The reason I’d kept to such a strict diet was because I needed to play the part of a heartbroken, jilted woman. I’d been absolutely starving the entire time. At one point, Lancome was so worried about me, he made me take medicine that would stimulate my appetite. The hunger pangs had been extreme, but I hung in there. I dropped eight kilograms in eight months.
But now I could finally eat as much as I pleased.
I took my time and savored every morsel of my meal, which was large enough to satisfy even a man’s appetite, then walked through the capital city and headed for a hotel. I needed to regain my muscle tone as quickly as possible.
Finally, I entered a large hotel on a main street and went up to the counter.
“Hello, I sent a letter about making a reservation. The name’s Victoria Sellars.”
“Ah, yes. We’ve been waiting for you, Ms. Sellars. Your room is on the third floor—a corner suite, just as you requested.”
I would use this hotel as my base of operations for the time being to prepare for my new life. I had many cards I could play here, so I was going to take it slowly. I threw myself on the bed with a plop.
I wondered if Chief Lancome would continue looking for me. I’d crossed two whole kingdoms to get here to Ashbury; would he really extend the search this far? Or would he give up straight away?
“Knock it off. Sitting here worrying about it is just a waste of time.”
From now on, I wanted to live my life freely, without being tied down by anyone.
By all accounts, the royal family here in Ashbury was excellent; they’d gone many generations without engaging in an offensive war, using their military strictly for defense. Trade was healthy, and the population was diverse. No one would bat an eye if a stranger suddenly came to town and settled there. That was why I’d chosen to live in this kingdom.
“What should I do for a living…?”
Lancome had taken me in as a young man, when I was eight years old. I’d performed my first mission at age fifteen and worked nonstop thereafter until twenty-seven. During that time, Lancome rose the ranks to chief.
Every month, I would buy small items for my family and ask Lancome to send them off with some money. He’d check to make sure there were no letters in the packages, then forward them to my parents’ house.
One of the rules was that I mustn’t contact my family, you see.
The thought of my parents’ and my younger sister Emily’s joy at receiving the packages was what kept me going while I worked. Even though I couldn’t contact them, Lancome would at least tell me if they died. I made sure of that several times.
“I can’t believe they’re all dead…”
I adored Lancome like an older brother and respected him as my boss. And yet he’d hidden my family’s death from me for two whole years.
I’d found out about it a year ago.
After finishing a mission, for the first time in eighteen years, I’d decided to visit the town where I grew up. I wanted to at least catch a glimpse of my family home—no, of my family—from afar. I put on a disguise and went to look at their house, but all I saw there was a deserted lot.
I was shocked. After some investigating, I discovered the house had burned down in a fire two years ago. The district official should have immediately contacted the noble who was my employer on paper. Then that noble, in turn, would’ve contacted the organization and informed them of my family’s death. Those were the rules, so it was impossible that Lancome didn’t know. I’d witnessed other spies learn of their family members’ deaths before.
I see. So that’s how it is.
He knew how much my family meant to me. I’d told him that time and again over my eighteen long years of working for him.
After that, I continued working as if nothing had happened, giving Lancome packages after my payday to send to my parents’ house, just as I always did. Then one evening, I followed him after work. He didn’t take the package to the post office in the capital.
He didn’t notice me tailing him. Honestly, I was disappointed at how much his skills had deteriorated.
Eventually, he entered a high-class apartment complex with guards in fancy uniforms posted outside; this wasn’t the dormitory where high-ranking officials lived. I next saw curtains being pulled back and a window opening on the third floor. Lancome was letting in some fresh air.
There he is.
I waited for him to come out of the building. Under the cover of night, I climbed up to the third floor from a second-floor terrace, using small protrusions in the wall as my footholds. First, I sneaked into a separate apartment that had no lights on, then headed into his apartment.
I used my tools to pick the lock and get inside. There, sitting in the corner of the room, was a pile of the twenty-five packages I’d given him.
The moment I saw the packages, my emotions threatened to explode, but I quickly managed to get ahold of them.
I opened up all the packages and confiscated the money I’d stashed inside them without leaving even a single coin behind. I even stole the silver cutlery from the kitchen and the golden candlesticks. I wanted Lancome to think this was the work of a thief. On the way home, I threw anything belonging to him in the river.
I was wrong about him. He’s exactly the kind of person to climb the ranks of the spy organization.
From that day forward, I continued business as usual.
Every month, I would ask Lancome to send a package home to my family the day after I got paid. I lived as I always had, but my heart had changed. My family was no longer in this world, and I no longer trusted Lancome.
In between missions, I began investigating him and discovered that he was going to marry one of my colleagues. I made sure to use that information to my advantage.
“My ideal man is someone like the chief.”
I wasn’t romantically interested in Lancome even one bit, but I began dropping hints here and there to my other colleagues that I had fallen for him. At some point, he would have to go public about his marriage. All this was part of my long con to make people think I’d be so shocked at the revelation that I’d take my own life.
I began restricting my food intake the day Lancome and Mary announced their marriage. Two months later, people were already noticing how haggard I looked.
When anyone would ask why, I’d contort my face in sadness and bite my lip, then say, “It’s nothing…” with my eyes full of tears. Everyone would give me looks of pity. The sole exception was Mary, who had to try very hard to conceal the triumphant expression on her face.
So why had I gone to such lengths to defect from the organization?
Because I was excellent at what I did.
For many years, I’d been the top spy in Hagl. If I actually expressed a desire to quit, it was obvious that no one would roll over and say, “Fine, go ahead.”
I’d had my future planned out already. I wouldn’t marry. I would work in my current position until I was in my forties, then spend the rest of my life training the next generation. Lancome himself had recommended that path for me.
But now that I’d lost my parents and Emily, I had neither the desire nor obligation to devote my life to the organization. I no longer cared about gaining Lancome’s approval.
However, the entire time I’d been planning my disappearance, part of me was waiting for Lancome to say, “I’ve been meaning to tell you this, Chloe, but…” up until the very last morning.
But he never did let me know that my family had died. And now it had been three years since the fire. He’d had plenty of opportunities to admit the truth and never did.
Lancome saw me as neither a younger sister nor or a cherished employee. I was nothing but a pawn for him to use as he pleased. This whole time, the person I thought he’d been was merely a figment of my imagination, so laughable now that I could hardly stand it.