If You're Going to Sell Yourself, Sell It to Me - Chapter 110

The shabby, half-collapsing inn by the docks was so run-down that even the attached dining hall was filthy.

On the oil-stained table sat a dish made from fish on the verge of rotting.

Willow picked up a piece of fish with a bent fork and put it in his mouth—only to immediately spit it back out.

“Shit, you call this food?”

Across from him, Robert shook his head at the behavior of his son, Willow.

“You’d better eat what you can. The clothes we sold last time were the last of it. We won’t be getting any money for a while.”

“Father, are you sure that bitch is really here?”

Willow grumbled to Robert, wondering if they were on another wild goose chase.

For over a month, they had combed every corner of the Northwest, from noble houses to brothels. Unless she had left for another region early on, she should have shown up somewhere by now—but they hadn’t found a single lead.

“Georgiana had already arrived here when the wanted notice went out, so she couldn’t have gone far. You know her cowardly, stupid personality. The warrant was lifted about a month ago, so she should be moving around again by now.”

“I’m telling you, no. You should’ve seen her eyes when she shot me.”

Since that day, Georgiana had appeared in his dreams, unflinchingly pulling the trigger, and he had wet the bed multiple times.

In her place, Marianne had taken over the housework, constantly nagging him to the point of driving him mad.

Because they had no money, he hadn’t been able to receive timely treatment, and his left arm had turned necrotic and was now completely useless.

His father planned to take Georgiana to her birth family and demand money—but Willow was planning to kill her after they got the money.

If not that, he would kidnap her and sell her to the worst pimp he could find.

Willow clenched his jaw at the thought of Georgiana.

A few months ago, he had received a letter from his father—the first in two years.

He hadn’t expected it to be news of sudden riches, but the request to bring Georgiana to the New World had been a surprise.

After she had disappeared, Willow had loitered around the docks and eventually learned she had left for the New World. Since he had gambled away the stolen ticket that day, he was sure she hadn’t gone alone—she must have left with that guy.

He had been burning with revenge ever since but hadn’t attempted to follow because the fare was no small matter. When his father promised a big payout, he mortgaged the house to a gang and borrowed the money.

By now, interest must have piled up, and the house might be completely gone in a few months.

But if he could catch Georgiana, he didn’t care if Marianne ended up on the streets or was taken by the gang and subjected to whatever.

The moment he arrived in the New World, Willow understood why his father was after Georgiana.

The bounty on her head was astronomical.

Even that bastard had a bounty. Seeing their posters side by side, Willow dreamt of catching them both and becoming rich.

But his father had a different goal.

Robert claimed he had learned by chance that Georgiana was the granddaughter of the independence army commander and believed he could get far more money than the bounty by handing her over.

She had no other family, so once the commander died, she would inherit everything. Robert was already calculating that far ahead.

In any case, it would be easy to rob a soft-hearted girl of her inheritance.

Willow had heard countless times that finding the bag washed ashore a decade ago had been the greatest stroke of luck.

Drunk and out of money for a carriage, Robert had been walking home at dawn when he took a wrong turn and ended up at the shore.

The beach was littered with trash and nets swept in by the storm.

Among them was a rather luxurious bag.

Even in his drunken state, he could tell the leather and craftsmanship were beyond what most nobles could afford.

Convinced it would fetch a good price, he ran straight to the water’s edge. It was heavier than expected, but thinking it might contain valuables, he hauled it ashore with all his might.

When he finally opened it, Robert fell back in shock.

“What the fuck is this?”

Inside wasn’t treasure, but a girl—more beautiful than a doll.

She looked more regal than the princess he had once glimpsed.

Robert had no doubt that this girl would be worth far more than the bag itself.

So he took the fever-stricken child to a physician and nursed her with great care until she regained consciousness.

She appeared to be about six or seven years old—old enough to at least know her own name or her family’s.

But when the child finally came to, she remembered nothing.

She simply looked up at him with clear, pale green eyes.

According to the physician, the combination of emotional shock and high fever had likely caused memory loss. He was confident it would return with time.

Robert discreetly looked into whether any nobles were searching for a missing child, but found no such family in the Empire.

Still, he didn’t give up hope and continued to care for the girl.

Though a few years later he did give up on that hope, as the child grew more and more beautiful, he taught her things even Willow had never learned—planning to sell her at a high price one day.

He was confident that training her to be a high-class courtesan instead of sending her to a common brothel would allow him to recover his investment many times over.

But then, gambling debts forced him to flee unexpectedly to the New World, and while living like a beggar unlike anything he had experienced in the Empire, he stumbled upon a newspaper article about Commander Rossmann in a library he entered to escape the rain.

Given the various circumstances, he felt certain that the one he had been searching for was Georgiana.

Robert, wanting to keep the discovery to himself, cut out every article related to the matter and disposed of the rest.

If someone else found out, they might steal his share.

It would be too expensive to return to the Empire and bring her himself, so he sent a letter home asking Willow to come.

He had been worried that Marianne, who hated the sight of Georgiana, might have already sold her off somewhere.

Two months later, his son Willow arrived at the inn where Robert was staying.

But he seemed to be alone.

“Where’s Georgiana? Why are you by yourself?”

Robert immediately snapped, his face hardening.

“You always take her side, don’t you? Your only son ended up like this and you don’t even care.”

Willow grumbled bitterly.

Only then did Robert notice that Willow’s left arm was oddly limp—visibly thinner than his right.

“What happened?”

“Georgiana—that bitch ran away without even repaying her debt. And she shot me on her way out.”

“What?”

Robert’s eyes widened to the brink of popping out.

Getting shot was one thing, but the idea that she had run away made his head spin.

“What the hell did you do to make her run? Did you and that woman harass her again?”

Ever since the girl was brought home, Marianne had been constantly picking on Georgiana, suspecting she might be an illegitimate child from outside—but he had turned a blind eye to it, thinking it was tolerable.

He feared that if he didn’t, Marianne might sell the child behind his back while he was away.

Willow, just like his mother, had joined in the torment.

Robert was willing to bet that while he was gone for a year, they had bullied her to the point she had no choice but to escape.

Willow scowled at his words. “Who’s harassing who here? You see this arm? That crazy bitch shot me!”

“So? Where did she go?”

“To the New World.”

Robert, who had felt like the world was ending, finally let out a sigh of relief.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. There was a witness who saw her board the ship. Haven’t you seen the posters? She’s got a bounty on her head.”

“What?”

Robert had paid no attention to newspapers or wanted posters unless they involved gambling, so he had been completely unaware of the news that had caused such a stir on the New World.

Clicking his tongue, Willow looked at him with disdain. “Wasn’t that why you called me here? To collect the bounty by catching that bitch.”

“No. There’s something even more valuable than that.”

From that day on, Willow began combing through the movements of Mayfield’s passengers with Robert, searching for any place Georgiana might be hiding.

But as if she had vanished into the earth or flown into the sky, it wasn’t easy to find traces of a young woman.

Now, they were completely out of money.

“Father, what if we just went to that commander ourselves? Wouldn’t we get a good sum just for raising her?”

“You think they’d believe us without proof? Back then, the bounty was so high that a bunch of conmen came claiming they knew her and were turned away at the door. We’d be thrown out the same way.”

“I guess that’s true.”

Willow nodded glumly.

Later, after finishing their miserable meal and wandering the city, Willow’s eyes lit up as a familiar face passed in front of him.

The man with brown hair running urgently—it was the very attendant who had been with that guy.