Chapter 108 Malicious Accusation
Sloane's POV
My heart tightened. I thought it was Jared's family, so I quickly changed clothes and rushed over.
Pushing open the hospital room door, a heavy mix of blood and disinfectant hit me in the face.
When I saw the woman on the bed, wrapped head to toe in bandages and barely recognizable as human, I stopped dead in my tracks.
That face that used to be so well-maintained, always wearing an expression of pride and cruelty, was now swollen like a pig's head, covered in purple and blue bruises. Her mouth and eyes were split open, with shocking streaks of blood.
Her exposed arms and legs were covered in wounds of varying depths, some so deep you could see bone.
Isabelle seemed to notice movement at the door and turned her head with difficulty.
When her eyes, swollen to mere slits, recognized me, they instantly blazed with pure venom.
"Sloane!" she screamed hoarsely, her voice like sandpaper, harsh and grating. "You bitch! It was you! It had to be you!"
She struggled to sit up from the bed, but the movement pulled at her wounds, making her let out a piercing shriek before falling heavily back down.
"Sending Keira to prison wasn't enough for you, now you had someone torture me like this! You'll get what's coming to you! You and your bastard child will both die horrible deaths!"
Her poisonous curse stabbed at my heart like a needle dipped in venom.
I instinctively protected my belly, my expression instantly turning cold.
Looking at her miserable state, I felt no sympathy whatsoever. Instead, a cold satisfaction welled up inside me.
Was this Jared's revenge?
I slowly walked to her bedside, looking down at her from above, a mocking smile playing at my lips. "Isabelle, can't take it anymore? When you were scheming against Jared and forcing Keira to do those disgusting things, did you ever think you'd have a day like this? All of this is just what you deserve."
My words were like a match, completely igniting Isabelle's last shred of sanity.
"I'll kill you, you homewrecker!" she roared, ignoring her injuries and lunging at me from the bed like a madwoman, her bandaged hands reaching straight for my face.
I was prepared and quickly stepped back. She missed and fell awkwardly to the floor.
Just then, the hospital room door burst open.
"Isabelle!" Arthur charged in like a raging bull. Seeing Isabelle on the floor, his eyes instantly turned bloodshot.
He helped Isabelle up, then turned around, his violent eyes fixed on me. Without a word, he raised his hand to slap my face.
"You evil woman!"
My heart jumped, and my body reacted faster than my brain. I dodged to the side, barely avoiding his slap.
Missing once, Arthur's fury only grew.
He handed Isabelle to a nurse who had followed him in, then tried to come at me again.
I stopped him with a cold shout, my eyes showing no fear. "Arthur, you'd better think carefully about what happens if you hit someone here."
Seeing this, Isabelle cried even more hysterically. She grabbed Arthur's hand, pointing at me, sobbing breathlessly: "Arthur, call the police! Call the police and have this bitch arrested! She did this to me! She did this to me!"
Arthur was irritated by her crying. He pointed at my nose, demanding through gritted teeth: "Was it you?! The injuries on Isabelle—did you have someone do this?!"
I watched their clumsy performance coldly, and the unease I'd felt about Jared's methods had now completely disappeared.
"Evidence?" I crossed my arms, asking coldly. "Which eye saw me do it? Everything needs evidence. Isabelle, you're from high society—surely you understand this basic rule?"
My composure and assertiveness clearly caught Arthur off guard.
He'd probably never seen me like this and was momentarily speechless.
"If not you, then who!" He strained his neck, forcing an argument. "Besides you, who else would hurt my mother this badly!"
"You should ask her what other people she's offended." I glanced at Isabelle being helped back onto the bed by the nurse, my tone full of mockery.
"You..."
"Arthur, Isabelle," I interrupted him, my voice returning to the professional calm of a doctor. "If you keep making a scene here and disturbing patients' rest, I'll have to call security."
Arthur was shaking with rage, his face turning purple.
He seemed about to say something when an older police officer nearby stopped him.
"Arthur, please calm down." The officer stepped forward, looking somewhat awkward as he explained, "We just asked Isabelle. She said that on her way home after ending a gathering with some friends, she was surrounded by a group of thugs who not only robbed her of all her belongings but also..."
The officer didn't continue, but his hesitant expression said it all.
Looking at Isabelle's miserable state, a strange satisfaction rose in my heart, but reason told me I couldn't let this matter just blur over.
Since she accused me of having someone do this, let the police investigate thoroughly.
"Since Isabelle thinks someone deliberately hurt her, why not report it to the police?" I said lightly, with a hint of unspoken mockery in my tone. "Let the police investigate, catch those thugs, and give her justice."
The moment I finished speaking, a flash of terror shot through Isabelle's swollen eyes.
Her piercing screams stopped abruptly, replaced by a panic bordering on collapse.
She gripped Arthur's arm tightly, her voice sharp with trembling: "No! Don't call the police! I... I don't want to call the police!"
Her panicked expression and shifty eyes showed none of a victim's grievance.
This guilty look made my suspicions deepen.
Sure enough, she didn't want the police involved.
"Why not call the police?" I raised an eyebrow, my tone casual but making Isabelle's face even paler. "Don't you want to catch the people who hurt you?"
"No... it's not that..." Isabelle shook her head frantically, trying to excuse herself. "I... I just don't want to make a big deal of it. After all... after all, I'm a lady of society, being robbed in that kind of place—it would be too embarrassing if word got out..."
As she spoke, she actually managed to look somewhat wronged, as if she was only refusing to call the police for the sake of "aristocratic dignity."
Arthur chimed in at the right moment. He looked at me, then at Isabelle on the bed, his expression uncertain, but ultimately chose to side with Isabelle.
He waved his hand and said to the officer: "Since Isabelle doesn't want to report it, let's just drop it. The Winslow family doesn't want to make a big fuss over such a small matter."