Chapter 97 : Whispers Beneath the Ashes
✦ Chapter 97 ✦
“Whispers Beneath the Ashes”
Our eyes fell to the floor—
A single object had slipped from within the frame’s hidden recess.
An old, timeworn notebook, its leather cover worn at the corners, like a relic that had waited too long in silence.
I rose from the sofa and slowly approached Johannes, who bent to retrieve it.
“What is it…?” I asked, my voice barely above a breath.
He examined the cover with narrowed eyes.
“We won’t know until we read it. But I suspect… it’s something we were never meant to find.”
Wordlessly, we returned to the sofa. The air between us was taut with anticipation as we opened the brittle pages.
And then—
A jolt ran through me.
Twenty years.
That was how far the records inside stretched—
A meticulous log of secret transactions, transferred across shadowy accounts, their contents staggering.
Each line was soaked in secrecy, stained with the ink of betrayal and greed. Names were masked in anonymity—
All but two.
Two names etched with chilling clarity:
Lucas Schulz. Max Russell.
My breath caught.
Wasn’t Lucas Schulz… the former Duke? Johannes’ father?
And Max Russell—
Could this be a record of noblemen’s illicit funds? A slush ledger hidden in my parents’ home?
“Is this… the Marquess Russell?” I asked, my voice trembling with disbelief.
Johannes nodded grimly.
“He was the son of Old Mrs. Russell.”
The son of the old woman who once lived here…
But this—this was no ordinary record.
Why would something so damning lie buried within the walls of my childhood?
I struggled to steady my thoughts as Porche Max’s words rang through my head—his wild claim that the former Duke and my father were involved in a rebellion against the crown. I’d dismissed it as madness.
But this notebook—
It whispered otherwise.
A sharp chill ran down my spine.
“Is it possible your father… was truly involved in something dangerous?”
The room seemed to constrict. The walls, the firelight, the weight of history pressing in.
It couldn’t be. Surely, this house had been used by others long before my parents lived here.
Surely, this was a coincidence.
But then…
Why hadn’t my father taken this with him when we left?
His name wasn’t written. And yet…
Isn’t that, in itself, too telling?
My father had always despised nobles. And yet, there had been a rare warmth in his voice when he spoke of Duke Schultz.
My eyes followed Johannes’ hands as he turned the final page.
And there it was.
A sum of one hundred million Berg, deposited three years ago in the neutral state of Chekov—under my father’s name.
The same amount he’d claimed to have borrowed from Banux at the time.
My heart clenched.
That money…
It hadn’t been borrowed at all.
It had been moved.
I gripped the hem of my skirt, the fabric bunching between my fingers.
“Did you know… that my father was acquainted with your father?” I asked.
Johannes looked up, brows furrowed. He shook his head.
“No. I never knew.”
I exhaled heavily, my shoulders sagging under the weight of this new truth.
“This is bigger than we thought. Possibly… illegal.”
He said nothing, but his silence said everything.
“If this ledger comes to light, the House of Schultz might be accused of hiding embezzled royal funds.”
There was no sign of forged entries. No attempt to obscure the truth.
And with Lucas Schultz and Max Russell listed by name, it wouldn’t take much for someone to spin this into treason.
A bitter thought bloomed.
Could this be why my father vanished?
But no—
If he were guilty, he wouldn’t have stayed close for so long.
As I mulled over the storm in my mind, Johannes finally spoke.
“We should take this with us.”
I nodded.
It was dangerous—too dangerous to leave it behind. And too dangerous to expose without understanding the full story.
He closed the notebook with a heavy thud and slipped it into the inner pocket of his coat.
His face was unusually drawn, lines of weariness darkening the noble sharpness of his expression.
Still, he offered me a quiet smile.
“It’s late. We should get some rest.”
I nodded once more.
He rose from the sofa, but as he did, I reached for his arm instinctively.
He turned to me, puzzled.
“You’re not planning to sleep somewhere else, are you?”
“The sofa’s too narrow,” I murmured.
His voice was tired. And kind.
“I think I’ve said this before—
I don’t like the idea of you sleeping alone. Especially in unfamiliar places.”
I hesitated, but tightened my grip on his sleeve.
He sank back down beside me, silent.
The fire crackled softly in the hearth.
We both stared into the glowing embers, each lost in a spiral of unspoken fears.
I was the first to break the silence.
“Duke.”
His name left my lips like a hush through snow.
He turned his head slowly, eyes meeting mine in the gentle firelight.
Blue—clear and piercing.
And suddenly, the storm inside me calmed.
But only for a moment.
Because even now, as I tried to reach my father, I was being buried beneath truths I shouldn’t uncover.
Still—
I couldn’t stop.
I wouldn’t stop.
“Can I ask you something?”
Johannes tilted his head, smiling faintly.
“Since when have you asked for permission?”
I clenched my skirt again.
His gaze followed the pale lines across the back of my hand.
“Why so nervous?”
“Before I ask… I have something to confess.”
His smile faded.
“What is it?”
His eyes held the stillness of the sea before a storm.
No shadow. No judgment.
And that made it harder.
I opened my mouth—and at last, I said it.
“…I don’t trust you.”
The words, bitter and trembling, spilled out at last.
Johannes’ jaw clenched.
The world paused.
For a moment, even the fire seemed to go quiet.
He blinked slowly.
His expression, once so alive, now unreadable.
Then he said,
“That’s… sudden.”
“…….”
“But I can’t pretend I didn’t suspect it.”
Of course he had known.
Beneath my words, beneath my silence—he had sensed it.
“That’s why you searched alone for Sergeant Prim’s trail.
Still… I didn’t expect you to say it aloud.”
“I had to.”
“Why now?”
He leaned forward slightly, waiting.
I swallowed hard.
“You know my father never wanted me near you.
He believed… he believed I shouldn’t be involved with the Duke of Schultz.”
The time had come.
To look him in the eye—
To demand the truth that had haunted me for so long.
“So tell me… did you—
Did you have anything to do with the death of Isaac Prim?”
