After that murderous breakfast, Victor headed straight to his study. He could feel the servants shrinking into the shadows, following him with gazes full of terror. It seemed no one in this house wished to breathe the same air as him. This was for the best: his foul reputation created a perfect vacuum around him. He needed time to keep from losing his mind.
Finally, he reached his study. This was the place the former Victor visited least often, and the results were plain to see. The estate was drowning in debt. After all, who would solve the problems if not the master himself?
As soon as Victor crossed the threshold and surveyed the room, his stomach twisted into a painful knot again. The Hellsworth estate was decomposing, and this room was the epicenter of the rot.
A layer of dust so thick you could write on it with a finger lay upon the massive desk. Cobwebs hung from the bookshelves, veiling the spines of old folios. Grimy windows, smeared with bird droppings, let in almost no light; what did manage to break through looked more like a sickly yellow smudge than the reflection of an autumn day. The fireplace inspired particular loathing. A mound of gray ash was choked with scraps of paper. Apparently, in a drunken stupor, his predecessor had tried to cover his tracks but lacked even the strength to let the fire finish the job.
He involuntarily remembered his former apartment. It had smelled of freshness and cleaning supplies, and every object knew its place. Even during the busiest filming periods, his home remained a fortress of cleanliness. Now, he felt an uncontrollable urge to just close his eyes and find himself there, in his sterile, cozy living room, far away from this sticky, decades-old filth.
"My apartment was a hundred times cleaner even after a party," he thought bitterly.
"Disgusting."
Victor sank into the chair, trying not to think about how many generations of mites and insects he had just disturbed. The desk was a battlefield: a chaos of yellowed sheets, overturned inkwells, and, of course, empty bottles. His fingers itched with an unbearable desire to burn everything immediately.
The disorder in the estate angered him more than the threat of the end of the world. He suppressed a wave of nausea, forcing his mind to work. Unfortunately, the novel's author had delighted in describing the Lord's vices while completely forgetting to outline the internal affairs. Everyone only knew of his vileness.
Of course, Victor had a general idea that things weren't that simple. The fact that there were traitors inside the house was no surprise to him. Looking at the neglect of the study and the mountains of debt, it was hard to attribute it all to mere negligence. The skilled hands of those who desired the downfall of this family had clearly been at work here.
His hand reached for a stack of yellowed documents. The very first sheet, stained with an ink blot, met him with a short and merciless heading: "OVERDUE."
He read through the papers, and with every page, his face grew paler. At first, his eyes merely skimmed the numbers, but soon he froze, digging into the words. His teeth ached from the tension.
"They weren't just stealing; they were feasting on the bones of the former Lord," flashed through his mind.
Victor slowly set aside the ink-stained sheet, fearing that if he continued reading right now, he would simply suffocate under this paper avalanche.
The reality turned out to be far more terrifying than the novel. The former master of Hellsworth hadn't just drunk away the gold. He had become a milk cow that the vultures systematically picked clean to the bone. Every bill, every promissory note was steeped in blatant robbery.
"Debt to the bank... eighteen months overdue. The deed to the southern vineyards... sold for a pittance six months ago?"
He rummaged through the drawers, ruthlessly tossing trash onto the floor until he found the main ledger. The expenses for something called "warehouse maintenance" were ten times higher than the budget for repairing the entire estate's roof.
Victor pressed his fingers to his temples. There was almost no time left. If he didn't find a way to recover what was stolen before the first snow, the children would finish what the creditors had started.
A cautious knock interrupted his thoughts.
"My Lord... I brought ink... and paper..."
Approaching the door, Victor jerked it open. The servant recoiled, clutching the tray to his chest like a shield.
"On the desk," Victor commanded. "And find me the manager. Mr... what's his name? Morton?"
"M-Mr. Ludwig, my Lord. He is at the stables... inspecting the new horses bought yesterday."
"Tell Ludwig: I am waiting for him here. If he does not appear in five minutes, I will order him flogged right in those stables he loves so dearly."
The servant bolted from the room.
He returned to the desk and sat down, clasping his fingers.
He needed money. And he knew exactly who had it now. The "loyal" servants had been hoarding it for years, robbing the old Victor blind.
Fragmented scenes from the novel surfaced in his mind. Ludwig. In the original story, this slippery character was one of the first to defect to the enemies when the estate began to be torn apart. He was like an insect feasting on a still-living body, only to crawl over to a fresher corpse at the first sign of death.
Victor felt a familiar nausea rising in his throat. He looked down at the papers again. Stable expenses had tripled in the last month. New horses. What a blatant lie. In an estate where the roof threatened to collapse on the heads of sleeping children, this traitor was buying elite stallions? More accurately, he was simply siphoning money, scribbling figures on paper.
When the manager entered the study five minutes later, Victor didn't even lift his head. Ludwig—tall, stout, wearing a suit that cost more than a year's wages for the entire staff—tried to maintain a confident air. But his shallow breathing betrayed his haste. Apparently, the run from the stables had not been easy for him.
"My Lord, you summoned me?"
A hidden mockery of the alcoholic lurked in his voice.
"Sit, Ludwig."
The man hesitated, eyeing the dusty chair across from the desk.
"I'll stand, my Lord, it's... not exactly tidy in here."
"I said: sit. I don't give a damn about your trousers."
The manager sank onto the edge of the chair.
"Tell me about the horses."
"Three hundred crowns, my Lord. Purebred northern stallions. It was a bargain, considering..."
"Three hundred crowns. While taxes haven't been paid for six months. Do you take me for an idiot? Or did you decide that behind the bottom of a bottle, I wouldn't see you stealing from my chest?"
"My Lord, you have misinterpreted..."
Ludwig turned pale but tried to wriggle out of it.
"Silence."
Victor leaned forward, invading his personal space. The smell of dust mingled with the manager's sweat.
"By sunset, you will return everything. The three hundred crowns for the horses and everything you 'saved' on the roof."
"But, my Lord... that kind of money doesn't exist! It's impossible..."
Victor pulled a clean sheet from the stack and dipped the pen into the ink.
"If the money isn't here, I will sign an indictment for high treason. Have you forgotten, Ludwig? Part of these lands belongs to the Crown. You won't just be fired. You'll be strung up at the gates. And my children will watch it with a smile."
Ludwig's eyes widened. He swallowed convulsively, staring at the tip of the pen hovering over the paper.
"Leave."
When the door slammed behind the staggering manager, Victor nearly gagged with loathing for the place. There was no turning back. If he didn't collect the money now, in a month he would have no guards, no food, and no head on his shoulders.
"This traitor actually believed he could feed me fairy tales about profitable deals while the house is literally crumbling before our eyes."
Victor looked at the papers again. Three hundred crowns. A massive sum for an estate that is barely breathing. With this money, he could not only fix the roof but also pay the wages of the guards who, according to the reports, hadn't seen a coin in six months.
He took a clean sheet and began to jot down a list of names.
Besides Ludwig, this list included those the author barely mentioned at the start—minor figures, rats. They wouldn't be worth remembering if not for the finale of the first volume. Kyle, having turned into a ruthless knight, hunted down every one of them, cutting out the traitors' families root and branch—their wives and children included.
There was another knock at the door. More confident this time.
"You've been locked in here for two hours. The servants are whispering that you've gone mad from a lack of wine."
Kyle was standing in the doorway. His eldest son. His future executioner.
"Enter," Victor said curtly.
Kyle surveyed the stacks of papers, arranged by importance with frightening precision.
"You're... working on the accounts?"
There was so much disbelief in his son's voice, as if Victor had suddenly begun performing miracles.
"Someone has to, while you practice your hatred for me."
Victor noticed the edge of one stack protruding by a couple of millimeters. The itch in his fingers became unbearable. He fell silent, slowly and carefully aligning the sheets into a perfect vertical, and only then continued:
"Sit. I have a task. Your men at the eastern post are a lazy herd. If a single bandit comes tomorrow, he'll slaughter you all."
"They haven't been paid in six months!" Kyle snapped back. "You drank away their loyalty yourself."
"If I see them sleeping on post again, I will order them to be deprived of their ears. So they can hear the enemy better."
Victor handed him the list. Kyle took the paper with two fingers, as if it were a venomous snake.
"Here is your assignment. Conduct a full audit of the armory and personnel. Every sword, every shield, every arrow must be accounted for. And fix yourself. Your cloak is wrinkled. It's disgusting."
Kyle froze, stunned either by the order or the strange comment about his cloak.
"Dismissed. And close the door behind you."
When his son left, Victor leaned over the desk again. He adjusted the inkwell so it stood strictly parallel to the edge.
If he didn't turn this rabble into a guard, in a month he would have neither a head nor a future.