At first glance, she thought it was her son.
However, the moment she saw the twisted look in his eyes, she knew he was the fake.
“You!”
At Bianca’s voice, filled with rage, he smiled and continued speaking.
“I was worried you might be too comfortable, but it seems you’ve had a hard time, so I’m really relieved.”
Bianca responded with a bitter smile.
“Yes, you must be feeling very comfortable now. Now you can act as the head of the family without my control. But……”
Bianca tightly grasped the family seal hanging around her neck and shouted.
“You understand that once my real son returns, it’s over for you, right?”
“Mother.”
“Who said you could call me that? You are not my son…”
“Even in this state, you still deny me.”
Bianca stared at the fake son with a shocked expression.
“What do you mean by that? Speak clearly!”
Erich smirked as he replied.
“Don’t you already know? Erich Lennon Blant was born with a twin.”
At that moment, Bianca’s expression turned as if she had been struck hard on the head.
‘What nonsense is this fake spouting? I only have one son…’
At that moment, dizziness struck her, and her vision blurred.
As she tightly closed her eyes, her husband’s young face appeared in her mind.
<Twins are unclean beings. If we raise this child here, it will lead to future troubles!>
And in his hands, he held a small newborn baby.
Her own son, whom she had never even held.
<No! Honey! Give me back, my child!>
Bianca unconsciously reached out with her eyes wide open.
‘Yes, at that time…’
She had tried to stop her husband, but her body, just after giving birth, was too weak.
Furthermore, there was another son beside her, crying and searching for his mother.
In the Empire, there was an old saying. Twins were considered ill-fated, so one of them had to be abandoned. If they grew up together, one would steal the other’s luck.
There was also a superstition that having twins meant there was something wrong with the mother’s conduct.
So, regardless of their status, families with twins would often face scandal.
So when her husband came back and told her that he had sent the child away to a nobleman in another country, she was repulsed, but inwardly she understood.
Yes, the child would live happily elsewhere. This is the way for our family to be happy.
Bianca had attempted to rationalize and suppress her guilt over the child.
But soon after, her husband brought devastating news.
The child had died on his way to another country.
Her heart was shattered with pain, but she still had another child.
So instead of blaming herself or her husband, she chose to bury all the truths.
Forgetting the existence of the lost child and her husband’s cold demeanor. She poured all the love she had for the lost child into Erich alone. But now, the child she thought was dead stood before her. With a cold, resentful light in his blue eyes.
‘You are truly…’
Bianca looked at her fake son with trembling eyes—no, the son she had believed to be her husband’s illegitimate child.
‘How foolish of me to believe my husband’s words……!’
<This is the child of the maid, Sasha. From today on, he will live in this mansion, so be aware.>
When she first saw him, the imposter’s son was smaller and looked two or three years younger than Erich.
Moreover, although he resembled Erich, he looked different, perhaps due to the environment he had grown up in.
He even had the same southern accent that Sasha used to speak with.
So she firmly believed that this lowly child was the daughter of the maid who hovered around her husband, and she couldn’t help but despise him.
Even as she watched him grow more and more like Erich, she couldn’t bring herself to see him as her son.
Instead, he felt like a doppelgänger trying to steal her son’s place, which made her uneasy.
‘How stupid…….’
She failed to recognize her own son, even when he was right in front of her.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, she hated him and mistreated him.
Her own child, whom she had never held.
Bianca clutched her chest and crumpled to the floor.
“Gasp, gasp…!”
As the shock of the unexpected revelation overwhelmed her, Bianca lay on the floor, breathing heavily.
“You must have been shocked since you had forgotten until now. You wished for the son you had already abandoned to die, but he’s still alive.”
“No, I…….”
‘No, I wanted you to live, even if it were elsewhere.’
I wished for you to be happy.
Yet she couldn’t bring herself to say those words.
Only questions came out of her mouth.
“You were supposed to be in a different country…”
He, who was watching her, smirked.
“Another country, yes. It was a different world. From the time I could understand, I learned how to kill people, and it was a place where I had to kill others to survive.”
She knew that the fake had been raised by an assassin group.
But thinking that her ‘son’ had grown up in such a sinister place tore at her heart.
“Well, you always said. No matter how hard I, the fake son, tried, I could never be your son. You said my eyes were sinister from growing like a human butcher in the gutter.”
At that time, she hadn’t known.
She was just filled with anger over her husband’s betrayal and the fact that this illegitimate child resembled Erich, so she said hurtful things without realizing they would hurt so deeply.
‘What have I done to that child……?’
Bianca was paralyzed by guilt and could not say a word.
“It seems that the Duke and your judgment were correct. As soon as I attached myself to my brother, the only family member who accepted me went missing.”
Bianca looked at her son with trembling eyes.
Yes, she had always resented that her precious son was replaced by her husband’s illegitimate child.
However, now that she knew he was her own son, that resentment had turned back on her like a thorn.
“Ah!”
Seeing Bianca clutching her head and screaming, Erich wore a distorted smile.
“Well, you’ve succeeded in your revenge. You killed my precious wife and child, making me understand the sorrow of loss.”
Though he was smiling, it was a broken, mechanical smile, not one of joy.
Bianca, overwhelmed by guilt at the realization that she had ruined the son she had failed to love, screamed in despair.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!”
Seeing her like that, he twisted his face and spoke.
“Honestly, I hate you. So much so that I even hoped the Emperor would kill you. But……”
He clenched his fists tightly and continued.
“I will not harm you. For the sake of my brother, who was the only one to accept me as family.”
Tears fell from Bianca’s blue eyes as she saw her son’s face through her blurred vision.
‘My baby.’
The son she had failed to protect, the son she had ignored, the poor child who was hurt and broken because of her.
At least when Cornelia was alive, there was some humanity and warmth in him.
But now, only hatred burned brightly in his eyes.
‘Yes, it’s only natural for you to hate me.’
Consumed by jealousy, she had failed to recognize her son, whom she had abandoned long ago and even abused and despised.
Furthermore, she had inflicted damage on the woman and child he held dear.
Bianca choked back her anguish and vomited her grief.
‘I may be a mother even worse than a beast to you, but still… I want to be a mother to you, even just once.’
Since the relationship with her son could never be repaired.
From the beginning until now, she had been in the wrong; she was the one who had abandoned her humanity.
Thus, Bianca had only one choice.
She gathered all her remaining strength.
Clang!
“You!”
Throwing the head of the household’s necklace, she trembled as she spoke.
“You came here wanting this, didn’t you? Take it! And never appear before me again!”
He smirked.
Yes, he had expected it, so it no longer pained him.
‘You have hated me from the start.’
Although she was the birth mother he had longed to meet, he resigned himself to this fact at some point.
No matter how hard he tried, he could never receive her love.
However, what he couldn’t reveal was…
<When we get back from the battlefield, I’ll tell her that the two of us returned safely. I’ll show them that twins aren’t necessarily ill-fated.>
It was because of his brother, who had disappeared after saying that.
‘I couldn’t bring myself to tell you the truth, fearing you would hate me even more. I was scared.’
He had thought that when his brother returned someday, he would reveal the truth to his birth mother, let go of everything, and leave.
But to take revenge on those who had harmed Cornelia, he needed the full strength of the Duke’s family.
So, instead of throwing the necklace back to his birth mother, he picked it up.
“And as you feared, I will not take the title of Duke.”
With a sorrowful look, he bade farewell to his birth mother.
“You will never see her again, as you wished, for I will follow her when this is all over.”
With those words, Erich vanished.
Bianca stared blankly at the empty cell where her son had disappeared.
“Oh, my baby… no.”
Bianca reached out into the void, hoping to catch her son.
But he was already gone.
“No. Don’t do this. Come back to your mother!”
There were many things she still needed to say.
She had to warn him about the consequences of the actions she had taken while in control of the household, as well as inform him of the weaknesses of the wolves in the collateral branches of the family.
“Come back, my baby!”
Bianca continued to wail and shed tears.
At that moment, she heard footsteps and someone’s voice.
“You can only see him for a moment! And you can’t kill the prisoner!”
“I understand.”
Bianca’s face twisted as she saw the figures illuminated by the torchlight.
“Xenon!”
The person who entered with the relieved guard was indeed Xenon.
“It’s been a while, Grand Madam.”
