Please Kill Me - Chapter 89
But surely no one would guess that the runaway Sergei spoke of with such contempt was his own adopted daughter. No one except for Leonid and Vasily.
Sergei’s demeanor was hardly what one would expect towards a family member. Leonid found it hard to believe what he had just heard and had to rethink it several times. He wondered if it really could have been directed at Yekaterina.
No matter how many times he went over it, the facts remained the same. The runaway. The claim of running away herself. The undeniable skills.
Everything pointed to one person.
‘Yekaterina, a cur?’
Leonid recalled the conversation he had with Yuri just before leaving this morning. The night he stayed up wasn’t just about his own foolish submissiveness to Yekaterina.
But also about their previous exchanges.
— Don’t you participate in social circles? Don’t you have any acquaintances?
— I’ve never really talked to anyone, so I wouldn’t know.
— What about family? Someone within the estate? Allies or subordinates?
— Of course, I care for Offenbach.
Yekaterina never said the Offenbachs cared about her in return.
So before heading to the hunting grounds, Leonid had one more thing to confirm with his cousin.
“Yuri, just tell me one thing. Are you sure Yekaterina Offenbach is on good terms with the other family members?”
“Don’t you trust me? I’ve looked into it, and that Sergei is always meddling. Whenever there’s an outing, he insists on taking his adoptive daughter.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I mean, if it were just about tagging along, maybe not, but do you know how much money Sergei Offenbach has poured into educating his children? He even brought in a tutor I couldn’t get.”
“That for his heir or something?”
“He said he’s taught them both. That the eldest daughter of that house has such notable skills that he practically drools praising her everywhere he goes. You’d hear the same if you asked around.”
In the capital, Yuri’s information network was better than Leonid’s, whose main focus wasn’t in this region but in Rostislav’s main estate.
Thus, Leonid believed what Yuri said. But apart from that, he also believed the new things he had heard from Yekaterina.
‘Perhaps an adopted child might not bond well with the family.’
He thought it was a plausible story. Given the notorious reputation of the Offenbachs, it made sense that Yekaterina might want to keep her distance, or there could be other reasons he wasn’t aware of.
However, hearing Sergei’s words shattered all previous notions.
He still didn’t believe the widespread information was false. The premise that both could be true hadn’t been wrong.
But he hadn’t imagined it could be so terrible.
How could those words be directed at an adopted daughter? How could they come from
someone who claims to cherish her?
‘To have raised her in such extreme conditions since she was young?’
For an ordinary person, such a thing would be unimaginable, but this was Offenbach.
Leonid should have remembered it could be this brutal.
But deep down, he simply didn’t want to.
He didn’t want to believe it. Despite seeing all the emptiness and despair Yekaterina occasionally showed, he didn’t think her reality could be so cold.
Like children who speak of their inflated imaginations as if they were reality, he hoped Yekaterina’s situation was similar.
If all this was exactly as stark as it seemed, how lonely and harsh her existence must be to withstand all alone.
How could she have spent over a decade without anyone’s hand to hold?
How could she live a life with no one close enough to consider family?
But now, Leonid had witnessed a glimpse of the grim reality Yekaterina had faced for ten years.
The most terrifying aspect was that despite knowing all this, Leonid found himself unable to even imagine Yekaterina’s life.
Suddenly, their previously incomprehensible conversations flashed through his mind.
— I just want to rest.
— There will be good times if you keep living, right?
— I’ve never had good times. Being born was the first bad thing.
These words from when they first met, followed by numerous mysteries.
— I…have nowhere to go.
And Yekaterina’s despair, so akin to resignation. Looping back to the starting point.
Leonid’s dry lips slowly parted.
“…Sergei Offenbach. What happens if you find the runaway?”
“I’m not sure why you’re so interested in another family’s affairs. Someone might think you’re harboring the runaway.”
“Haha, maybe that’s the case. As if someone who fled from Offenbach would crawl into Rostislav.”
Leonid’s sharp sarcasm made Sergei’s brows furrow.
“This greenhorn brat…”
“Don’t ruin the mood, why don’t you relax your face? Or are you perhaps afraid of this greenhorn brat? You dragged another family’s affairs all the way here and can’t handle this much of a response?”
“Damn you—”
As Sergei got furious and was about to get up, a calm voice cut through the tension between them.
