ONE NIGHT STAND WITH HOT DUKE-Chapter 191: Kill your daughter

The rain had not stopped when the conversation reached a point of no return.

Inside the study of Morvex Castle, only the crackling of burning wood and the sound of restrained breathing could be heard.

Before Demian, Marquess Kosler remained on his knees. His body trembled not only from fear, but from ambition that had not entirely died.

Demian looked at him without expression.

"Kill your daughter," he said flatly. "And you will have whatever you want from me."

The sentence was so calm as if he were offering a trade contract, not a human life.

The Marquess blinked.

For a brief second, something dark crossed his face. Calculation. Possibility. Loss. Gain.

If Ivanka died...

The scandal could be redirected to her.The Emperor might soften.Demian might withdraw part of the political pressure.

The Kosler family could survive.

That ambition flickered alive.

But only for a fraction of a second.

Then his expression cracked.

"Ivanka..." His voice weakened.

He might be ambitious. Ruthless in business. Capable of selling strangers for profit.

But to kill his own flesh and blood,

That was a line even he was not certain he could cross.

"Demian," his voice broke for the first time not as a noble, but as a father. "Spare Ivanka. I... I cannot kill her."

Demian did not react.

The Marquess hurried on.

"I can exile her. Send her far from the Empire. Erase her name from the family registry. She will never return. She will never interfere with you again. Consider it as though she never existed."

Silence.

The fire cracked softly.

Demian stepped closer, his shadow falling over the kneeling man.

"Only if she dies," he said quietly, "can you negotiate with me."

There was no raised voice.No emotion.

Only certainty.

The Marquess swallowed. "You want to see me become a monster."

Demian met his gaze steadily.

"You are already a monster," he replied calmly. "The difference is that now you simply do not wish to pay for it."

The words struck harder than a shout.

The Marquess clenched his fists against the floor.

"I admit my sins. I am ready to lose my title. Ready to lose my fortune. But Ivanka—"

"Is a tool you used," Demian cut in. "You pushed her. Forced her into my life for your ambition. And now you want to save her?"

The Marquess fell silent.

He could not deny it.

Because it was true.

Ivanka had been a pawn in his political game.

And yet she was still his daughter.

Demian lowered his head slightly, his voice dropping further.

"If you cannot kill her, then you are not desperate enough to negotiate with me."

The Marquess looked up, his eyes red.

"Then what do you truly want? Revenge? Or do you simply want to see me destroyed?"

Demian did not answer immediately.

Several seconds passed.

"I do not care about your destruction," he finally said. "I care about only one thing."

Valerie.

Her name was not spoken.

But it was unmistakably present.

"You and your daughter stood between me and her," Demian continued. "And anyone who stands there... will be erased."

The Marquess slowly realized something far more terrifying than the threat itself.

Demian was not doing this out of anger.

He was doing it because he had already decided.

And a man who has decided cannot be bargained with using logic, money, or tears.

"I cannot kill her," the Marquess whispered once more.

Demian straightened.

"Then," he said coldly, "there will be no transaction."

He turned back toward his desk.

"Dawn is approaching. When the sun rises and Ivanka is still breathing... the Kosler family will vanish along with its name."

The Marquess remained kneeling there.

For the first time in his life, his ambition clashed with his own blood.

And he did not know which was stronger.

Dawn had not yet fully touched the tops of the towers when Marquess Kosler left Morvex Castle in hurried steps.

Dew still clung to the grass. The cold air bit through bone. But what made his body tremble was not the morning chill it was the ultimatum.

Dawn.

The word pounded relentlessly in his head.

He did not know whether Demian would truly annihilate his entire family if Ivanka were still alive at sunrise. But there had been something in that man’s eyes calm without anger that made the threat feel more real than a blade at his throat.

The Marquess’s carriage raced back toward Kosler Castle.

Throughout the journey, his thoughts split in two.

As the head of the family, he knew what must be done to survive.

As a father he did not know whether he was capable of doing it.

Ivanka was already waiting when he arrived.

Somehow, news always traveled faster than the swiftest horse. Her face was pale, but her back was straight. No tears. No panic.

"Father," she said quietly, "just tell me."

The Marquess removed his gloves with slightly trembling hands.

"You must leave the Empire. Immediately."

Silence.

Ivanka blinked slowly.

"Leave?"

"You must disappear for a time. Away from the capital. Away from the Duke. Away from everything."

His tone sounded like a command. But beneath it was a note of pleading he could not conceal.

Ivanka shook her head firmly.

"No."

The Marquess lifted his face. "This is not a request."

"If I leave now," Ivanka replied, her voice steady, "it will be the same as admitting I am guilty."

"Let them think whatever they want!" the Marquess’s voice rose. "What matters is that this family remains standing!"

The words echoed through the hall.

Ivanka looked at her father for a long moment.

That gaze was not filled with hatred.

It was disappointment.

"So it’s true," she whispered. "You will sacrifice me."

The Marchioness, standing not far away, covered her mouth as tears streamed silently down her face.

The Marquess froze.

"I am not sacrificing you."

"You want me out of sight," Ivanka continued, her voice now trembling slightly. "So you can bargain. So you can show that you have ’removed’ the source of the problem."

Demian’s name was not spoken.

But everyone knew.

The Marchioness finally spoke, her voice breaking.

"You would kill our child for the sake of glory?"