Chapter 007
At last, tears of bitter self-reproach welled up in Kis’ eyes.
Wasn’t it common sense that kidnapping a six-year-old princess would require clothes for a six-year-old girl?
It was such a simple and obvious fact, yet he and every single one of his associates had completely overlooked it—from the very top of the gang down to the lackeys.
Where did it all go wrong with this organization?
If he brought this issue up to Rabian, that dog of a boss would no doubt lash out saying, “Do I have to take care of that kind of detail too?”
Clearly, if this gang were to be reformed, it had to start with that damned boss.
Mercy gently patted Kis’s drooping shoulders.
“Rely on me. I’ll go buy some pajamas or something for now.”
“You? Will you be okay doing that?”
“Who else but me? Mira got caught skimming funds last time and is banned from accessing the group budget. And if you or Smokey go poking around in a kid’s clothing store, you’ll definitely cause a scandal. But if I go, people will just think I have a much younger sister—or a daughter I had early in life.”
The phrase “a smile that stabs with a knife” seemed to exist solely to describe Mercy.
After flashing a dazzling final smile, she casually turned and left, while Kis could only glare after her in silence.
He wanted to argue, but couldn’t come up with anything at all. The helplessness was stifling.
Meanwhile, Nina, who had been pretending to sleep, felt just as helpless.
That weird woman sniffing her earlier was unsettling, and the general chaos around her made it impossible to fall asleep.
Contrary to Kis’s assumption, Nina didn’t lack appetite.
She was hungry, she wanted to change out of her clothes, and she was utterly exhausted.
But she had no idea who she could talk to or how to explain her situation.
This was an unexpected hurdle.
“Idiots. Real idiots.”
And the more she replayed Rabian’s earlier behavior in her mind, the heavier her mood became.
“Did he end up seeing me as a nuisance after all?”
She knew this wouldn’t be easy—but now that she was facing it, it was even more discouraging.
“He said he’d do anything for me back then…”
But in hindsight, he only said that at the very end.
Only after Nina’s entire world had collapsed… only after he saw her crying alone… did he ask her in that teasing voice while looking at her with those eyes—
“Baby girl, what do you want me to do?”
Maybe he just felt sorry for her.
Maybe he’d simply felt a moment of pity for a useless child abandoned even by her own parents…
“Don’t expect anything. Just get through tomorrow and sign the contract properly.”
Her head started to throb as she mulled everything over.
She hadn’t eaten, but her stomach felt nauseous.
“I can’t get sick.”
A sick child is nothing but a burden.
Nina groaned and pulled the blanket over her head.
* * *
Rabian was dreaming.
It was a dream from his childhood.
In the dream, he was climbing a tree in the courtyard behind his brother’s palace.
“Careful, Rabi—”
Looking down, he saw his future sister-in-law with puffy eyes, gazing up at him with concern.
Rabian found it hilarious that such a girl—who looked like a fish—was worrying about him, and he burst out giggling.
“What, why are you laughing all of a sudden?”
“Nothing.”
Why had she been crying again? Oh, right—the doll had gotten stuck in the tree.
His brother had thrown it up there… Seriously, that guy—Rabian clicked his tongue silently and looked upward again.
The doll was wedged in the branches quite high up.
“Just wait a bit, crybaby sister-in-law.”
“I’m not a crybaby! And my name’s Anna, not sister-in-law!”
“What’s there to be shy about? Everyone knows you and my brother are getting married anyway.”
Before long, he reached the branch with the doll.
As Rabian reached out for the yellow teddy bear, he heard a small whisper.
“…I like it better when you call me by my name.”
“Huh? What did you say— AAH!”
The branch under one of his feet snapped with a crack.
Anna screamed.
“Rabi!”
With a thud, Rabian woke up in a jolt.
The grand hall, shrouded in the darkness of night, came into view.
He must have dozed off right where he had been earlier.
Wait—not quite. He had been lying on the sofa, but now he was on the floor.
Realizing his situation, he was dumbfounded.
He wasn’t the kind of sleeper to roll off the couch. This was all because of that damn dream.
Why that dream, of all things?
“…Hey! Boss! Wake up!”
Rabian blinked.
As soon as he realized it wasn’t his sleep talking but someone else’s doing, rage flared up.
And the culprit who dared lay hands on the great boss’s body was—surprisingly—Kis.
“You disrespectful bastard! Just because I went easy on you lately—”
“Just get up! The kid’s gonna die!”
Kis shouted boldly.
His audacious attitude left Rabian flustered.
“What the hell are you talking about now?”
“I said the kid looks sick!”
“…You sh*tting me? The brat was fine just a moment ago, running around. Now she’s suddenly sick?”
Kis seemed just as surprised by Rabian’s reaction and blinked, startled.
Seizing the moment, Rabian growled with menace.
“Bet it’s just you being paranoid again or that brat faking it. You guys are always a bunch of clueless idiots—”
“If anything happens to her, it’ll all be your fault.”
“…What?”
“I said if something happens to her, it’s all on you, you inhuman bastard.”
“…”
Rabian had heard insults like “inhuman” so many times it no longer stung.
But hearing it from Kis was something else.
And more than anything, the fact that Kis was using “you” so personally—like a wife scolding her husband—shocked him to the core.
“Hey… You my wife now? Why the hell are you using ‘you’ like that?”
Kis didn’t budge, only staring at him with eyes full of resentment.
Rabian felt a chill so intense it made his skin crawl.
Had this guy gone mad, too immersed in the mom role Mercy had assigned him?
He shuddered violently from the creeping sensation.
“Alright, fine! I’ll go check—”
Before he could finish, Kis grabbed him and dragged him all the way to Nina’s bedroom.
In no time, Rabian found himself standing there.
Moonlight bathed long golden hair in a pale glow.
The young girl with that hair lay on the bed, her back turned toward the door.
“Check her already!”
“…”
Rabian shot Kis a final glare before approaching the bed and staring at the child’s back.
Nina didn’t move an inch.
She looked like she was asleep, but her unnatural breathing made it obvious—she was awake.
Rabian was now convinced this cunning brat was faking it and had duped that idiot Kis.
“Click your tongue all you want, but this is clearly an act…”
He clucked his tongue loudly for her to hear and reached out as if to check her temperature.
But the next moment, he recoiled in shock.
Even before he touched her, heat radiated from her body like a furnace.
A terrible thought slowly rose in his mind.
What if—what if she really was sick?
“Hey, baby girl!”
Nina flinched and rolled over.
Her small face emerged from under the blanket.
“Fuuu…”
Her blue eyes, glazed with fever and tears, looked up at him pitifully.
Rabian froze, his absinthe-colored eyes wide in shock.
He hated kids. He always had.
He couldn’t stand whining or crying—from kids or adults.
People who cried or tried to look pitiful didn’t stir a single emotion in him.
But in this very moment—gazing into Nina’s tearful eyes—Rabian felt something he’d never felt before.
His heart plummeted, and his mind went completely blank.
