Chapter 153.1

Chapter 153.1

“You’ve worked hard, Zoya.”

Had the baby cried? Her ears were too muffled to tell for sure. Exhausted, she could only collapse onto the bed. Wrapped tightly in swaddling clothes, she caught a fleeting glimpse of tiny pink nails before turning her head away.

When Rigay came rushing in, panting, she told him the baby was dead. The man wept for a long time without saying a word, then finally looked at her swollen belly with pity.

Joo Seolheon wished her distended stomach would deflate quickly, but it didn’t shrink as fast as she hoped. It looked like a grave.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, Zoya… Because of me… It’s my fault.”

Tears streamed endlessly from Rigay’s eyes, but beneath them, a clear sense of relief surfaced.

Joo Seolheon bit down hard on her tongue, the pain twisting her insides. Rigay was still a dangerous man, and her mission wasn’t over yet. She couldn’t let another woman take her place as his wife.

“Once you’re done crying, come back home. I need you.”

She would return to Korea in glory, nothing like her parents, who had remained poor despite bearing child after child. Even through the searing pain, Joo Seolheon could only think of the benefits she stood to gain.

Once she heard the baby had safely entered the Sakhalin monastery, she never asked about it again.

***

Joo Seolheon hadn’t bought a single baby item, and as she walked through the empty house, she forced herself to keep going.

Even as she recovered under her husband’s attentive care, her milk came in relentlessly. Every dawn, she sat dazed on the toilet, mechanically expressing breast milk.

Little by little, everything was returning to how it had been before the baby. Her husband no longer stayed out all night, and her belly flattened again.

The woman she had mistaken for Rigay’s mistress turned out to be the wife of Ivan Solzhenitsyn, a young mother already raising a son. Though she realized Agent Damon had lied to provoke her, she felt nothing.

They slowly mended their relationship as if that incident had never happened. But Rigay couldn’t stand the sound of wailing newborns, and Joo Seolheon grimaced every time.

She scowled as if annoyed by the noise, but she had developed a habit of staring at babies’ pink nails for a long time.

And so, she stayed by Rigay’s side as she aged. Fine wrinkles appeared where there had been none before, and now, even when she saw children, her nipples no longer throbbed.

“A circus?”

She stared blankly at the invitation Agent Damon handed her. It was a spectacle enjoyed by the siloviki, a group of former KGB elites, and the oligarchy, the colluding conglomerate class.

*KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) – the primary security and intelligence agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991

The siloviki were the powerful figures from the military, intelligence agencies, and the military-industrial complex, while the oligarchy were the mega-rich who had expanded into politics and the mafia.

The corruption and decadence of these elites were infamous, and this was the kind of circus they enjoyed.

The two of them entered a mansion, their eyes hidden behind ornate masks. Her gaze was immediately drawn to the impossibly high, vaulted ceilings.

A masterpiece of cherubic infants flying among white doves… Then, the circus began.

“…!”

Joo Seolheon bit her lip, stifling a gasp. It was a horror she couldn’t bear to watch.

Onstage, screams rang out as limbs were torn apart, yet the invited guests sat elegantly, applauding. She wanted to bolt from her seat, but Damon gripped her knee tightly.

“….”

His warning glare told her that fleeing would only raise suspicion. Swallowing her disgust, she straightened her back and endured.

After the grotesque spectacle, more massacre than entertainment, ended, the blood-soaked stage was wiped clean with oil. Then, flames engulfed the platform, surging upward until even the second floor grew hot. The guests let out soft gasps.

Two children appeared, gripping the trapeze suspended from the ceiling. A roar of noise, whether cheers or jeers, slammed into her eardrums.

The beautiful, doll-like twins showed no fear of the furnace-like stage, throwing themselves toward each other without hesitation.

“…!”

Just watching made her feel like her liver would split in two.

Under the famous painting of cherubic baby angels frolicking, children who looked just like them now swung through the air, gripping the trapeze bars.

How old were they?

At first glance, they seemed around five or six, but seeing them effortlessly spin midair made her think they might be older.

How much training must they have endured to perform such difficult stunts so easily? Joo Seolheon stared, mesmerized, as the children moved in perfect sync.