Chapter 190
1454words
It felt like a hand was clenching my heart. My breathing tightened in pain as I heard Kylian’s deafening roar.
Did he… Did he actually believe her?
The fear of being abandoned and betrayed once again surged over me.
Flashes of the past years when Flora had been using the same tactics flashed before me. I have already failed to count how many times such vicious lies have caused misunderstandings between Kylian and me. But all I knew was every time Flora did that, she always succeeded.
As painful as it sounds, Gianna even succeeds a couple of times as well.
Seeing that she was thrown in the dungeon, though, I knew that Kylian wasn’t trusting Gianna anymore. But despite that, I still couldn’t avoid feeling nervous, uncontrollably worried that Kylian would do the same thing he did to me before.
That he’ll once again abandon and point a finger at me. That he’ll believe the words of others again without care of my feelings.
“Y-yes?” I wasn’t able to stop the tremble in my voice as I replied to his call.
The small light coming from the small horizontal window at the top of the wall showed Kylian’s domineering and serious face, making him scarier than earlier, and I couldn’t be more thankful that his murderous eyes were still at Gianna’s eyes and not mine.
“Della, do you remember what I said to you earlier?” he asked, then his tone went gentler as he continued, “About whether or not you wanted to watch a wonderful show?”
Then, a mischievous smirk formed on his lips as he finally looked at me with a glint of amusement in his eyes.
I froze, utterly stunned by what he said. Of course, I remembered. Before we walked inside Gianna’s cell, it was the last question he told me.
“Don’t tell me… This is all just for a show?” I thought, surprised.
Still confused, I narrowed my eyes and asked, “Show? What kind of show? Is this just all an act?”
Hastily and harshly, Kylian grabbed Gianna’s arms and held her chin tightly so that she immediately whimpered in pain. She raised her arms and held onto Kylian’s arms, trying to loosen his grasp on her, but it was all in vain.
Moving his hand a bit, he pinched Gianna’s cheek, forcing her to open her lips. Without wasting time, he poured a bottle of potion filled with purple contents into her mouth.
Everything happened all too fast. Before we knew it, Kylian had already thrown Gianna onto the ground. With her knees and palms on the ground, she was hysterically coughing with one hand holding her throat as if it was burning.
With furrowed brows, I looked at Kylian, asking, “What did you give her?”
Smirking, he threw the empty bottle on the ground, shuttering it into a thousand shards where few even scratched Gianna, but he showed no ounce of care.
What he did instead was step back and pull me with him to prevent any shards from flying to my direction.
Then, he told Gianna with firmness, “That potion is made by my greatest wizard Lucas. It is enough to break that stupid magic Luke gave to you before… Congratulations, you’re going to look the way you really are. Or should I say… Condolence?”
“What? No!” Gianna shouted in panic. Suddenly, it’s as though all the pain she was feeling earlier had vanished in an instant.
She touched her face, hiding it as she moved around. She didn’t know what to do except screaming in pain.
When she finally turned around to face me, her face was already filled with tears. But what’s more shocking was how her face was completely different now.
Unlike earlier, she looked like an ugly version of me. No… our resemblance was not even that close. It’s too far, actually. She looks… so ugly. Not that I’m being biased or judgemental… I’m just telling the truth.
“You can’t do this! No! Please!” she begged, and I could hear the cries in her voice. She crawled on the dirty and damp floor and reached out of the empty bottle, expecting it in panic.
Finally, she crawled to Kylian’s feet in hopelessness. “Please! Please don’t do this…”
She was almost kissing his feet, but without mercy and with murderous eyes, Kylian kicked her back to the ground.
Completely confused, I couldn’t wait anymore and asked, “What’s happening? Kylian?”
Kylian held my hand, explaining, “Two days after I met Gianna, I had someone investigate her.”
“And…”
“To my surprise, the profile Henry brought back to me was a completely different person from her.” He pointed at Gianna and continued, “After further investigation, we confirmed that Luke brought her to a dark wizard who changed her appearance to make her look like you.”
Dumbfounded, I asked, “So, you knew all along?”
I understood it all instantly. If Kylian knew that Gianna was this kind of bitch, there would be absolutely no way he would have anything to do with her or allow her to stop the border guards privately.
All of this was directed and acted by Gianna! She used Flora's trick on me again, but this time it was Kylian who was wrongly accused.
But I didn't notice it at all and always thought everything was Kylian's fault.
“Believe me… I don’t want to alarm Luke so I kept the fact that I know everything and I let her stay near me, but I never once let her enter my room.”
Then, Kylian threw a murderous glare at Gianna, “But it never occurred to me that she’ll use vicious schemes again and again to cause misunderstanding between us.”
“Then that bottle…”
“That’s the potion Lucas just finished making. It will restore her appearance back to normal.”
Shock surged in me, and before I could utter another word, a scream echoed in the entire dungeon.
“No! This can’t happen!” Gianna started hysterically shouting while crawling and rolling on the ground in utter pain and dismay.
With disgust, I failed to stop myself from gasping and saying, “This is absurd! As much as Luke wants to replace me… This is just…”
I was totally lost for words.
My eyes fell on Kylian… Then, the realization hit me.
So, it turned out that Gianna was Luke’s form of punishment for Kylian when he didn’t want to break up with me.
He deliberately sought someone and made her pretend to look like me so he could place such a despicable woman beside Kylian, whom he could puppet around on.
“Now that she’s no use and of no importance, I’ve finally cleared up our misunderstanding with each other.” Kylain’s eyes went on Gianna, “There's no use of keeping her alive any longer.”
As all the past flashed before me, all the anger and fear I was feeling were replaced with sadness.
Feeling the overwhelming gloom in me for what happened to me and the tragic happenings between Kylian and his father, I approached Kylian and wrapped my arms around him as tight as I could.
Only in this way could I wish to show him how much I love him and show comfort for all the pain he had to endure all his life.
With my sudden action, I could feel how Kylian’s body suddenly tense beneath my embrace. I could feel his heartbeat dramatically increasing as I laid my head on his chest. After a few seconds, he dazed out and finally embraced me back and kissed my head.
“What’s wrong? Did I say something wrong? Did I hurt you?” he asked one after another. Up until this time, all he was worried about was me.
Not able to withhold it any longer, tears started streaming down my face as I shouted in a muffled manner on his chest, “Luke doesn’t deserve to have a child as great as you! He doesn’t deserve your love and respect!”
Hearing my words and the pain in my voice, Kylian hugged me tighter.
With bitterness in his voice, he replied, “It was only recently that I realized how cold-blooded, heartless, and selfish my father is… All along, he never really regarded me as his son.”
Kissing my head again, he leaned back a bit and deeply looked into my eyes. “But don’t feel sorry for me, Della. I have you here with me. And if all the torture I recieved before was a payment to have you, then I’ll be always happy to go through with it again.”
Moved by his sweet words, more tears streamed down my face as my chin quivered.
“Now… I’ll deal with Margot. I’ll personally punish anyone who has hurt you, my love.”
