Soon, the father of the child she carried would experience firsthand that some people know no bounds.

Even after receiving multiple confirmations of her health from the doctor, he hesitated until the last moment before starting the operation.

After watching her become frail and wasted, Leon gave up any illusion that she could remain unbroken by anything I did. It’s been a long time since he abandoned the hope that she would be broken.

Yet, in the end, the operation pushed through.

A drastic measure was needed. If left alone, there would be no future between her and that woman. Even if he immediately discarded the remnants of his hatred and changes, the woman who was lost in vain beliefs wouldn’t change.

He couldn’t just let her spend her entire life in the same cycle of love and hate.

Leon tried to look into the woman’s dark, unfathomable mind through the window. She had secured escape funds and weapons from her comrades. Knowing he was watching, she wouldn’t head to the base. So she boarded a train to her brother but shook off her watcher midway.

There were two choices from here.

One, she went to the base. After being betrayed, why would she head there? Sentiment?

If she wanted revenge on that bastard, she should used Leon. She shouldn’t try to do it alone. He has been tracking the trains headed towards Brayton, but there have been no sightings of her for hours.

Then, the second option, she headed to a third location.

This was the worst-case scenario for Leon.

As far as he knew, the woman had no other place of connection. If she hid in a place with no connections to her, he might have to comb through the entire kingdom, no, the entire continent, searching for a needle in a haystack.

The only clue he could rely on was her eyes, something she could never change, no matter how hard she tried.

The moment he recalls the blue-gray eyes revealing countless emotions beneath him last night, Leon harshly rubs his face—the unpredictable woman. The tender moments from the night before felt like a dream, making it all the more disgusting.

Where to… Where could she possibly go?

Looking down at the platform where the woman had vanished, Leon dissected the day’s events in chronological order. Suddenly, he looked up.

…No, there were three options.

He immediately opened the door and commanded.

“Check the original train she boarded and contact its final destination right away! Campbell, instruct the surveillance team at Redhill Farm to immediately resume tailing Jonathan Riddle Jr.”

The third option, she boarded the train again to her brother.

“In difficult issues, sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one.”

He thought back to the woman’s sly voice and smirked. Right, maybe she was just tired of being followed.

º º º

As the tavern door swung open, the raucous noise burst into the quiet night.

A group of drunken men stumbled out, heading towards the outskirts of the village into the farmland area. Among them, a man in his late twenties occasionally glanced back while his companions continued to discuss the day’s boxing match.

Someone was following them about twenty meters back. It could be a coincidence, but he had reasons to believe they were being followed.

Walking alone at such a late hour in this remote village was unusual for a young woman. Although it was too dark to see clearly, only the silhouette was visible. However, the woman’s gait did not exhibit the typical anxiety of women walking alone at night.

‘…The military or Blanchard?’

The group dispersed at a crossroads one by one. The last companion who had walked alongside him waved goodbye in front of a rundown building.

“Have a good Christmas, Charlie.”

“You too.”

He returned the Christmas greetings and continued along the dark dirt road. He rubbed his frozen nose with his gloved hand as he turned the corner toward the farm entrance.

“Joe.”

Someone called him by his real name, not his alias.

“…Grace?”

Joe turned around in surprise. Who would have thought the woman following him was his sister? How could she be here in the East when she was supposed to be on a mission in the West?

“When did you come without a new…?”

“Tell me.”

Grace quickly approached him. The clouds covering the moon behind her made it difficult to see his sister’s face even from a step away, but her serious tone was clear.

“…What?”

“Everything you know. Without leaving anything out. Without lies.”

This was what Joe had been anticipating.

Finally, it had come.

This was Joe’s first reaction when facing his sister, demanding the truth. It was going to be a long story. Instead of having this conversation in the cold and dark, he suggested going inside, though his sister was insistent.

Reluctantly, he led her to an isolated shed. He lit an oil lamp on the table with a match and sat down on an old wooden chair.

“You sit too…”

His gaze, which was moving upward, paused the moment it brushed across Grace’s belly.

“My goodness, what’s happened to you? Is it Jimmy’s child? When did you get married without saying anything? I’m quite upset. Wait. Did you come here alone? A pregnant woman wandering alone on this cold night? Oh, this won’t do. Let’s go home right now. Have you eaten dinner?”

Joe, who was completely unaware of the situation, tried to make sense of it on his own and stood up, attempting to take Grace with him.

“We can talk about this later.”

She sat her older brother back down and took a seat opposite him.

“I have something else I want to ask.”

Knowing his sister’s stubbornness, Joe gave in and nodded. Grace took a deep breath with a determined face, then sighed and asked.

“Am I really Father’s biological child?”

You already know, and you’re asking.

Joe opened his mouth, which had been firmly shut. Still, the answer didn’t come easily. He had anticipated this day and rehearsed it in his mind countless times, yet when the moment arrived, words failed to leave his tongue.

“Please, just tell me the truth.”

He eventually shook his head with difficulty. His younger sister’s face immediately looked as if she was struggling to hold back tears.

“…Your real father is someone else.”

‘…So, Winston’s words were true after all.’

Grace swallowed her tears and faintly nodded her head.

“I don’t know who he is either. I’m sorry.”

I already knew that.

But she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“Do you know how I… ended up being born?”

She still couldn’t believe Winston’s words about her being the product of some dirty seduction. When she asked, her brother’s face from across only grew even more pained.

“This kind of story is hard even for me when I’m drunk, let alone you sober…”

He buried his face in his hands and sighed deeply before standing up.

“I can’t bring myself to say it. You should hear it from Mother.”

__