Chapter 132
Unlike her complaints to Lione, after leaving the Bolshevik estate, Becky easily found Hans’s house by describing his appearance very precisely.
This was because people, as if under some spell, answered all of Becky’s questions as she approached them with a smile and casually began with small talk about the weather.
“Have a good afternoon!”
“Thank you, young lady. You have a good afternoon too.”
Lione, watching from within her shadow as Becky waved to the old woman she had last asked for directions right in front of Hans’s house, was impressed.
‘Don’t worry about gathering information. Opening people’s mouths is, well, my specialty.’
Becky had certainly said that.
Winning the favor of an unspecified number of people was actually Lione’s specialty too, but he couldn’t blend in as naturally as Becky.
After all, the moment people took an interest in him, he became the protagonist of every conversation.
Or it would turn into some kind of obsessive love or whatever for him.
Before he could properly reflect on his bitter past that had faintly surfaced, Lione urgently tried to speak as he saw Becky boldly approaching Hans’s front door without hesitation.
No, no matter what, how could she confront that man directly without any plan?
But before he could stop her, Becky unhesitatingly pounded on the firmly closed door.
Within seconds, the door opened slowly just a little, and through that small gap appeared a huge mass like a winter bear.
Becky instantly confirmed that he was the one who had threatened her and sneaked in and out of the Bolshevik mansion to meet the shadow, supposedly avoiding people’s eyes.
“Hello. Do you remem—”
“Not buying.”
Bang!
As soon as the door opened slightly, Becky tried to greet him, but unlike its sluggish opening, the door closed faster than lightning.
With the door shutting right in her face, and her hair flying against her cheeks from the air pressure of how roughly it was closed, Becky blinked several times.
She seemed to assess the situation for a moment before breaking into a broad smile.
Lione, watching her from within the shadow, instantly realized something was wrong and reached out his hand, but Becky had already lifted her skirts and raised her leg.
Bang! Bang-bang!
Becky, who was kicking the door as if to demolish it, was still smiling, and Lione struggled with whether he should hide her and escape from this place even now.
This wasn’t exactly a place that could be called safe, even if one’s mouth was torn saying so.
Creating such a disturbance and drawing attention would be among the top things one shouldn’t do in this neighborhood.
Wham! Thump-thump-thump!
While he was briefly conflicted, Becky was now kicking the door as if about to blow it off.
Finally, sensing people stealthily appearing in the vicinity, Lione was about to extend his hand toward Becky from within the shadow when—
Bang!
“Ah, I said I’m not buying! How persistent!”
A huge mass with a menacing expression appeared behind the door, which had opened so roughly that the hinges nearly flew off.
And before his thick hand could close the door again, Becky shouted at him with all her might:
“Not selling! I’m not selling anything to you!”
At that clear voice that made his ears ring, the mass frowned with his half-closed eyes and scratched his ears roughly.
“If you’re not selling anything, why do you keep knocking on my door? What is this, religious solicitation? I don’t believe.”
As he waved his hands dismissively, Becky opened her mouth with a bright smile.
“Can I half-kill this bastard before we start?”
Lione, immediately understanding that those words were directed at him, not the hulk in front of them—the blackmailer—touched his forehead.
And Hans, the hulk who didn’t even know Lione was there, frowned all over his face and looked Becky up and down, dimly visible in his cloudy eyes.
“What are you saying? Are you a crazy woman by any chance?”
“I’m neither soliciting religion nor a crazy woman. How long has it been that you’ve already forgotten the person you threatened? Is your brain smaller than a worm’s? Ah, they say perpetrators don’t remember their wrongdoings.”
At her rapid-fire response that left no room to breathe, Hans rubbed his alcohol-soaked face as if dizzy.
Becky snorted, blowing air through her nose, and blatantly looked him up and down, just as Hans had done to her.
Lione’s voice flowed into her ear:
“Half-killing him wouldn’t be difficult. But if that was the plan, it would have been better for me to take the lead from the start…”
Before he could finish speaking, the corner of Becky’s mouth curled up sharply.
Making both men—Lione and Hans—flinch simultaneously, she raised her eyes haughtily and quickly scanned the gloomy interior of the house behind Hans’s bulky frame.
“From what I can see, it’s hardly a place I’d want to enter, but since this isn’t a matter to discuss outside in broad daylight, let’s go in first.”
“Huh? Why are you deciding about someone else’s house, no, more importantly, what business? Go in? Who? You?”
“Open those useless eyes properly and look. Who I am. Don’t tell me you really don’t remember? I’m the victim you threatened.”
As Becky rose on her tiptoes and thrust her face toward Hans, her shadow rippled anxiously.
“Huh? You.”
Only now, as if the alcohol had worn off a bit, Hans opened his eyes properly under the pressure of her aggressive demeanor and mumbled, to which Becky unhesitatingly shoved him aside with an utterly contemptuous expression.
“Now you recognize me. Move aside a bit.”
“W-w-wait! Woman, where do you think you’re going! Huh? Ow!”
His hand, thicker and rougher than a pot lid, tried to grab Becky’s shoulder, but somehow a burning pain was felt in his palm, and Hans had to hastily withdraw his hand.
Becky, who had her back turned to him, was completely unaware that Hans had tried to grab her shoulder, or how Lione had discreetly prevented it.
She merely clicked her tongue at the mess inside the house, as if a thief had broken in.
“Good heavens, is this a human dwelling or a pigsty?”
As Becky, not mincing her words at all, pinched her nose, Hans shouted with a reddened face:
“That’s why I didn’t invite you in! You really are a crazy woman—”
“What’s your relationship with the woman you meet at the Bolshevik mansion?”
At the abrupt question, Hans seemed at a loss for words, but Becky paid no mind and continued to press him:
“That mechanical device she has, it’s dangerous, isn’t it? Do you know what happens when you play with such toys in the front yard of Bolshevik?”
“W-what?”
Just as Hans’s mind, which had briefly returned when he recognized Becky, was about to fly away again—
Clang!
Becky picked up one of the scattered liquor bottles upside down and skillfully broke it.
As the menacingly broken bottle flashed among the floating dust in the dimly lit house, Becky’s voice, almost cheerful, rang out:
“Naturally, you’ll pay the price. As for what that price is.”
She smiled and lightly waved the broken part of the bottle, which alone was enough to predict the rest of her words.
Hans’s eyes, which had been trembling anxiously since the bottle broke, now shook as if in an earthquake.
He couldn’t properly remember what Becky had said earlier, but the broken bottle flashing in her hand was clearly visible, so he unconsciously opened his mouth:
“W-what I made isn’t that kind of dangerous toy.”
With just one sentence, Hans revealed the source of the mechanical device and the fact that he had played some role in Jane’s scheme, without even realizing that he had confessed.
This method is indeed the most effective.
It was what loan sharks used to do to her with smiling faces in the past, when she realized every day that there was an even lower bottom below rock bottom because of her mother’s gambling addiction.
Suddenly barging in, overwhelming them, and then presenting something that posed a real threat.
‘Ninety out of a hundred times, they’ll say something while trembling in fear at this moment.’
A smile spread across Becky’s lips that could only be described with the word “vile,” similar to that of the loan shark who had said those words.
“Then what is it? If it’s a misunderstanding, say so now. You know, right? That misunderstandings should be cleared up as quickly as possible.”
“I… guess?”
Despite feeling something wasn’t quite right, the sharp edge of the broken bottle that Becky was holding and waving was so intense that Hans began to stammer.
“First, tell me what your relationship is with that woman.”
As Becky opened the floodgates, Hans’s past began to pour out.
And what followed unfolded in a way that neither Becky nor Hans, who had ended up speaking inadvertently, could have anticipated.
“I told him to talk, but I didn’t expect him to tell absolutely everything like that.”
Unlike when she had forced her way in, Becky, who had escaped as if fleeing from Hans’s house, rubbed her ears and shuddered, while Lione, who had somehow emerged from the shadow and was standing beside her, also exhaled with a sickened expression.
And for good reason…
‘I-I worked so hard for her! And she doesn’t even want to look at me and tells me not to come unless she calls!’
