I Wish You Well In Your Next Love, My Love - Chapter 91
“Ah!”
A brutal force yanked my hair. It was a merciless strength that felt as if my scalp would be torn off. As my body fell backward, slap! My cheek caught fire.
Before I could even come to my senses, I collapsed onto the floor.
“This b***h…!”
“Enough.”
A huge shadow covered my body, then hurriedly retreated. I could not even close my mouth from the pain of being hit and only breathed out in gasps.
Not only my jaw, but even my nose stung. Before long, saliva mixed with blood trickled down my parted lips.
“Who said you could cause a commotion in front of me?”
“I, I apologize. I was only trying to stop her from escaping…”
“Haa. This is why fools are what they are. Drag him away.”
“I apologize, Madam, I will never make such a mistake again. Please, give me just one more chance…!”
The man who had struck me was dragged outside by the hands of the other guards. A large adult man wailed and screamed like a child who did not want to be scolded. I did not want to bother imagining what would happen beyond the door.
Right now, enduring my own pain was already more than enough.
I had to gather myself against the self-loathing rushing in and my heart collapsing.
“Oh my. I didn’t mean to treat you harshly.”
Madam Marcella, who had maintained her noble posture in her seat the whole time, rose.
As Gerard’s mother, she was taller than average, but she was not comparable to the sturdy men guarding her. Even so, I felt a pressure and force from her that surpassed the armed guards.
With every step she took closer, I shrank further into myself.
Before long, the leg that had been faintly visible between the slit of her flannel dress stopped in front of me.
“Child.”
She personally bent one knee and met my eyes. A slender, cold hand lifted me under the chin. My rain-soaked hair trembled with my shaky breath.
“Do you feel wronged?”
“……”
“You must be going mad from how unfair it feels, this reality where you have to be forcibly separated from your lover just because of status.”
She gently swept the hair stuck to my cheek behind my ear.
“But child, everyone lives while feeling wronged. Do you know what people out there say about me? A b***h who abandoned her parents and rose alone, a wicked b***h who sees people only as tools, a b***h crazed by ambition.”
Madam Marcella smiled softly, as if amused.
It was a face so beautiful it could make one forget even momentary fear.
“Do I look that vicious to you too?”
I could not answer.
But Marcella did not seem to have asked because she wanted an answer either.
“They say I have no human feelings. How unfair. My pity and sympathy are directed toward those who have nothing. Like you.”
“…Do you pity me?”
“Of course. That’s why I haven’t killed you and am giving you time like this.”
Her tone was so gentle and merciful that one might mistake her for an angel. The content was not like that at all, though.
“There are different degrees of injustice. There are those that end as nothing more than rumors, and then there are cases like yours, where you are dragged here despite having committed no crime and are beaten or killed. I know lives like yours. How miserable and servile they are. The low, shabby poverty that my son would not dare even imagine.”
“……”
“He is dazzlingly young and beautiful, isn’t he.”
The screams of the sturdy man being dragged away struck my ears and bounced off, but each and every word Marcella softly offered sounded as if it were being carved into my eardrums.
“Do you think that boy can overcome everything with love alone? Do you really? Do you think my son can shoulder the hardship ingrained in those hands of yours and be happy?”
“……”
“A life where no one even cares if you die without having done anything wrong. A life where you always tremble in fear that you might get caught up in the tyranny of those who have power. I’m asking whether Gerard, proud and fiery-tempered as he is, can endure it all and live that way.”
My breathing was gradually growing faster. Heat rushed over my face, and the corners of my eyes began to burn.
