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“Young Lady!” The guard exclaimed in surprise.
I looked down at Taylor’s Hand, desperately trying to reach me. However, I couldn’t bring myself to take it, for I was afraid of getting electrocuted.
With his deep and distinct voice, he murmured in pain, as if hoping to soften my heart,
“You told me it was okay. You said it was OK to get hurt , and that I deserved sympathy, not disdain. You said those who abandoned me were the weird ones.”
Well, I did say that. But I was merely talking about the environment he grew up in.
I lowered my gaze and tried to recall the book’s content.
* * *
Taylor Knight was raised by a crime guild from a very young age.
According to the narrative, he could only eat after successfully carrying out assassination tasks.
He grew up to be an undisputed genius in his field and lived solely for the purpose of killing his next target.
It was undoubtedly tragic that a child became accustomed to such a life.
Yet,Taylor eventually began to think that this life wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, he found it quite enjoyable.
And that’s how he met Beatrice, the heroine of the novel. Not as a client of course, but as a target, and multiple times at that.
Several supporting characters sought the service of Taylor’s guild due to their conflicts with Beatrice. Among those clients was my sister, who had a close business relationship with the guild.
However, Florencia never requested Beatrice’s death; instead she asked for a kidnapping.
Taylor, who was so skilled at carrying out his requests without realizing that what he was doing was wrong, indiscriminately accepted all the missions against the female lead. Including my sister’s.
While he didn’t successfully complete the killing requests, kidnapping her was easy for him.
Eventually, he started to enjoy it, and every time he became more obsessed with Beatrice. As the original plot progressed, his obsession turned into an intense infatuation. When the Crown Prince proposed to Beatrice, he completely lost it and personally assisted Florencia’s plans.
His target had now become an object of affection.
At the end of the novel, when things took a turn for the worse, his limbs were injected with poison and he was thrown into the underground prison. And as expected from a criminal organization, the guild did not rescue him..
They abandoned him, disabling the safety mechanism that held his life in their hands. Now, Taylor was slowly dying one seizure at a time.
The way the book described it was so gruesome, I think I just skimmed over that chapter.
I also remember something about self-harm as well. I vaguely recall that the withdrawal from the drugs administered by the guild pushed him to the edge of self-inflicted harm.
Faint memories of a runaway-like state lingered in my mind.
When I first came to visit my sister,Taylor laughed at me for it and I responded with indifference.
“What’s the reason for you to come and see that woman? Why do you look at her like that? Are you here to tell her what she did was wrong?” He scoffed and cursed at me. And I remember replying:
“…Maybe.”
“Huh?”
“It’s true, isn’t it? You all should feel sorry for the victims, of course. Regardless of the reasons, you’re still criminals. That’s the truth.”
“…”
“I just… I also don’t think you guys are particularly happy with what you’ve done either… just don’t get hurt, okay?”
At that moment, I witnessed how much his red eyes could swell.
We became close afterwards, and Taylor started to open up to me. He confessed that he knew his guild would completely abandon him in this place, and that escaping had never once crossed his mind. But if anyone tried to execute him, he would undoubtedly kill them.
As always, I simply nodded and listened as he poured everything out. It may have seemed like such a small gesture, but if it brought comfort to him in this lonely place, there was nothing I wouldn’t do.
“Won’t you come to see me often?” he asked me one day, his eyes filled with tears.
At least that’s how it appeared to me……
At that moment, he reminded me of my sister.
In fact, Florencia Eilish, Calix Hamel, and Taylor Knight had more in common than I initially thought.
They all hated their lives. They all suffered, not just for a moment, but throughout their entire existence. And they all never received even the slightest bit of love back.
It’s true that murder cannot be justified. However, it is not surprising that they cannot love like normal people do. And given their past and the fact that they were kind of driven to commit those crimes, there was no reason not to offer them a little sympathy.
Those villains were somewhat pitiable. And while I couldn’t empathize with their actions, I could confidently say that they were better than my real father.
The man in front of me wasn’t a villain; he was a kid forced to do bad things in order to survive..
So yes, I said it back then. Seeing him in such pain, the people who made him into what he was–then abandoned him–must be the worst of scums.
* * *
“Taylor, please calm down,”I whispered tenderly.
“Calm down, okay? It’s not your fault, won’t you even give me a chance to explain things?”
His trembling hand that had been fidgeting came down weakly. I sighed as if to say I couldn’t help it and sat down in front of him. Then, I said:
“I’m just going to be busy.”
Taylor seemed to find my words hard to believe.
With so much wariness, you’re like a ball of tangled fur, I thought.
If anyone could read my mind right now, they’d believe I was crazy for thinking this man was kinda cute.
I reached out trying to grab his hand, but: “No, you can’t.”
He hastily took a few steps back.
“Why?” I asked, perplexed.
“You’ll get shocked….”
“But you were reaching out to me earlier. Weren’t you asking me to hold it tight?”
Were you just too desperate?
“…”
Taylor was unable to answer my question, and I watched him with a cheerful smile as he cutely hid his face in his pillow.
* * *
As usual, I spent most of the time with Taylor because he seemed to need it the most.
Comforting him wasn’t really a difficult task, and I found the infamous assassin, hugging his pillow and complaining to me about how uneventful his days were, quite adorable.
He was also the most in need of the medications I always bring.
Every time Taylor received the medicines, he hesitated and pursed his lips while looking at my eyes. It took me a while to realize he was having a hard time expressing his gratitude.
Ah, if only high-voltage currents weren’t flowing through the bars, I would have at least patted his head.
“Will you come tomorrow?”he asked.
I stood up, rubbed my tired eyes, as I looked at the man.
I knew how insightful he could be, so he probably wouldn’t be fooled by messy lies.
He had a talent for seeing others’ real emotions and was good at discerning the truth.
So, I decided it’d be better to tell the truth.
“I don’t know.”
“Please, come.”
“I’ll try my best.”
Taylor let go of the pillow, and his eyes, which couldn’t stay open due to fatigue, blinked slowly and softened while gazing at me.
“Mel.”
He called my name in a sweet tone, and waved me goodbye.
His palms were covered in burns, but he didn’t look like he was in pain.
“Promise me that you’ll come, Mel,” he tried to bargain.
How sly.
I shook my head and laughed at his trickery. He was shamelessly taking advantage of the fact that I cared for him.
There was a peculiar awkwardness in him when it came to seeking human warmth, it made me want to do whatever he’d ask of me. So, just to be safe, I only said:
“For now… get some rest.”
I gave him a similar answer to the one I gave to Calix earlier.
Taylor’s eyes seemed to be demanding a definite response, but ‘I don’t know’ was probably the best answer I could offer for now.
Two months is a short amount of time. If I want to save my sister, I have to do it now.
When I turned around to leave, the prison guard had a contradictory expression on his face. It seemed like he was regretting the money he had received from me earlier.
I narrowed my eyes and firmly held another coin in my hand, and nonchalantly glanced at him.
“Thanks for everything.” I said with a somewhat sincere tone.
The guard nodded with a serious expression, and I recalled what my sister had previously said about him when I told her I felt grateful towards him..
My sister laughed at me, in her Florencia-like manner, saying that I was too naive, and that his kindness was merely smoke.
“Take it.” This time there was no respect in my voice.
I tossed the coin carelessly, and it hit the guard’s fingers, bounced and rolled on the ground.
I’m sure he’ll just pick it up without a word. He was that greedy.
In this Sinaloa prison, there were strict restrictions regarding visits. The time for regular prisoners was limited to 20 minutes, but in Taylor’s cases, visits were outrightly prohibited . Moreover, Florencia was under arrest for attempted regicide and was soon to be executed, so even for me, a direct family member, seeing her was not easy.
Calix Hamel wasn’t an exception either.…
Well, I mean that’s how it normally is if one doesn’t use some gold.
The guard was quite useful. Depending on my mood, the coins could be one or twenty, and sometimes they fell by the pocketful. He was skilled at assessing the situation and willing to pretend that I wasn’t there visiting and bringing medicines to the three villains.. The power of capitalism was so great that it could create miracles.
Let’s not forget about that other guard who was in charge of guiding me to my sister.
The day I first visited this place, Florencia greeted me with a big smile.
That smile was filled not with delight towards me but with ridicule towards the prison guard who took charge of my visit.
In a hoarse voice, my sister lashed out at him saying, “How interesting, you used to pull my hair through these iron bars, but now you are letting me meet my sister?
When I heard what she said, I looked back at the guard with a cold smile.
“You dared?”
Needless to say, the guard never laid a hand on my sister again, not even once.
* * *
“Is the visit over?”
As I came out of the building, a man with reddish-brown hair greeted me. I looked up at his blue eyes as he tried to appear calm but was still restless.
He looked even more worried about Florencia than I was.
“Miss… How is she?”
Seeing his worried expression, it seemed like he heard about the execution. I gave up on saying meaningless words to reassure him and gave a brief reply.
“She’s not feeling well.”
His expression immediately distorted.
Of course, it would.
I sighed at the look of the knight who had loved my sister for so long.
Unrequited love was truly a plague. It rarely ends with a happy ending.
My sister actually admitted that she liked him once. Well, that was before the Crown Prince and her discussed their engagement.
I subtly told Florencia that the knight also had feelings for her, and she merely glossed over it, more preoccupied with the prince I assumed.
‘Do I look like a fool? I can tell just by looking.’ I remember her saying.
‘Well, it’s very obvious. It’d be strange if you didn’t know.’
‘…Right. It would be strange if I didn’t know.’ she repeated.
In the original work, Florencia realized her knight truly loved her quite late. Either way, now that she was in this state, she didn’t want to bring him down with her so she kept making excuses to not see him.
“ She said that no matter how you put it, she can’t allow you to see her. It’s not right for a knight to be with a murderer.” I confessed to the knight one day.
“It’s the right thing to do,” I continued.
“Who said that? Your sister? Mel, seriously, what nonsense is that again?” he fired back.
“An incredibly true nonsense,”I joked. “Anyway, let’s not talk about it anymore.”
As I recalled our conversation from a few days ago and smirked, the knight’s expression turned angry.
I explained that it wasn’t what he thought, and climbed the carriage’s stairs.
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