“You’ll have to give a statement, but they aren’t the type to be hard on a child, so do not worry.”
A child, he thought her?
At sixteen, she was hardly a child.
Just how old did he think she was?
Fourteen?
Fifteen?
Surely not thirteen?
But the man never asked.
He spoke with the detached air of someone addressing a fleeting inconvenience, not a person, stating only the necessary facts before turning away from her completely.
Johanna managed a word of thanks for saving her, but he offered only a perfunctory nod in return.
Soon after, the police arrived.
After a brief exchange with them, the man departed in that same jet-black carriage.
Only by overhearing the officers did Johanna finally learn his name: Leonid Neuwitz Rinke Elderic.
The Marquis Neuwitz… and heir to the House of Elderic.
That meant he was the future Duke.
“This must have been a terrible ordeal for you,” said the officer who had taken her testimony, jotting notes in his book.
“We will take you home.
Please, get in the carriage.”
“Yes, thank you,” Johanna replied, her voice robotic.
As the officer guided her toward the carriage, a faint glint of light caught her eye.
What was that?
She bent down and retrieved a small, silver button of exquisite quality, identical to the ones that had adorned Marquis Neuwitz’s black coat.
It must have fallen off during the struggle.
“What are you doing?
Please, get in,” the officer urged.
“Oh, it is nothing.” Johanna hastily tucked the button into her pocket and climbed into the carriage.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as if she were a thief, though she had only rescued a fallen object.
The next day, Johanna accompanied her mother to the police station to testify against the human traffickers.
She recounted in detail how they had lured her and what had transpired, confessing as well to injuring two of them with a broken bottle.
The police assured her she would not be punished; they would take into account her age and the fact that she had nearly been a victim herself.
“Some might argue it was excessive for self-defense, but you need not worry.
These men are heinous criminals.”
The traffickers, she learned, were illegal immigrants from the neighboring country of Arberg.
They had been abducting people from remote villages and large cities alike, smuggling them across the border, and had only just been caught.
“To think they kidnapped over two hundred people… This world is a frightening place,” her mother murmured, pulling her into a tight embrace as they left the station.
“My heart still pounds at the thought of you being taken.
I am so thankful you are safe… If anything had happened to you, I do not think I could have gone on living.”
Johanna simply nodded, closing her eyes and leaning into her mother’s warmth.
Only then did she truly feel safe.
The traffickers would be deported and imprisoned in Arberg for life; they would never get out to seek revenge.
As for the man whose eye she had blinded with the bottle… she had to erase him from her memory.
He was a monster who deserved to die, yet a strange guilt lingered for having harmed another person.
But she had no reason to feel a pang of conscience.
Forget him, she told herself, trying to soothe the erratic rhythm of her heart.
Just forget.
Two days later, the human trafficking case made the front page of the daily paper.
The article also detailed a past incident in which the heir of the House of Elderic had himself been kidnapped by traffickers.
So that is what happened…
Suddenly, she understood why Marquis Neuwitz had beaten those men with such brutal fury.
His rage, she now understood, had a reason.
After reading the article thoroughly, Johanna retrieved the silver button from her drawer and held it up to the morning sun.
The smooth, pure silver glittered like light dancing on a river’s surface.
Should she try to return it?
Then again, a great noble like Marquis Neuwitz would hardly notice the loss of a single button.
In truth, she was merely making excuses.
She wanted to keep it.
In the chaos and terror of that day, she had not fully processed it, but the man’s existence had been a profound shock.
His arrival in her life had been like a tidal wave, and she was still reeling from the impact.
She could not stop thinking about him—his eyes, which had burned with an almost feral light, and the jarring, impossible elegance of his movements even as he unleashed such savage violence.
Was it only because he had left such a strong impression?
He was a world away from the daughter of a fallen noble like herself.
It would be best to stop thinking about him now.
Resignation came easily enough, for believing she would never see him again made it simple to push him from her mind.
Her fascination, her curiosity—it amounted to nothing more than that.
Johanna felt a sense of relief.
But a week later, she saw him again.
It was at the newspaper illustration job she had fought so hard to secure.
Her work involved following reporters and sketching scenes for their articles, and on one such assignment, she unexpectedly came face to face with him once more.
No, it was not a meeting so much as a sighting; he never once glanced her way.
Does he remember me?
The flicker of hope was extinguished almost as soon as it appeared, swallowed by a familiar self-mockery.
To him, she was nothing more than a stranger he had brushed past.
I just wanted to thank him properly.
If not for him, those traffickers would have… She shuddered.
Leonid Neuwitz had saved her life.
But he was so far beyond her reach that she dared not even speak to him.
All she could do was watch from a distance, like a sunflower tracking the sun.
“And so, Your Excellency,” a reporter began, “regarding our last interview…”
Leonid Neuwitz answered each question in a flat monotone, his expression bordering on bored.
The words he spoke, however, were anything but trivial.
“…The nobles’ council concluded as follows.
We will review the results from the citizens’ council in a few days, after which we will reconvene for a joint meeting.
As for the Arberg royalists…”
Throughout the interview, Johanna’s gaze remained fixed on him.
It was strange.
She could not look away.
It was not just because she had to sketch his likeness—her eyes were simply drawn to him.
They wanted to watch him, and her ears yearned to hear his voice.
She felt like a sailor bewitched by a siren’s song.
Is it because he is an Extreme Dominant Alpha?
But she was a Beta.
Yet every nerve in her body was attuned to him, as if she were an Omega.
Was this what Omegas always felt in the presence of a magnetic Alpha?
Even after she returned home, her thoughts were consumed by him.
She had never in her life focused on someone so ardently.
It was unsettling.
He should have been a fleeting encounter, yet they had met again, and now he occupied her mind constantly.
It did not feel like a good sign.
“Johanna?
What are you doing?
Come, dinner is ready.”
“Yes!
I am coming!” Startled by her mother’s voice, Johanna scrambled to her feet.
As she headed for the door, she paused and glanced back.
On her desk, the silver button glinted in the lamplight.
It was a memory, she supposed.
A memory she alone would carry—a secret she could never share.