Chapter 5
The fact that I had left the house so willingly must have seemed strange—there was no doubt the Duke had set someone to watch me.
If he had known I was the representative before I left the family, there was no way someone as hot-tempered and vicious as him would have stayed still.
Just then—
Daisy entered, carrying several letters.
“L-Lady…”
But for simply delivering letters, her expression was far too grim.
“…They’re all withdrawing their investments?”
“They must have threatened all the investors as well!”
Daisy fumed, as if she might explode with anger.
“So this is how they plan to sabotage us?”
It was exactly the kind of petty tactic the Duke would use. I couldn’t help but scoff. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t anticipated something like this.
“Those leech-like Adelheids…”
At the same time, it felt so familiar that it made my teeth grind.
“Has it been revealed that I’m the representative?”
“No, that hasn’t been disclosed.”
“So they’re planning to keep the fact that I’m Debora’s representative as their trump card.”
If I managed to overcome this crisis later, the Duke would immediately spread the news to the press that I was the representative.
The Adelheid Duke was being even more despicable than I expected, and anger surged within me.
“Right… this is exactly the kind of man he is.”
I had almost let my guard down. Regaining my composure, I sat in my chair.
I needed to figure out how to break through this situation.
At that moment, there was another knock.
“What is it?”
Then Butler Talia delivered the news, making me let out a hollow laugh.
“That bastard…”
It was news that the Adelheid young duke—my biological older brother, Caleb—had come to visit.
It seemed they had no intention of hiding that they were behind all this.
“Let him in.”
“Are you serious?”
Daisy and Henry looked at me in shock.
I nodded. Caleb had clearly come to mock me after seeing me fall apart because of this incident.
“This might actually work in my favor.”
He was the type whose emotions showed plainly in his behavior, despite being an adult.
I sent everyone out and waited alone in the office.
“Oh, long time no see?”
Without even knocking, Caleb barged in, grinning at me with a bright expression.
He resembled the late Stella, so at least outwardly, he was quite handsome.
“And with that face, he does such vile things.”
If turning someone’s very existence into an insult to Stella was a talent, Caleb excelled at it.
“What brings the young duke of Adelheid to such a humble place?”
I smiled sweetly as I spoke. His face was full of mockery, but his eyes were wary.
He must have expected to see me completely crushed—but I wasn’t.
“Edith Diel, don’t you think people should live within their means?”
He spoke, clearly intent on putting me down.
“If you get greedy beyond your station, you lose everything. That’s the way of the world. Take this opportunity to engrave that valuable lesson into your mind.”
His condescending tone was laughable. I deliberately widened my eyes and replied:
“Oh my, did you come all this way just to say that?”
Honestly, I was curious.
“You came in person just to say something so trivial?”
As I looked at him like he was ridiculous, his expression twitched before turning into a sneer.
“Oh. Did you not realize that we were the ones who blocked your business? I thought you were foolish, but—”
“I already knew.”
I cut him off. His sneer faltered for the first time.
“I knew you even placed surveillance on someone who had already left the family. I just didn’t expect you’d come personally to explain it.”
I shrugged.
“What?! How did you figure out about the surveillance?”
Caleb looked startled. As expected, someone like him would take the bait so easily.
“So it’s true—you did place someone on me.”
Meeting my contemptuous gaze, he hesitated before smirking again.
“Anyway, that business—you didn’t fund it with your own money, did you?”
“Yes, I did.”
I shot back firmly. Was he going to claim it was his money?
His lips twisted strangely, his golden eyes—identical to Stella’s—glinting fiercely.
“No. You sold the necklace Stella gave you to start that business. You’re not even her real child.”
I fell silent for a moment.
The fact that he considered that logic was absurd made this conversation feel like a complete waste of time.
Seeing my reaction, Caleb grew even more confident.
“If you had any conscience, you wouldn’t blame us.”
“Hmm, ‘not real family,’ you say?”
I tilted my head.
“Isn’t showing up unannounced like this something only real family would do?”
“What?”
“No, actually—even among family, that’s something only a rude, ill-mannered bastard would do.”
“What did you just say to me—?!”
“If you want to know where the necklace went, ask the jeweler who bought it. I can tell you who that is, if you’re curious.”
In truth, I wanted to find Stella’s necklace more than anyone.
But no matter how much I searched, its whereabouts had vanished.
Perhaps he expected me to cry and beg for forgiveness—but instead, anger burned in his eyes.
“What, do you need me to write it down for you?”
At my words, he suddenly trembled and pointed at me.
“If it weren’t for you, Stella wouldn’t have died like that.”
In the original story, Edith would blame herself every time she heard that.
She truly believed she was a fake daughter.
But I wasn’t that “kind Edith,” and I knew the truth of the original story.
“Do you think Elisa could have cured her?”
“So now you’re going to call Elisa fake too, just because you are?”
Growling, he shot me a warning before storming out of the room—
“Don’t spout bullshit.”
—leaving behind a crude curse.
Left alone, I let out a hollow laugh.
“Elisa couldn’t have cured her anyway, you idiot.”
Stella’s condition—excessive divine power—could only be treated by someone with the same attribute.
In other words, only a biological sibling.
But Elisa wasn’t her real sister.
“She was actually the nanny’s daughter.”
That’s right—the real con artists were on that side.
When I realized that from recalling the original story, I regretted ever feeling guilty, even for a moment.
As past memories suddenly flooded back, I frowned deeply and gulped down cold water.
I had acted calm in front of him, but inside I was boiling with anger.
Still, the cold water helped a little.
“At least now it’s certain—the one interfering is Adelheid.”
In strategy, identifying your enemy comes first.
“Now I need to come up with a countermeasure.”
Closing my burning eyes, I forced myself to think calmly.
The Adelheid Duke, a founding noble family with strong ties to the Empress, wielded immense political power.
“Right now, I can’t compete with him.”
In fact, there were few in the empire who could.
Even without producing a saint, the Adelheid family’s influence was overwhelming.
“And this won’t be the end of it.”
That meant I had to expand my business quickly—before the Duke could crush me completely.
The fastest way to grow a business…
A thought suddenly crossed my mind as I looked at the newspaper.
“Who will win the exclusive purchasing rights for the highest-grade coffee from the Buchanan region under Grand Duke Orpheo?”
My eyes lit up at the forum mentioned in the corner.
The people of Buchanan took great pride in their coffee and had only ever granted purchasing rights to Killian.
But after years, Killian had suddenly put those rights up for auction.
There could only be one reason—
“To make businessmen compete.”
The fiercer the competition, the higher the value of Buchanan coffee—and the greater the profit for Killian.
He must have waited for the right timing, and now he had decided this was it.
“Killian Orpheo.”
I didn’t want to get involved with him, but I couldn’t deny this was the opportunity of a lifetime.
“I have to win this, no matter what.”
Debora had originally been a company producing clothing for nobles—something I chose because, in my past life, I focused on that field.
But now, my thinking had changed.
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
A stubborn resolve rose within me—to seize the very market the Adelheid Duke’s family controlled.
