TW // Self-harm
9. Second, A Villainess Never Forgets A Grudge.
No one expected that a father would threaten his daughter's life to escape the situation when he was in crisis.
Lara was kidnapped by Marquess of Bailey. Being cornered, he chose to hold his only daughter hostage. He believed the main culprit of this incident was his wife, Isadora. Lara did a lot of unusual things, but he did not suspect that his obedient daughter would have dared to betray him.
"Strip his name off and banish him."
He heard that the King made such a decision this morning.
Although he was pointed out as the broker for the black sorcerer, Marquess of Bailey neither directly manufactured the drugs nor did he harm people. Thus, they struck a deal for that much punishment.
But the Marquess still thought it to be an excessive punishment.
He was more shocked to know that his name had been stripped off and was banished from the capital than when he knew he had been chosen as the tail to be cut off.
His ancestry was everything to him.
Marquess of Bailey could not stand not being a Bailey.
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
The place where Lara was taken to was the Bailey manor—and in her room at that.
She was not even that surprised. She just spat blood with a face that already expected this would happen. Rather than being surprised that the kidnapper was her father, it was more surprising that he had made such a stupid choice. Putting him in a corner to get a divorce from her mother seemed to have driven him to the brink and made him feel desperate.
Did I go too far? Should I just do it moderately?
Looking around, she could not see where the kidnappers had gone, the straps that had restrained her mouth and body had also disappeared.
Then, Marquess of Bailey came in.
"It's been a while."
Lara looked cynically at her father's face, which had turned into someone else in just a few days,
He used to be considered a handsome man with a melancholic and good-natured ambiance. But now, he had a nervous and sharp impression.
"Why do you look like that? Don't tell me that you expect the corrupt temple or the cunning Prince to be loyal to you to the end?"
"Laviore."
"So naive."
Lara smirked.
The tip of her lips was chaffed and torn by the gag. The blood had clotted and it hurt every time she opened her mouth. But Lara did not stop talking.
"If you want to rise in power by selling your daughter, you should have handled things more thoroughly. Even though I didn't even do much, you are already in the gutter."
"Shut up. How can you say that to me?"
It was an obvious deterrent. Lara was even bored with it now.
"I'm your father. How can you spout such thoughtless words to the parents who gave birth to you?"
She could do it.
If she could, she would like to show all the things her father has done to her in her past life. She really wanted to know if he could say that even after he knew what he had done.
When she knew they needed a sacrifice for the demon, at least Prince Sidhar pretended to look troubled. At that time, the Marquess of Bailey, who had Saintess Lara on his side, had formidable power. The suspicions toward him did not fade away due to the banishment of Sonnet, so Prince Sidhar thought it would trouble him more if Marquess of Bailey suddenly realized his instinctive love as a father and condemned the Prince.
But Lara's father was more aggressive than anyone else in making her the sacrifice.
"Laviore, just consider this as you returning the favor."
"I was the one who gave birth to you as a noble, gave you that name, and made you a saintess."
"Keep your dignity until the end."
"Human life has always been limited. Your breath will cease, but your name as the daughter of Bailey will go down in the history of Hautean. That is the only way humans can live forever."
The great saintess who sacrificed herself to save the kingdom, and the greater father who raised the saintess.
That was Marquess of Bailey's original plan.
But father.
What to do? I don't owe you anything. The one who gave birth to me and loves me is mother.
So I'm going to make you the sacrifice in this life.
The sacrifice for the perfect revenge.
The kidnap turned out great.
She was angry about getting kidnapped, but it was a relief that she got a chance to say everything that she wanted. Lara began to pour out all the terrible words that she could not tell him and that had left her heartbroken in her last life.
"What's the point if the only thing you did was give birth to me? If that's what being a parent is like, a beast is better. Answer me, do you even see me as a human?"
The more she talked, the more words came out.
The anger that she had endured all this time was boiling over.
"I don't see you as a human anymore. After treating me like a tool, you want me to treat you like a father? Do you think that I'm crazy enough to do that?"
"Shut up!"
"Am I creepy? Do I look like I'm out of my mind? That's great. I learned all of this from you."
"Even a beast doesn't treat its parents like this. I won't treat you like a human anymore. If you took after me, you would have been noble-like. Why do you have to take after your mother…"
Lara could not stand it when her father talked about her mother.
She was as angry as the amount of guilt she felt for her mother.
"What? …Noble?"
She was so angry that her head became hot.
She glared straight at the Marquess of Bailey and shouted.
"You still can't throw away that noble title, despite being poor. You didn't even think to overcome that, and instead, you sacrificed mother. You dressed well and fared richly with the money earned by mother. And instead of being grateful and treating her properly, you felt inferior to her ability. Pathetic!"
"Laviore!"
"Jealousy, envy, incompetence, helplessness—not wanting to admit any of that; your one and only specialty was to assert authority!"
Lara screamed at the top of her lungs at the Marquess of Bailey. Then, she gritted her teeth and said.
"You're disgraceful and cowardly. I despise you. I detest Bailey. Go to hell."
He will hit me now.
As soon as she clenched her teeth with determination, she was slapped.
Slap! Slap! Slap!
Marquess of Bailey slapped Lara in the face over and over again.
Feeling that his anger still did not go away, he grabbed Lara's hair, dragged her, and threw her on the floor. As she fell down, she crashed into a cabinet. The cabinet's glass broke and sharp debris poured out.
"No matter what…"
His voice was cut off.
Like someone whose tongue is stiff, he swallowed his saliva several times and tried to move his dry mouth.
"No matter what you say, the relationship between parents and their children is a heaven-sent gift! Even though the one who made your body was your mother, the blood that flows through your body belongs to Bailey. It's all from me!"
Lara could not believe that she used to follow and obey this kind of person.
Lara, who fell to the floor, shook her shoulders and laughed.
"If the blood in my body comes from you…"
She grabbed a long, sharp piece of glass, raised her head, and glared at the Marquess of Bailey.
"I will just let it spill."
"What?"
Lara did not hesitate.
Holding the glass with one hand, she slashed it tightly against the other wrist. She already knew that too much anger dulls the pain. As her flesh tore long, a great deal of blood spurt out from her thin wrist. She slashed it so deeply that her bones could almost be seen.
Marquess of Bailey looked down at Lara with a pale face.
"Are you…really Laviore? How can you change like this overnight?"
The red blood streamed down her wrist to the floor.
Lara extended her wounded arm forwards so the Marquess could see it properly.
"Take it all."
She did not cry.
"Don't even leave a single drop."