Chapter 36- World is Cruel

Hana’s grip on the shopping bag tightened until her knuckles went white.

This had to be a joke. Some kind of cruel prank. Things like this didn’t happen to women like her.

"That’s..." Her voice trembled. "That’s too generous. I can’t possibly—there has to be something else you want—"

"There isn’t."

"But I’m—I’m nobody. Just a... just a housewife with debt. Why would you—"

"Can you pay them back yourself?" Raven asked bluntly, cutting through her spiral.

The question hit like a physical blow.

Hana’s lips trembled. Her eyes dropped to the ground.

"I... I do small jobs," she said quietly, shame coloring every word. "Cleaning houses in the neighborhood. A few families hire me for a few hours here and there. It’s not much, but if I save carefully, if I’m frugal, maybe in a few years—"

"How much do you owe?"

She hesitated, her throat working as she swallowed hard.

"Eighty thousand koruna," she whispered.

Raven did the mental math instantly. About three thousand euros. For someone doing occasional odd jobs as a maid, making maybe two hundred koruna an hour if she was lucky?

That would take her ’years’.

Years of dodging those thugs. Years of "negotiations" that would inevitably turn physical. Years of slowly losing pieces of herself—her dignity, her body, her ’soul’—until there was nothing left but an empty husk going through the motions.

"You’ll never pay it off," Raven said flatly, his voice devoid of judgment but brutally honest. "Not with odd jobs. Not before they decide to collect in... other ways."

Hana flinched like he’d struck her, fresh tears welling up in her eyes.

"I ’know’ that," she whispered, her voice breaking. "I know I’m... I’m just delaying the inevitable. But I don’t have a choice. I don’t have any other options."

"You do now."

"I don’t even ’know’ you!" Her voice rose suddenly, desperation bleeding through. "You’re so ’young’—you can’t possibly have that kind of money. And even if you do, why would you—there has to be a catch. There’s always a catch."

"The catch," Raven said calmly, "is that I want you to work for me..."

"But—"

"You don’t trust me. I get that." Raven’s gaze flicked past her toward the two thugs still groaning on the ground several meters away. "But those men? They’ll be back. Tomorrow, or the day after, or next week. And next time, they won’t ask politely."

He took a step closer, his voice dropping lower.

"They’ll corner you in some alley where nobody can hear you scream. They’ll rip your clothes off and take turns with you while you beg them to stop. And when they’re done—when you’re lying there used and broken—they’ll ’still’ demand their money."

Hana’s breath hitched, her face going pale.

Because she knew he was right.

She’d seen it happen to other women in the neighborhood. Women who thought they could negotiate, who thought their tears would buy them mercy.

The loan sharks didn’t have mercy.

Her eyes drifted past Raven toward the two men still writhing on the ground. She could see their faces—leering, hungry, ’predatory’. The way they’d looked at her body like she was meat on a hook.

The way they’d touched her.

Then she looked back at Raven.

Young. So impossibly ’young’. But handsome in a way that made her heart stutter—sharp jawline, dark eyes that seemed to see right through her, that lean, powerful build that had just put two grown men on the ground without breaking a sweat.

He looked like some movie star who’d wandered off set and into her miserable life by accident.

And there was ’heat’ in her belly when she looked at him. Unfamiliar. Confusing. ’Wrong’.

She was married. She shouldn’t be feeling... whatever this was.

Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks, hot and shameful.

"Maybe..." Her voice cracked. "Maybe it’s just my fate."

Raven’s eyebrow raised slightly. "Your fate?"

"To be used." The words tasted bitter on her tongue. "To be violated. Maybe I... maybe I deserve it for being stupid enough to take that loan in the first place. For being too weak to protect myself. Maybe this is just... punishment."

"Then leave your husband."

Hana’s head snapped up, eyes wide. "What?!"

"If it’s your fate to be violated anyway," Raven said, his tone casual but pointed, "why stay with a man who clearly can’t—or won’t—protect you?"

"I ’can’t’."

The words came out fierce. Resolute. The only thing in this entire conversation she seemed certain about.

"My daughter," Hana continued, her voice softening. "She’s... she’s working hard somewhere. Out there in the city, trying to make something of herself. And one day—maybe not soon, but ’one day’—she’ll come home. She’ll walk through that door and I need to be there. I need to be ’home’ waiting for her."

Raven studied her face—the naive hope shining through the tears, the desperate belief that someday things would get better.

And he knew.

She was fooling herself.

If her daughter had left home a year ago to work as an artist in Prague, she wasn’t coming back. Not to a house drowning in debt with a useless father and a mother being harassed by loan sharks.

People didn’t come back to poverty. They ’ran’ from it as fast and as far as they could.

But he didn’t say that.

"What does your daughter do?" he asked instead.

Hana’s expression softened immediately, a small, sad smile breaking through the tears like sunlight through storm clouds.

"She used to write stories when she was younger," she said, her voice taking on a wistful quality. "Fantasy things. Romance novels. She was always so creative, so full of imagination. She’d fill notebooks with these elaborate plots and characters..."

Her smile turned sadder.

"But she left home about a year ago. Said she was going to be an artist. Said she couldn’t stay here anymore. I... I think she went somewhere in Prague. I don’t know exactly where. She doesn’t call much."

Raven’s eyebrow twitched involuntarily.

’An artist. In Prague. Who writes romance stories.’

His mind flashed to yesterday—to the webtoon artist’s apartment, walls covered in R-18 drawings, the girl herself bent over her desk while he—

’No. No fucking way. That’s too much of a coincidence.’

But the universe had a sick sense of humor.

And as Raven looked at Hana—this naive, thick-bodied housewife with tears in her eyes and hope in her voice—he realized the universe might be laughing at him right now.

’Nope. It’s impossible. Can’t be.’

He pushed the thought aside.

Looking at how genuinely naive this woman was, how she actually believed her daughter would come back to this hellhole, Raven made a decision.

He reached out and gently took the shopping bag from her hands before she could protest.

"Come on," he said simply. "I’ll walk you home."

"You don’t have to—"

"I know." He started walking in the direction she’d been heading. "But I’m going to anyway."

Hana stood there for a moment, frozen with indecision.

Then, slowly, she followed him.

They walked in silence for a while, their footsteps echoing through the empty streets of the residential district.

The night air was cold, biting through Hana’s thin cardigan and making her shiver. Street lamps cast pools of amber light every few meters, creating a rhythm of brightness and shadow as they moved.

Eventually, Hana spoke, her voice soft and reflective.

"The world is cruel, you know."