Ray took a deep breath, steadying himself, though his eyes remained red with barely restrained emotions. His voice, though calr, still carried the weight of three years of longing and pain.
"Where have you been?"
Es’s lips curled into a small, helpless smile. She shook her head, a hint of sorrow flickering in her eyes.
"I don’t know."
Ray’s gaze bore into her, searching for sothing—an answer, an explanation, anything—but before he could react, a sudden, heavy impact landed on her back.
"Ouch!" Es yelped, stumbling forward slightly. As she turned, she barely had a second to register what had happened before Jay grabbed her collar, his hands trembling with suppressed fury. His breathing was ragged, his jaw clenched so tightly it looked painful.
"Are you fucking kidding ?" he growled, shaking her, his frustration spilling over. "Where the hell have you been all these years? And what did you just say? You don’t know? How the hell would you not know?"
His voice cracked at the end, the anger barely masking the pain underneath. His grip on her collar was firm but not cruel, like he was desperate to make sure she was real—to make sure she wouldn’t disappear again.
Es didn’t resist, nor did she get angry. She simply looked at him, her eyes calm but filled with guilt, her voice softer now.
"I really don’t know."
Jay let out a sharp breath, his hands shaking before he finally released her. His fists clenched at his sides, his entire body trembling, but whether it was from anger or overwhelming emotion, even he didn’t seem to know.
Then, a hoarse voice broke through the tense silence.
"What? So you’ve been in so cave or sothing that you don’t know?"
It was Kai. His usual composed tone was rough, strained—like he had spent too many nights screaming into the void, too many days holding back the grief that now threatened to spill over. His eyes burned with sothing raw and unfiltered.
Es swallowed hard and shook her head.
"I wish... but I was in a deep sleep."
The words left her lips like a confession, heavy and laced with the weight of lost ti.
Silence followed. A silence that was thick, suffocating—filled with all the emotions they had no words for.
Ray’s lips quivered slightly, his breath hitching as if the words forming in his throat were too heavy to speak. His voice, though steady, carried an unshakable weight of disbelief and restrained anguish.
"So... you an to say you were in a coma this whole ti?"
Es let out a small, helpless sigh before nodding.
"Yeah... I just woke up two days ago."
Ray’s gaze bore into her, searching for any sign of falsehood, but all he saw was exhaustion—an emptiness in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. Before he could say anything, Es lifted her hands in surrender, a small, self-deprecating smile ghosting her lips.
"Look at my clothes. Do you think this is sothing designer?"
At her words, the brothers instinctively glanced down, their eyes scanning the fabric draping her body.
It was cheap—sothing hastily put together, ill-fitting, and clearly not of the standards Es had always carried herself with. From the very beginning, she had been soone who indulged in luxury, who wore only the finest brands. But now?
Now she stood before them in clothes that looked like they had co from a convenience store.
A sinking realization hit them all at once.
One of the brothers finally spoke, his voice laced with confusion and concern.
"Even if you just woke up... why are you wearing this? Don’t you have money?"
Es’s lips curled into a bitter, helpless smile.
"The people who ’saved’ ... or rather, the ones who kidnapped , made sure I had nothing when I woke up."
A sharp silence filled the room.
Ray’s eyes darkened, his jaw tightening as he processed what she had just revealed.
"Wait... you an the people who held you captive took everything?"
Es nodded, her voice steady but filled with quiet devastation.
"Yeah. For three years, I was with them."
Ray clenched his fists, his entire body stiffening. Three years. Three years where they had believed her dead. Three years of grieving, of suffering, while she had been sowhere—alive, trapped, stripped of everything. The thought made his stomach churn.
His voice was rough when he spoke again.
"After waking up, why didn’t you co to Valhale Group? Or anywhere familiar? You know we would’ve found you sooner if you had."
Es let out a slow breath, eting his gaze with a look so empty it sent a shiver down his spine.
"And what do you think people would say if a dead person just walked inside?"
Her words cut through the silence like a blade. The weight of them settled heavily in the air, suffocating, undeniable.
Even though they never lost hope and clung to the belief that she was alive, it wasn’t the sa for everyone.
To the world, Es Valhale was dead.
Even to her friends, to those who had once fought beside her, she was nothing more than a mory—a na etched in the past. Even Helga and Aaron, the ones who had sworn she might still be out there, had eventually started to lose hope.
So, in a way, Es was right. If soone had suddenly reported that Es Valhale had walked into a shop, would they have believed it?
Or would they have dismissed it as just another impostor trying to shake the ghosts of the past?
Because the truth was—they had hoped. Desperately. Painfully. But none of them had dared to believe.
There had been too many tis over the years when people had claid to be her. When a woman with her na had walked through the doors of familiar places, only to be revealed as a fraud—an opportunist hoping to exploit the fact that Ray and the others had never seen her body.
They had been tricked before. Lied to. Manipulated.
And each ti, the hope they barely clung to shattered just a little more.
So yes, if she had suddenly appeared in the open, there was an 80% chance they would have thought she was just another fraud.
And even if they had believed... the mont word spread that the legendary Es Valhalla had returned from the dead, it would have sent shockwaves through the underground.
It would have alerted the organization.
It would have put all of them in danger.
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