"...All I want in return is—"
"I-In return.... Y-You want me to give my daughter to s-someone like you? And w-willingly at that?"
Julia stared at him incredulously, as if she couldn't believe she was really hearing such an absurd proposition like that.
What kind of mother would ever agree to something like this...?
However, Damien quickly shook his head in response.
"No, but I think you are forgetting something important – Sierra isn't a little girl anymore. She is an adult now. And like a grown adult, she can make her own decisions about what she wants to do in life..."
He then meaningfully smiled at her as he continued, with one side of his lips curling up a little more than the other.
"...Do you know what that means for you? As a small hint, maybe you can recall the scene at the doorstep from earlier for reference...?"
Julia's breathing suddenly stopped, her expression turning bleak in a grim realization.
Indeed, at this sensitive age, children were already rebellious enough. And that was without someone like Damien to egg them on even more.
Seeing her darkened face, Damien let out a small laugh.
"That's right. Just like I told you before, I have quite a lot of money to spare. So if I really want to, I can easily take her away and disappear from your radar for a while, and you won't be able to do a damn thing to stop her...!"
Damien then paused for a moment, taking out the white business card he gave Julia earlier and lightly waving it in the air with a grim smile.
"—You see, this one here wasn't exactly a lie I made up. And since you already know how adorably gullible your daughter is, what do you think my odds are in taking her away on a tour for a week? Or maybe a month? And what after that?"
Julia's expression was already gloomier than a cloudy day during a solar eclipse, with a dark shadow looming over her face as silently listened to his words.
However, when she heard that blatant threat from his mouth, Julia suddenly forgot all about her apprehension for a moment, with fury taking the driving seat in her brain.
Overtaken by her feelings, she angrily glared at him, before speaking in a grim voice through her gritted teeth.
"...No, you won't do something like that. She is my only daughter, and I can never leave her in the care of an unstable, not to mention despicable, person like you! You can't threaten me like this just because I didn't agree to—"
"—Miss Julia, you should think very carefully before you speak..."
Damien interjected, his voice somehow sounding even more gloomy and furious than her.
"...I've already told you, I love your daughter very, very much. But please, don't mistake MY love for being the same love other people prattle about all the time with a flower garden in their heads. You see, just like you said, I'm more than a little messed up in the head. And so are my feelings of love toward her."
Hearing the demonic tone in his voice, Julia felt like her entire body had been doused in a bucket of icy cold water. The instinctive fear and apprehension she had shaken off a while ago took hold of her mind once again, and this time even deeper than before.
"Because believe me when I say this – I can go to any lengths I deem necessary for her. Even if I have to go through hell and back, I won't even hesitate for a moment!"
He balled his hand into a fist as he snickered at her.
"...Heh, you think you can love her more than I do? Why, just because you're her mother? Then, I have a simple question for you..."
With a grim scowl on his face, Damien once again got up from his seat, taking small, deliberate steps towards her as he continued his words.
"Since you love her so much... If it is to keep your daughter safe, can you kill someone? Can you take someone's life without hesitation if it was to keep your child safe from any problems or danger?"
There was a small flower vase on top of a table near Julia's couch. He stepped in that direction, picking it up from the table before draining all the water and dumping the flowers on the floor.
*Splash–!*
He then took it with him, standing in front of the terrified, wide-eyed lady, while holding the vase in his hand like he was about to smash her head in with it the next moment.
But instead of hitting her, he simply continued from where he left off.
"...Tell me, Miss Julia, just how far can you go for your daughter, hm?"
Damien had an eerie grin on his face, while a dark flame of dreadful madness quietly burned in his ruby eyes.
"Since you already know that I'm bad for her, and also know that you can't stop me, can you kill me if you were given the chance to?"
The eerie grin on his face widened even more, and the vase he held in his grasp was slowly raised above his head, the flames of insanity burning fiercer and fiercer in his eyes.
"N-No, w-wait...."
Every strand of hair on Julia's body stood firmly on end, horrified of what was about to come.
"D-Don't...—Eeek!"
The vase descended a moment later, and she then promptly closed her eyes with a terrified shriek.
*Whoosh!*
In the darkness, she heard the vase making a whooshing noise in the air as it came down, crashing against something with a muffled bang!
*Shatter–!*
Shards of broken ceramic scattered everywhere. A small stream of blood slowly dripped to the ground, drop by drop.
"...Heh, haha, ahahaha!"
Damien was standing in the same spot, swaying from side to side with the same eerie grin still plastered on his face. The left side portion of his previously white hair was now dyed crimson, giving him the complete demonic look he had been missing until now.
"Look, Miss Julia, open your eyes and look! Even this much isn't nearly enough to express how far I'm willing to go for her!!! So don't back out of this now, will you?!"
The woman winced, hearing him practically shout that into her ear.
Opening her trembling eyes that she had closed right before the vase hit, Julia saw the young man unsteadily dropping down on his knees in front of her, before extending his blood-soaked hand in her direction.
"O-Oh my God..."
Seeing his condition, Julia shivered a little. There was a large bloody gash on the left side of his head, oozing with a steady stream of blood leaking out of the wound.
Even though he looked dizzy because of the sudden blood loss, Damien didn't seem to care one bit. He simply grabbed onto her forearm with his bloody hand, before unceremoniously dropping a sizable piece of ceramic on her palm.
The piece had a sharp edge to it, pointing outward in Damien's direction as he made her forcefully close her palm into a grip.
He then gave her a dark smile.
"Here, I've already prepared it for you. Now all you have to do is—"
Damien extended his neck to her, pointing his bloody finger to a specific spot on it as he continued.
"—cut me here. Just slice through the skin deep enough, and you'll hit a major artery. In a few minutes, I'll be gone from her life, and you will be able to relax, knowing that an insane bastard like me is no longer a threat to your daughter..."
A cold shudder went through Julia's entire body as she unblinkingly stared at the freak in front of her with trembling eyes.
"Y...Y-You're absolutely insane...!"
Hearing her words, Damien laughed out loud, although sounding a little weaker than normal.
"I asked you if you love your daughter more than me. But you know, if I ever see someone who possessed even a millionth of the threat you thought I had towards her, I wouldn't even need someone to hand me a ceramic piece. I would've butchered that piece of shit right where he stood... That's how much I love her."
His breathing seemed to grow a bit labored toward the end, but he persisted.
"...Heh, I bet you thought I was a random playboy from the streets lusting after her, right? Well, I'd guess that misconception has been cleared now."
After seeing that Julia hadn't made a move on him yet, he snickered to himself, before taking her hand that held the sharp piece of ceramic and holding it on the skin of his neck.
"...Hey, come on now. Sia must be coming down any moment now, you can't waste any more time, you know? If you're going to have a problem with me being in her life, you really can't miss this golden chance. Kill me right now, or else, you will have to call me 'son-in-law' sooner or later..."
However, no matter how much he tried to goad her into it, that piece of ceramic in her hands didn't puncture through his skin.
Julia simply couldn't comprehend why this young man was doing something like this. At first, she thought he was simply going to threaten her – which he technically did for quite a while there – before she would call the police and force him out of the house.
...That was the plan, the only kind of plan she thought she ever needed to deal with any scumbags coming after her daughter.
But how was she supposed to deal with this...?
Her rationality told her to quickly call an ambulance for him and stop the heavy bleeding Damien was going through. But the extreme shock she had gone through in the last few minutes had her entire body paralyzed.
She couldn't move from her spot, only able to watch on as the heavily breathing young man in front of her slowly became even more unsteady.
"Huh... You aren't going to do it, are you? Heh, heheh. Ahh, now that I think about it, this really makes me wonder though, how much do you even know about your daughter?"
Feeling a strange sense of foreboding from his words, Julia hesitated a little, before deciding to ask him with an unsure expression.
"...W-What do you mean?"
Sensing her mood, Damien answered her with an insufferable smirk.
"...In the first place, why do you think someone like me fell in love with Sierra specifically – when I literally have flocks of girls and women eager to spread their legs for me, Miss Julia? I mean, just look at me..."
He then pointed at himself with a mocking smile on his face.
"...Do I look like a fucking desperate virgin that's too eager to get laid with your daughter, huh?"
Saying that, Damien almost broke out in a sarcastic snicker, before he managed to restrain himself. A twisted smile appeared on his face as his eyes grew hazier, but he continued to ramble on.
"...Because if you do think like that, you don't know the first thing about her.... And then you think I'm bad for your daughter, huh? How laughable.... How utterly laughable—!"
– "Mom! What happened there? I think I heard something breaking downstairs...!"
A shout from upstairs resounded in both of their ears at this moment.
Damien's face scrunched up a little, but he didn't respond to Sierra's shout.
Julia's lips also trembled slightly, wanting to say something. But in the end, she also kept her mouth shut.
"Haa... Looks like your time's up now, mother-in-law. I wanted to tell you more about me, but I think you'll have a much better understanding of my character after this anyway. You're a needlessly smart woman, after all..."
Ugh. He then groaned for a moment, taking the ceramic shard from Julia's hand and throwing it in a corner away from them.
*Clatter–!*
– "...Mom!! Why aren't you answering? Mooom!!!"
Sierra's voice resounded once again, causing Damien to hurriedly get up from the floor as he swayed around like a wasted drunkard.
"—Well, whatever, just remember to go along with my story. It's better if Sia doesn't know what just happened between us. We'll have another talk when I wake up, this time hopefully a calm and collected one where I can explain my circumstances a little better..."
Leaving a dumbfounded Julia behind, he then stood in front of the table where he took the broken vase from, leaning on it in order to not fall.
"...Oh, and also, I didn't really mean it when I threatened you – about what I said about taking her away from you. I can't bear to separate her from her dear, loving mother, after all. So, I had to look for some other way... I guess it was pretty dumb of me to do this, huh."
He then gently toppled the table, making sure to not let it make a loud noise, before listlessly walking towards the stairs.
*Bam* *Bam* *Bam*
A pair of rapidly descending footsteps echoed from the staircase, and before Damien could fall down to the ground, a pair of slender hands caught him in their grasp.
"Ugh. What is—!"
Sierra grunted, struggling to hold up his weight for a few seconds before gently sitting him down on the floor as she caressed his crimson-painted hair with an incredulous face.
"D-Damien...? W-What happened to you? How did you get injured like that!?"
A gasp left her mouth, looking at the heavily bleeding injury on the young man's head while he lay in her arms.
As he stared at her panicking face, Damien gave a weak laugh, before shaking his head.
"Haa... I wanted to impress my mother-in-law here, but I slipped and hit my head on your flower vase instead. At first, I told her it was a light injury, but I guess it's a little serious, after all."
"W-What? How hard did you even fall to get an injury like this? Arghh, that can wait... Right, Ambulance! Did you call an ambulance?!"
"...No, and why are you...pfft...asking 'me' that?"
Sierra's eyes widened. She slapped her forehead while uttering a curse, before haphazardly looking for her phone in her pockets.
Unfortunately, a moment later she remembered that she had left it on her bed upstairs, when she was changing her clothes a few minutes ago.
"Mom. Mom! What are you doing there?! Please call an ambulance quickly, he's going to faint any time now! It's an emergency! ....Mom!!!"
"...Oh, yes, yes. I'm....I'm calling for it. Just give me a moment, honey."
It took quite a few panicked and frustrated yells from her daughter before Julia finally managed to muster up a response, after being jolted awake from her shocked stupor.
Searching around, she took out her phone with her hands still trembling. It took her a few more seconds to finally dial the emergency number.
*Rrring~!*
["Hello, this is 911. How can I help you?"]
"...Yes, we...uh...urgently need an ambulance at—"
Julia haltingly described her address to the lady on the phone, blankly looking at how hopelessly her daughter had been reacting to the young man's injury.
Damien had already lost consciousness by then, with Sierra alternating between frantically shouting in his ears to wake up and praying for the ambulance to show up quickly.
'This...has developed into a real problem, hasn't it?'
Swallowing her saliva, Julia calmed her rapidly beating heart.
...It seemed like this future 'son-in-law' of hers was going to be a real piece of work to handle.
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A/N: Okay, before you guys start cursing me for the long absence – it's my fault! I'm sorry! As an apology, I've already published 4.3k words (4 normal webnovel chapters worth) today. Plus, I tried my best to cook in these two chapters, so tell me if I succeeded or got the entire thing burnt!
This is the author, signing off (for today).