Please Forget Me - Chapter 343

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

I left the door leading outside open but didn’t go through it. Instead, I kept walking down the corridor. When I reached the room I was looking for, I slipped inside quietly and hid in the narrow space between the sofa and the wall.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The pounding in my ears sounded just like footsteps rushing toward me to drag me away.

I was scared.

The man who used to come for me whenever I was in danger would not come this time, and that was my fault. Which meant I had to endure this fear, this crisis, alone.

“Dana! Where did she go? Find her—now!”

The voices and footsteps searching for me seeped in through the gap of the window above my head. They were terrifyingly close. I tucked my head between my knees and curled myself as small as I could, repeating the same resolve like a spell.

‘Killian, wait for me. I’m coming to save you.’

Whether it was myself or him, saving someone was now entirely my responsibility.

* * *

Click.

The door shut behind her without so much as a goodbye. Kathleen’s clenched jaw trembled with humiliation.

‘So all that talk about treating me like a mother was nothing but empty words after all….’

She’d known he was cunning, but she hadn’t realized he could be this despicable.

‘And yet, to do something like this to the cousin who spent his entire life yielding to him….’

What Killian had yielded were usually small things. When Rupert had demanded credit even for saving a woman’s life, Kathleen had thought it excessive. But she’d dismissed it as the blind arrogance of a boy desperate to impress his lover.

But when she learned that Dana Loveridge had been Killian’s lover all along, and that everyone had been deceived by Rupert’s lies, Kathleen could no longer look kindly on her nephew.

“Rupert owes Killian a debt. Don’t forget that and make sure he repays it.”

She had made that clear to Rupert’s mother, her twin sister. Even if young Rupert was sly, she trusted that his mother would remember the debt. That was how their sisterhood had always worked.

Kathleen, like Killian, had yielded much to her younger sister since childhood. When her sister became a Marchioness, those small concessions had returned as generous favors. Kathleen had hoped Killian and Rupert’s relationship would follow the same pattern.

Instead, Rupert repaid Killian’s sacrifice with death.

And not only death, he meant to bury Killian’s honor along with him.

‘All this over a woman….’

Even as she thought it, Kathleen knew that wasn’t the whole truth. This wasn’t just about a woman. It was about Rupert’s jealousy of Killian.

Only now did Killian’s words finally ring true, his claim that Rupert envied him for everything.

Before this, Kathleen had found it hard to believe. Rupert had been a Count from birth, destined to become a Marquis. What could he possibly envy in the second son of a minor noble house with no title?

But now she saw it clearly and regretted ever brushing off Killian’s warning.

‘I’m sorry, Killian. What am I supposed to do now…?’

Kathleen stared blankly at the quiet road, as if nothing had ever happened, and let out a hollow sigh.

‘Why did I do that?’

This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out.

Somehow, the three of them had gone missing during a military operation, and only Rupert had returned alive.

Then, not long ago, Rupert had contacted her out of the blue. He told her his wife and Killian were still alive in enemy territory, and asked her to inform him if Killian ever reached out. At the time, she thought it was concern for his wife’s whereabouts.

– Killian kidnapped my wife.

[Rupert’s trying to steal Dana back. We’re leaving the country together. Ted, please help me.]

She had thought it was nothing more than a lovers’ quarrel.

‘Even if she had once been his lover, she was someone else’s wife now. To kidnap her and flee overseas…’

So she’d ordered Killian to return the woman to her husband at once and come home himself.

“Rupert, I know this isn’t easy, but please forgive the boy. Don’t forget—you owe Killian a debt.”

She had apologized in Killian’s place and even reminded Rupert of the past, but he hadn’t seemed to listen.

Then—nothing. No news anywhere. Just growing anxiety, until she saw the article.

[Priest Ackroyd Arrested on Charges of Treason]

Why would Killian betray his country? This is a setup.

And sure enough, when she looked into it, she learned that the one who had requested the treason investigation and personally carried out the arrest was Rupert himself.

‘Over one woman, you’re going to brand your cousin a traitor and have him killed?’

Fury surged through her, but when she went to see Rupert, she hadn’t planned to confront him. There was no point arguing right and wrong with someone like him. Even if it meant groveling before a traitor, saving Killian came first.

But Rupert refused to meet her and avoided her entirely. She sought help from his mother, but received only a hollow reply that even she couldn’t control her son.

‘…I was a fool to believe we were still family.’

Unwilling to give up, Kathleen mobilized every connection she had: her husband’s former comrades, distant relatives, anyone she could reach in a desperate attempt to save Killian.