To My First Love, With Regret - 106

Now, you will begin to imagine it. Ten years ago, while you were wailing in grief over the loss of your family, you’ll picture Evelyn Sherwood crying out in ecstasy beneath me.

At the end of that suspicion, you will reach a certainty. You’ll believe that Tony—the boy you find so adorable—is actually the son that woman had with me.

From then on, every time you look at that child, you will see my face and remember the woman pinned beneath me. I hope that the blind hatred sprouting within you grows until it strikes you blind. And when the day comes that the boy feels like such a cruel mockery that you can no longer bear it, press a muzzle to that small head and pull the trigger, just as you did to me.

Kill your own son with your own hands.

Only then will you learn the truth, but by then, you and that woman will have reached a point where you can no longer forgive each other. Even as a ghost, I will keep my eyes wide and watchful as I witness the two of you destroy yourselves.

—…What?

The poison had already taken hold. The arrogant smirk on Ethan Fairchild’s face shattered into pieces, revealing raw agitation. Watching that crack form, Owen twisted the corners of his mouth, intent on mocking the man one last time.

But his sneer remained unfinished.

Owen Karras did not close his eyes the moment his breath stopped. His bloodshot eyes stared up at Ethan as if they intended to follow him forever. The resentment pooled in those lightless pupils felt more persistent than the murderous intent of any living soul.

For a dead man.

Tsk. Ethan completed the smirk that Owen Karras couldn’t finish, mocking the deceased with a perfect expression of derision.

When he killed, he looked his opponent straight in the eye. It was Ethan Fairchild’s way of showing ‘courtesy’—taking on the weight of the murder—while simultaneously acting as an arrogant ritual to permanently sear his victory into the victim’s final memory.

As planned, Ethan stared down into the eyes of the loser who had died harboring a grudge. Normally, he would have tasted nothing but exhilaration from such eternal resentment. But this time, the aftertaste was far from pleasant.

—That woman… do you know… why she… abandoned you? Back then… she was carrying… my son.

Snow stirred by the harsh wind began to settle over Owen Karras’s body. While the dead man was being peacefully interred in the snow, Ethan was being buried alive by the man’s final words.

He was still fixedly glaring at the man who could no longer answer his questions when a subordinate guarding the area from behind cover pulled him back to reality.

—Boss, we have to go now.

The moment he snapped out of it, Ethan pulled a flask from his inner jacket pocket and numbed his mind with harsh whiskey. The bitter taste of the liquor washed away the unpleasant lingering sensation.

Whether that bastard’s words were true or not, what does it matter to me now?

The only thing that mattered was the fact that he had cleanly removed a barrier blocking his path. Regardless of the past, wasn’t the future rolling forward exactly according to his script?

As a thrilling sense of victory surged through his veins once more, Ethan’s mood soared toward the heavens.

Whistling that frivolous funeral march, he reached down and ruthlessly ripped the dog tags from Owen Karras’s neck. A death report had to be filed accurately and swiftly, after all.

Finally, he tossed the pistol he had used to murder his ally next to the enemy soldier’s corpse, flawlessly switching the identity of the killer.

Having finished the stage for this deceptive play, the director turned his back without a shred of lingering regret.

Toward the next stage.

Climbing into the cockpit of the transport plane, Ethan stared at the end of the far-reaching runway and pulled back the control stick without mercy. The great steel bird kicked off from the frozen earth and soared into the sky.

There was only one place for the hawk to return after the hunt was over.

To Evelyn ‘Sherwood.’ To the cliff guarded alone by that helpless sentry.

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At the Cliffhaven Cemetery, the sound of waves breaking against the cliffs below sounded like a wailing lament for the dead.

It was a fact Eve had never realized before. In previous funerals, the cries of grief-stricken mourners had always swallowed the sound of the ocean.

—We are gathered here today to guide Dr. Owen Karras to heaven.

The priest presiding over the service committed an error with his very first sentence. Eve’s reason for standing here was to scoff at the sight of her second husband being cast into the darkest, hottest pits of hell.

—Even amidst the rain of gunfire, the deceased did not care for his own safety. He remained by the side of the wounded until his final moment, dying a hero’s death while fulfilling his noble calling as a doctor.

Owen Karras’s cause of death was officially listed as ‘killed by the enemy.’

It wasn’t entirely a lie. It was simply different from the truth—that the ‘enemy’ was not from across the border, but was standing right here in this cemetery beside the casket.

Eve lifted her gaze through the black birdcage veil covering her face and looked at the true culprit. Ethan Fairchild was staring at her as if he intended to pierce right through her, tilting his flask back repeatedly.

In the eyes of those who knew nothing, did he look like a soldier trying to drown the agony of losing a comrade in alcohol?

In Eve’s eyes, he was a peerlessly competent, yet laughably stupid, hitman.

There had been no need for a contract or a formal request. Without spending a single cent or surrendering a single weakness, Eve had succeeded in easily removing a husband who had outlived his usefulness.

With this, Eve had achieved the goal of her second marriage. The vast fortune that the Karras father and son had boldly embezzled—and shamelessly refused to return—had come back entirely to her as the sole heir.

It was a perfect victory for Evelyn Sherwood.

Eve’s crimson lips curved into a winner’s smile behind the black veil. However, instead of a laugh, she let out a sob, her delicate shoulders trembling.

She had to ensure she appeared just affectionate enough to have conceived a child with her deceased ‘husband.’

’If you’re so sad, why don’t you follow him to the grave?’

Watching the ‘widow’ sob so sorrowfully, Ethan’s brow furrowed fiercely.

Were those tears an act, or were they real?

—That woman… do you know… why she… abandoned you? Back then… she was carrying… my son.

If only that cursed revelation hadn’t stuck in his mind, he would have been certain Evelyn Sherwood’s tears were nothing but crocodile tears and mocked her to his heart’s content.

But now, Ethan stood frozen like a corpse, unable to let even a fleeting smirk escape. He downed another swig of the strong liquor in an attempt to silence the suspicion occupying his brain.

Bullshit. It was just a blatant lie a dying man tossed out as a final, desperate struggle.

That woman was carrying another man’s child during the summer she was seeing me? That makes no sense.

However, the brief surge of alcohol could not wash away the doubt that had dominated him for the past few days. When he pieced together the timing from ten years ago with Eve’s suspicious behavior, Owen Karras’s claim began to form a picture that made sense.

—She was carrying… my son.

The bastard had pointedly said ‘son,’ not just ‘a child.’ It meant the child had been born safely.

If he were alive, he would be nine years old by now. And there was only one boy of that age in the vicinity of either Owen Karras or Evelyn Sherwood.

Anthony Sherwood.

This puzzle piece, too, fit Owen Karras’s claim with perfect precision. It would be entirely convincing if the reason for the brat’s frailty was that his father had been that scrawny male.

But then, where did that blonde hair come from?

Owen Karras had brown hair. However, Ethan recalled that his father, Robert Karras, had been a blonde.

Atavism—skipping a generation—wasn’t that a common occurrence? Eve herself had inherited her face directly from her grandfather. And Eve had passed that face down to Tony….

—Damn it….

Staring at the faces that resembled each other so closely, Ethan couldn’t stop the curse that escaped his lips. Even if he poured all the whiskey in the world into his brain to wash it out, the undeniable evidence sat right before his eyes.

Was the daughter of Kentrell truly the type of person to be generous toward a male sibling who was usurping her portion? Never.

She was a woman who had once spat a curse at Harry, saying her only regret was not killing him in the womb. She had harbored such hatred for her twin, who shared her blood entirely, and yet she paraded around a half-blooded brat born of a bloodless leech as if he were her own offspring.

Why on earth?

There was only one plausible answer.

Because he is the child she suffered through labor to give birth to.

Looking at them now, they could be nothing other than mother and son. Throughout the entire funeral for her husband, Eve stood side-by-side with Tony, never letting go of his tightly held hand.

On paper, Anthony Sherwood was merely Owen Karras’s brother-in-law. They hadn’t even been on particularly affectionate terms, yet Eve placed Tony in the very front row—the place reserved for family—at the funeral.

As if… he were the son of the deceased.

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