'Why... WHY?!' Jenny's eyes flickered with visible irritation and shock. After arriving at the entrance of the hospital, she glanced toward the fleet of cars—awestruck—before her gaze finally landed on the Rolls Royce.
From it stepped a woman, and the moment Jenny saw those familiar emerald eyes and flowing black hair, her breath caught.
It was unmistakable—her stepsister.
And the confident way she carried herself made Jenny feel something churn inside her like melting butter.
"Th-Thalia?!" Her voice escaped in a sharp gasp that somehow reached Thalia's ears despite the murmurs of the crowd gathered outside the hospital. As if drawn by instinct, Thalia's eyes snapped toward her.
"...You bitc—" Jenny's lips had barely parted when her eyes widened.
Thalia was already moving—sprinting straight at her.
In two bounds, she closed the distance and swung her hand with such force and speed that Jenny's pupils could barely track it, but her body was too slow to react.
SLAP!
GASP.
Shock rippled through the onlookers—doctors, nurses, patients—and most of all, Jake, who stood right beside Jenny.
Their eyes widened at the sight of a woman—clearly someone powerful—slapping another across the face with no warning.
And that car from which she came out... it belonged to Blac Corporations.
"How could you fall so low?!" Thalia shouted, her voice trembling with restrained fury. She couldn't believe it.
Normally, when things escalated, Jenny never retaliated physically given Thalia was a black belt in Taekwondo.
Naturally, Jenny would always be beaten to a pulp—so she simply told their stepmother.
That was the limit to her actions. But this time... this time was different.
Maybe Thalia had endured being slapped by their stepmother after Jenny tattled.
Maybe she had suffered through eating spoiled food Jenny had mixed with fresh one's in the fridge.
Maybe she'd cried when they tore up her scholarship letter and made decisions to leave the house.
But this?
No. Jenny hadn't just played a prank or sabotaged her life.
She had thrown Thalia onto a bed... of some random stranger.
She had ruined her.
"Y-you!" Jake, stunned by the slap, saw Jenny clutching her cheek, her eyes wide. Furious, he lunged forward and grabbed Thalia's wrist.
"...Stop him," said a calm voice.
Cruxius, standing after coming out of the car with his hands tucked in his pockets, had been silently observing.
The moment Thalia stepped out of the car and slapped a woman, he put two and two together.
That must be the stepsister. And the man reacting so protectively... likely her fiancé.
Cruxius needed clarity—was this man just a visitor, or someone with influence? And the best way to know was to test the waters by jumping in; he gave a command.
"And break his wrist."
Jake, about to shove Thalia away, suddenly froze. A delicate yet unyielding hand caught his wrist mid-motion. He couldn't move. The grip was impossibly strong, far beyond human.
His head whipped around.
A woman stood beside him—short hair, sharp eyes, and a lean body clad in a black suit that screamed professional bodyguard.
"Who are—ARGHHH!" Jake screamed. The pressure on his wrist intensified.
crnch
The sound of cracking bone rang through the air, silencing the crowd.
thud
He dropped to his knees, clutching his crushed wrist in agony, his face contorted in pain.
"Jake!—What is the meaning of this?!" shouted the Dean of the hospital, panic flashing in his eyes as he saw his son writhing on the ground.
He turned sharply toward the commotion, only now noticing the young man standing beside the vehicle—someone he hadn't paid attention to until now.
Before he could speak further, another man stepped out of a second car that had just arrived—a CEO of one of the subsidiary companies under Blac Corporations.
He rushed forward, clearly flustered.
"Mr. Alvian, he's the young master of—"
The man with glasses tried to explain before the Dean could take a rash step, but he was cut off.
"Cruxius Blac," the young man said plainly. "Mr. Alvian—and before we get too deep into introductions, let me be clear why I'm here."
Cruxius hadn't expected the world to be this small.
It was as if fate had served him everything on a silver platter—a poisoned plate. Given his instincts, familiar with this fate, he knew that if it favored him one fold, then a hundred fold would be its retaliation, which might come soon enough... but he was prepared.
He came to this hospital seeking his next superheroine candidate... and instead, has now gotten the chance for scoring points with Thalia.
Even a blind child could sense what was going on.
Thalia, usually calm and observant—who hadn't even raised her hand against the man who ruined her life—didn't hesitate to slap a woman the moment she saw her.
That woman had to be the one behind it all.
And the man's aggressive reaction toward Thalia? Obvious. A close connection to the stepsister—possibly a fiancé.
Now the Dean—identified by the way the CEO of a subsidiary addressed him—was clearly in a position of power in the hospital and had just reacted emotionally after seeing Jake get hurt.
He was Jake's—most likely the name of that fiancé's—family member.
Even reacting that way in front of Blac Corporation's position, most likely his father or close uncle.
However, Cruxius did not care about any one of them; the moment he exited the car, his eyes went directly towards the woman for whom he had initially arrived here.
A mature lady with a full bust, wearing a doctor's uniform, stood behind. Her face was maturely calm and beautiful, with strands of hair falling near her glasses, resembling a waterfall covering the valley below.
But there was a slight variable in that beauty when she heard Thalia's name from Jenny's mouth.
This made it clear to him that these fools, who most likely would have arranged for the drugs to spike Thalia's drink, would have taken them from this hospital, and that woman definitely would have come to know about it—something, maybe more than that.
To confirm how much she knew, he told his name to Dean, but he kept his gaze fixed on that woman.
He noticed her eyes look towards him with a flicker of surprise; however, it wasn't the kind of surprise one typically felt after encountering the heir of the blac corporation, but rather a slight hint of disgust.
This realization made him aware that these fools weren't even able to fulfill their single task without getting caught and had also dragged his own image into all this mess.
On the basis of these doubts, which could be true, he decided to act honest and confront the situation to find out if his instincts were correct. "Your son spiked the drink of that young lady last night, and I must clarify again that the drug contained an aphrodisiac, which was present not only in her drink but also in mine."