Chapter 358
‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.
I narrowed my eyes. On the investigator’s left ring finger, I saw a gold wedding band.
“A terrifying threat letter.”
“Well. There’s no winning against a threat like that. For now, you’d better do as you’re told.”
“Investigator.”
“Yes?”
“Do you believe in God?”
At my sudden question, the investigator blinked once, then slowly nodded.
“Not as much as the Father, perhaps, but I consider myself fairly devout.”
I nearly laughed.
“Less devout than a clergyman who broke his vows to God? Is that a confession that you’re not devout at all?”
“I merely mean I’m as devout as God could reasonably expect of a worldly man.”
“Then think this through with me.”
“Go on.”
‘Perfect love casts out fear,’ God said. Then does that mean the love one fears most—the love of the person one loves—is not perfect?”
The investigator tapped the table with the hand wearing his wedding ring and thought for a moment. Then he gave an answer that was, frankly, rather irreverent.
“God has no wife. So how could He understand the fear of married men? If you’ll allow me to share the advice my mother gave me when I married—she said a husband ought to fear his wife more than anyone else in the world. Only then can he be a good husband.”
I had nothing left to argue.
My eyes, faintly amused now, drifted to the postscript at the end of your letter.
[Stop arguing and come back quickly, and be a good husband to me again.]
I lifted the necklace I’d been clutching and fastened it around my neck. The warm pendant settled over my heart. The aching chill in my chest was gone.
At last, I picked up the statement I’d refused to sign until now. As I turned its pages one by one, I spoke to the investigator handing me the pen.
“I know the bunker’s location and internal layout, the prime minister’s office, the terrain, and the defensive structures there better than anyone.”
You destroyed what I was trying to protect, rendering my efforts meaningless. Dana, I’m a narrower-minded man than I look. In retaliation, I’ll give them what you intended to give them.
“I’m sorry. But I intend to keep my promise to a lady.”
You must have known I’d choose this.
“And what about loyalty between men?”
“Well… I suppose. I am a gentleman.”
“Then would you really stand by and let your wife make a choice that leaves her unable to sleep for the rest of her life, crushed by guilt?”
For the first time, the investigator’s carefully neutral expression cracked. His eyebrows twisted sharply. Fortunately, he was a man who loved his wife.
The sleepless nights are mine to bear, my love. I already have innocent blood on my hands. But you don’t. So this is my burden.
“Make the deal with me.”
With that, I scrawled my signature across the false statement I had sworn never to sign.
* * *
In the end, Operations Command obtained the enemy’s secrets not from me, but from Killian.
‘Just wait until I see you. I’m going to grab you by the collar.’
Between the many eyes watching him and endless administrative procedures, it would take at least another week before Killian could be formally cleared and released. For now, he was still confined in the military prison.
Even so, grabbing him by the collar was something I could do today. Because at last, he had accepted my request to visit.
– Do you really have to see me in a prison uniform?
“Then, sob—should I—hic—wear one too, so you’ll feel—sniff—less embarrassed?”
– …Just come as you are.
Killian had asked me to be patient and wait until we could meet properly in ten days at most. But during the single phone call we were allowed, I cried so much I barely managed to say anything I wanted to. The regret of that still stung.
In the end, my stubbornness defeated his.
“You’re going to a prison crawling with criminals wearing something that shows your ankles? Change immediately, or I won’t go.”
Still, when it came to what I would wear, I couldn’t beat Kathleen’s stubbornness. So instead of the beautiful dress Killian had bought me, I went to see him in a plain, modest outfit, one that could almost pass for a nun’s habit, wrapped tightly from head to toe.
‘I wanted to show him that I’d kept that dress safe all this time.’
On the day Killian walks out of prison, I’ll wear it to meet him. The season may be wrong now, but a coat will solve that.
“We’ll arrive in about ten minutes.”
The driver announced from beyond the curtain separating the front and back seats.
I pulled my hat down again, low enough to hide half my face.
The Marquis and the Loveridge family might still be desperately searching for me.
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