Because Natalia Yegorova had done ballet, her posture was very straight. Uncomfortable with the breasts she’d been forced to plump up, Seoryeong furtively tugged down the bra strap and pushed a tray piled high with laundry.

Unlike the annex she had visited a few days ago, the main house in the center was where Lee Wooshin normally lived. The moment she set foot there, a strange exhilaration left her breathless.

This place was the inside of Wooshin’s belly. The core of him she had finally reached after circling for so long. The bones stood out on the back of the hand clutching the doorknob.

“......”

Sometimes it was agony when a heavy, raw scent that reminded her of him clung to the clothes that had been shed. Not the jumble of colognes Kim Hyun used to mix together, but the primal smell Wooshin gave off when he sweated.

Holding her breath, Seoryeong turned her head away.

She especially raked sharp glances over the faces of the women who looked like housekeepers whenever they passed. Their looks and ages varied widely, but overwhelmingly they all had black hair. The bra cinching tight across her chest pained her; she adjusted her posture again.

The man spent his time walking by the lakeside with a cane, sprawling on the sofa lost in thought, or exercising. The annex opened without fail every night, and by morning there were a few more bloodstained clothes.

Plenty of household staff moved about the mansion, but no one was ever near Lee Wooshin. Though he sat upon this sprawling estate, he was always alone.

Here and there, the parts of him she could see were covered in scars, and the fine crack between his brows looked exhausted. Every time she saw him like that, Seoryeong found herself biting her lip without realizing it.

It felt like an eternity since she had last seen him asleep. She’d boasted she would throw open the final gate—and then saw his hollowed cheeks and collarbones bruised a dark blue, and her mood plunged.

Why did you let yourself get like this....

What are you going to do now....

She’d wanted to sneer that he’d finally ended up just like her. She’d thought his degraded state would make her feel cleansed inside....

She even wanted to accuse him—what else are you hiding—but as time went on, the one who hurt was her. The headaches that slammed into her came harder and harder.

“......”

As time passed with nothing to show for it, her heart grew more anxious by the day. Even though she had him pinned down for a while, Kiya was like a time bomb; she couldn’t relax.

Pushing the laundry basket along, Seoryeong let out a weary sigh. Because she couldn’t get close to him easily, she had been reduced to washing the bedding every single day.

There was only one reason he had become so difficult to approach.

“A hound’s nose...!”

Whether Wooshin really had some top-grade sensor attached to him or not, whenever she showed up he would click his tongue ever so slightly and veer off.

At first she chalked it up to coincidence, but when it happened a second and third time, there was no mistaking it—he knew something and was pointedly avoiding Natalia Yegorova.

If she chased, he went farther; if she tailed him, he vanished altogether. All she needed was to tip him off that he had to leave Russia at once and what their operation was—but because Wooshin acted like he was dodging the plague, she couldn’t even pass along that simple information.

If Wooshin the operative mattered more than Wooshin the man, he’d understand immediately and act smart.

By this point, his particular strictness with Natalia got on her nerves.

“Hoo....”

She frowned down at the overinflated cleavage. No way... surely not.

A man who can’t even see....

Honestly, when they said he was blind, I figured all I had to do was bump my chest into him a few times. Softness, warmth. Touch is what stirs the imagination.

Had he... touched her at some point? Was that why he was skittering away like a beast scorched by a wildfire?

Back in the first-floor cleaning room, Seoryeong grabbed the iron that was hissing out steam—psst, psst.

The hot vapor sometimes blurred her vision, but she set on the ironing viciously. Tsssk, tsssk—the heated metal skimmed her fingers by a hair, and the wrinkled sheet straightened into a single unbroken line.

“You’ll sear your fingers at that rate.”

One of the staff, who hadn’t once met her eyes, muttered low.

“There are as many drugs as you could want.”

“...Sorry?”

“If even you can’t do it, then set a date and time.”

“......”

“No matter how uninterested Solzhenitsyn is in the female body, one pill of that and he’ll go at you like a dog in heat.”

With a pinched look, a middle-aged woman folding a duvet made the terrifying suggestion as if it were nothing.

Szzzz—A burning smell rose from the sheet under Seoryeong’s iron. Startled, she lifted it; a patch had gone char-black.

“If you don’t pull it off, you’ll be flushed out with the rest. So cause some kind of incident at least, Natalia.”

She knew it was dragging. She knew she needed a breakthrough. In Russia, they seemed to want Natalia to use her voluptuous body to spend a night with the target, but for Seoryeong, a brief opening would be enough.

Today had to be different. Whatever it took, it had to change.

It was then, as she was mechanically sorting laundry from early morning, that Seoryeong hesitated.

Something sticky brushed her palm. Her gaze, suddenly stiff, dropped to the lump of clothes she was holding.

“......!”

What... is this?

A peculiar dampness with a viscous feel....

Usually his clothes were either soaked with sweat or smeared with blood, one of the two—and suddenly her blood pressure felt like it was rushing to the nape of her neck.

Without blinking, Seoryeong stared at his underwear. Something whitish, dried in flecks. Her eyebrows shot up, fierce.

This is—don’t tell me—it’s what I think it is? Her pulse spiked; heat flashed up the back of her neck. Feeling like she’d seen something she shouldn’t, she darted her eyes around.

Was there someone besides Natalia acting under similar orders? Traces of petting from last night?

“......”

While she examined it closely with a chill in her face—tap, tap—the cane tip struck the corridor floor in steady beats. Before she could react, lost in suspicion, she met the gaze of someone walking toward her. Even though it was only a gaze veiled by bandages, her face flamed all over.

With a needless flinch, Seoryeong stuffed the underwear into the laundry basket in a rush and tried to calm her pounding heart. But Wooshin was the one who stepped back first again. His compulsion was enough to wear her out.

“Khozyaïn...!”

But now was her chance. Khozyain...! She called out to Wooshin in Russian.

Just then—unaware that Na Wonchang was blaring a red alert—Seoryeong quickly pushed the tray and closed the distance.

—I-I just saw Natalia Yegorova burying her nose in the team leader’s underwear! I can’t believe this...! Reverse, reverse! She’s a pervert...! I knew it was suspicious the way she came in here to “work” and kept leaving buttons undone...! W-What did she just say in Russian? Khazhain? Master? Did she say master?

Wooshin’s face twisted. Now they’d truly run out of nonsense; he pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek until it bulged like a jawbreaker.

Even so, at the disgust in Na Wonchang’s voice he faltered a step, and the rolling wheels rattled forward in angry little spins. That only made the shouting in both ears worse.

—That woman looks dead set...! Run, Team Leader! She’s charging straight ahead without even blinking! She’s definitely a trained operative!

—Hah...! The look in her eyes is no ordinary thing! That’s the Siberian bitch, sure as shootin’!

—She has tidied up her conduct a little lately, but she’s still a lioness all the same...!

More than the agents he’d planted throughout his own mansion, these two were the ones who were genuinely a pain in the ass. Still—later on, what if these idiots let something slip to Owl? He wanted nothing anyone could pick at ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) down the line, and the thought made him push people away even more obsessively.

Even if they didn’t scream warnings, he wouldn’t look twice at anyone who wasn’t Seoryeong. In truth, anything like hand-to-hand heat disgusted him.

Even as he hurried down the stairs, the rattle of wheels dogged him.

“Khozyaïn! Khozyaïn!”

Clicking his tongue, Wooshin quickened his pace. Before he knew it, he wasn’t even using the cane that had been striking the floor.

—What is she trying to do to you, Team Leader? Huh?

“Shut it.”

You idiots. She’s just saying “master.” The nuance is a little odd, but.... 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

He snorted at how his subordinates acted like Natalia Yegorova was some kind of contagion.

“The woman I want never comes, and instead...”

He didn’t even know why he was running, but even in that moment he thought of his wife, who had worn a stranger’s face and yet reenacted the combat he had taught her.

His face crumpled sweetly, unbearably. Seoryeong, where on earth are you now. Where did you vanish to again.

“—!”

Just then the metal tray clattered over behind him and Natalia pitched forward. His brows twitched; his heart gave a stab.

Was it because he’d just thought of Seoryeong? The back of his neck felt stiff. Even so, Wooshin turned away, merciless.