IJNSTH 27

27 ❖ ❖ ❖

That day, Icaros received a phone call.

It was from the Metropolitan Police. They said that Ludwig Rex had been detained following a report filed by Lady Vivianne Mergoville. According to them, Lady Mergoville was unharmed, so they were considering whether to release him without charge. As he listened, Icaros’s expression steadily darkened.

He hung up and stared silently at the telephone.

The right move would be to send someone immediately and intervene. But rescuing the young lady through people from the underworld would draw too much attention—it was out of the question. She had only just managed to shed the stigma of being associated with a dark-market strategist. If well-known figures from the underworld openly escorted her now, all their efforts would be wasted.

From appearances alone, the person least connected to the underworld—the boss himself—seemed the best choice. Yet something felt off.

Wasn’t this precisely what they had been aiming for?

Lady Mergoville had been at the count’s estate that very morning. Then she suddenly went to the marquis’s residence—and now, just as suddenly, she was at the Metropolitan Police. The memory of the boss calling him to discuss the engagement process with Lady Mergoville made the situation even more suspicious. Something had clearly happened in between.

It was an obvious trap, a snare laid specifically for the boss.

But what would happen if he didn’t inform him?

If, because of that, Lady Vivianne were to suffer even the slightest injury… If he simply told them to release both parties and Ludwig Rex went on to commit something far worse than a mere threat—

Then his boss would undoubtedly lose his composure and ruin everything that lay ahead.

Earlier that day, at the count’s estate, Icaros had seen with his own eyes how the boss looked at her.

His gaze was almost spellbound.

To others, he might have seemed expressionless. But to Icaros, who had served him for many years, there were things only he could see.

That was why he had to tell him.

If the boss intended to abandon the young lady once again, he would make that decision himself after hearing the truth. Even knowing that his boss became vulnerable only in front of Lady Mergoville—that she was, in effect, his weakness—Icaros made the painful decision and picked up the phone.

The boss didn’t even reply. He simply hung up the moment he heard Icaros’s report.

At that instant, Icaros could only press the receiver to his chest.

Because he already knew exactly how this would end.

Later, through an officer he had planted in the Metropolitan Police, Icaros learned what had happened that day. Lady Vivianne Mergoville had been sitting there, restlessly scanning her surroundings, unable to calm herself.

Then, the moment she saw someone enter, her eyes wavered and she turned away.

It was unmistakably the look of someone seeing the person who had come to help her.

Hearing this, it became clear that everything had been Ludwig’s scheme—one designed to exploit the boss’s recklessness.

It was now obvious that Ludwig Rex suspected Edmund Colt.

And Ludwig Rex might go beyond mere suspicion, obtain concrete evidence, and use it—either by reporting it to his father or to the Metropolitan Police—to expand his own power.

After hearing all of this at his estate, the boss merely laughed.

His attitude seemed to say, Come if you dare, as though he found his opponent laughable.

And so, to explain the truth of the incident in greater detail, this is what had happened.