Chapter 3

I watched Lucien slam his foot on the gas, his brow furrowed in a tight knot since he got in the car.

The car screeched to a halt in front of the family's safehouse— a building disguised as a rundown warehouse, with tight security hidden inside.

Lucien practically threw the door open before the car had even stopped. He stormed inside and grabbed a young Soldato who was counting weapons in the front lobby.

"Pull up the protection records for Serafine's grandmother."

"…Yes, Don."

The young soldier paused, then started flipping through the thick paper files. Just then, a low, cold chuckle came from nearby.

"Well, well... look who graces us with his presence. Don Lucien, making a personal visit to our little outpost?"

Lucien spun around, his face instantly darkening.

It was Damine. He had once been the family's Consigliere, with many loyal followers and Lucien's most trusted right-hand man.

Strangely, shortly after my "accidental death," Damine was demoted to Caporegime, only put in charge of the family's back-end operations.

The word on the street was that he often spoke up for me, which displeased Kate. Then Kate framed him for embezzling family funds, causing Lucien to lose all trust in him.

The moment these enemies saw each other, the tension became razor-sharp. Lucien looked him up and down, snapping:

"Do I need to report my whereabouts to you now?"

Damine leaned against the wall, arms crossed, a sneering smirk on his lips.

"Of course not. Just curious... how can you be so cold-blooded?"

"You disappear when they needed protection the most, but now that she's gone, you finally decide to look for her?"

"Protection?" Lucien's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

Lucien looked completely bewildered, as if he truly knew nothing. But I knew exactly what Damine was referring to—my grandmother and me.

Back when I was shot over a dozen times in that dark alley, my consciousness fading, I had desperately tried to contact Lucien, wanting to see him one last time.

But he was out shopping with Kate and simply hung up on me. When I tried calling again, the number was completely blocked.

The same with my grandmother. When her medical feewere withheld and she lost the family's shield, with no funds or caregivers, a well-meaning contact had tried reaching Lucien for her.

He was on a private island vacation with Kate, completely cut off from the world. As a result, when she passed, she was completely alone, not a single soul by her side. They only found her body after she had already started to decay.

Seeing Lucien's confused expression, Damine stared at him for a few seconds, then let out a bitter laugh.

"You're a great actor. Forget it. I really don't see what she saw in you, what made her give up everything for you."

Damine said no more and walked away, leaving those words hanging in the air. Lucien stood rooted to the spot, his fingers unconsciously tightening on the cuff of his suit jacket—a telltale sign of his inner turmoil.

But... why was he so shaken up?

"Don?"

The soldier's voice pulled him back to reality. "The woman you're looking for… her grandmother..."

The soldier hesitated before continuing.

"She passed away three years ago."

Lucien's pupils constricted, as if he'd been nailed to the floor.

"What? The grandmother's dead? Three years ago?"

The soldier nodded timidly. "The records show winter, three years ago. Died of... terminal lung cancer with complications."

"Impossible! That's impossible!"

Lucien's control shattered. He smashed his fist onto a steel table with a deafening crash that drew the attention of every other member in the safehouse.

But he quickly forced himself to calm down. As the Don, he knew these protection records couldn't be wrong, nor could they be easily altered.

He clutched the soldier's collar, his voice trembling.

"How could this happen? We provided the best protection for her! How could she just... die! And..."

He suddenly remembered something, his face turning even paler.

"And I've been paying the medical fee every month! Kate told me just last week that the grandmother was doing well, that her vitals were improving..."

The soldier gasped for breath under his grip but quickly pulled up the ledger.

"Sir... and according to family records, the old woman's condition was never good. It never improved. And her medical fee wasn’t paid on time."

"The brother in charge said a woman came by a few times, claiming to 'cut costs,' and... she swapped out the doctor-prescribed imported meds. Most of the time, the patient was on cheaper substitutes."

"Later... she cut off all funding for the old woman's protection... After she stopped treatment and moved back to the Rust District... she passed away not long after..."

But the wire transfers for the family funds couldn't be faked. Kate had embezzled that money to fund her own lavish lifestyle.

Every word from the soldier felt like a knife through my heart. That damn bitch, Kate! She knew that money was her grandmother's lifeline, and she dared to steal it!

As Lucien listened, his whole body began to tremble. Of course, he knew who was responsible—besides Kate, no one would dare touch funds he had personally approved.

I thought he must be remembering five years ago, when I took the fall for Kate. I remembered the promise he made to me then—that he would use all the family's resources to protect my grandmother. He had sworn with such conviction, and in the end...

Lucien sank into a chair, burying his face in his hands. His shoulders shook violently.

"How could Kate... She promised me she'd take care of her!"

"How could she do this..."

Serval years ago, Lucien had just been a small-time hustler on the streets when my grandmother would secretly take money she'd saved for her own medicine and slip it into his pocket.

"You're doing big things now. You can't go on an empty stomach," she would always say. Her weathered, calloused hands would gently stroke his back, offering encouragement.

In the winter, she would stay up late knitting him sweaters. When he was injured, our shanty in the Rust District became his safest haven.

Even after he became the Don and owned countless mansions, he still most fondly remembered the scent of baking bread from that small kitchen.

But everything changed after Kate came along. She always said that my grandmother was "old-fashioned" and "out of place at family functions."

Slowly, the number of times he visited my grandmother dwindled to almost nothing.

At their last meeting, my grandmother had just gently held his hand and said, "My child, don't lose yourself in all this power."

Back then, he'd just seen it as an old woman's nagging. Now, he finally understood the weight of her words.

Lucien did love my grandmother. For the first time in five years, I finally saw the agonizing pain of his regret on his face.

But it was all too late.