Chapter 9

Cora spoke up at just the right moment, her voice threaded with a touch of surprise and a hint of hesitant restraint, like she was holding something back.

"Sure, they're technically siblings, but isn't that a little too intimate?"

She turned her head, looked at Lucas's darkening face, and continued to add fuel to the fire, "Lucas, I've stayed abroad for a long time and have a rather open mind, but this is way beyond the boundaries of an ordinary brother-sister relationship. Look at the way Alan looks at Angela—such possessiveness."

Cora paused, as if something terrifying suddenly occurred to her, and brought a hand to her mouth. "Ms. Andrews is so desperate to divorce you… don't tell me it's because…"

She didn't finish, but the implication was poisonous enough to rot through bone.

What was she hinting at?

Incest? Running away together?

Lucas's fists tightened until his knuckles cracked, veins bulging along the back of his hands.

From where he stood, he couldn't see the tubes attached to Angela, couldn't see how deathly pale she was, couldn't hear a word of what she and Alan were saying.

All he saw was an embrace and betrayal.

Angela, you were really something.

So that's why you suddenly found your backbone. Turns out you already lined up your next guy.

And even if he was your so‑called brother, you didn't give a damn, did you?

Lucas let out a cold laugh, one that never reached his eyes, sharp as something born from the pits of hell.

"Great performance."

He stood in the doorway against the light, his gaze nailed on the two of them locked in that tight embrace.

Angela froze.

"Such loving siblings." Lucas shoved the door of the hospital room open.

That voice—once something she had waited for night after night—now sounded like a demon whispering straight from the dark.

Before she could push Alan away, he had already whipped around, shielding her completely behind him.

"Lucas! You've got nerve showing your face here!"

The normally quiet teen had gone feral, eyes burning red, posture bristling like a cornered animal ready to attack.

He stepped forward, blocking Lucas's humiliating stare from reaching Angela. "This is how you take care of her?"

Lucas adjusted his sleeve with deliberate calm, his gaze skimming over Alan's cheap T‑shirt before settling on Angela's nearly translucent, too‑pale face on the bed.

"Angela, this is the good little brother you raised?"

His lips curled into a smile that carried nothing warm.

"Such sibling affection. Someone who didn't know better would think this hospital room was your little love nest."

He knew Alan wasn't her biological brother.

"Shut up! You monster!" Alan trembled with rage, and if Angela weren't behind him, he would have swung at Lucas already.

"Love nest? Is that all your rotten brain can think about? Where were you when Angela was in the ER fighting for her life? Lucas, you're such a freaking bastard!"

Alan's roar echoed through the room, raw with grief and fury.

Lucas's heart—cold and rigid as steel—jerked for a split second under the blow of that unfiltered hatred.

He instinctively glanced at the bed.

Angela was leaning weakly against the headboard, her face so pale it scared him, lips tinged with purple.

He stiffened. Was she actually sick?

Behind him, Cora caught the fleeting hesitation in his eyes.

A woman's instincts told her that if Lucas felt even a flicker of guilt or sympathy, everything she had worked for would go straight down the drain.

A shadow of malice flashed across her gaze before she slipped on the façade of a frightened little doe, tugging lightly at Lucas's sleeve.

"Lucas, don't be mad. Maybe this really is just a misunderstanding."

Her voice trembled just enough, soft but sharp in all the right places. "Alan's probably just worried about Angela. And sure, during a time like this—Ms. Andrews's insistence on a divorce and hugging a guy who's not even her blood brother—it does make people suspicious. But we don't have any solid proof."

Lucas's face darkened instantly, every hint of doubt swept away. "Angela, you want a divorce so you can run off with Alan?"

He stared at her deadened eyes, cold and precise. "Keep dreaming."

With that, Lucas turned and left, like staying even a second longer might contaminate him.

Cora's heart leapt with triumph as she hurried after him. Before walking out, she cast a long, meaningful look at Angela on the bed, the corner of her mouth lifting into the victorious smile of someone watching her enemy drown.

'If you want to die, I'll make sure you go down disgraced.'

After leaving the hospital, Cora found a quick excuse not to return to the company with Lucas.

She grabbed a cab straight to a private clinic outside the city. A nurse she once sponsored worked there—someone who did plenty of off‑the‑books jobs for the right price.

Some people would do anything for money.

"I want a record of Angela's abortion."

Cora sat in the darkest corner of a dingy café, sliding a thick envelope toward the sallow‑skinned nurse sitting across from her.

"Make the date half a month ago. Make it realistic. If you can get a legitimate hospital's seal on it, even better. I know you can."

The nurse weighed the envelope in her hand, and greed lit up her murky eyes.

"Ms. Hayworth, don't worry. I'm good at this. As long as the money's right, I could turn a dead person's death certificate into a proof of them being alive."

Cora smiled, satisfied, taking a graceful sip of her coffee.

Angela, you handed me the perfect weapon yourself.

Since Alan wants to play hero for you, then this cheating scandal is going to sit perfectly on Lucas's head.

That very night, the forged record found its purpose.

A sudden autumn rain poured hard without warning.

When Lucas returned home, the entire house was pitch‑black. The warm yellow night‑light that always waited for him was gone.

The place felt like an icebox.

He yanked off his tie, tossing his jacket carelessly across the couch.

Angela's presence lingered everywhere.

The book she never finished reading was on the table.

Her pink slippers by the entryway.

The faint calming herbal scent she loved drifted through the air.

He used to ignore it all, even find it irritating.

Now the hollowness gnawed at him, stirring a violent restlessness.

"Going all out just to get divorced," he muttered through clenched teeth as he headed upstairs.

He meant to go to the study, but his feet took him into Angela's bedroom instead.

If she wanted a divorce, he might as well check if she hid anything she didn't want him to know.

He gave himself that excuse and pushed the door open.

Except for a few fixed days every month, he had never slept in the same room with her.

The room was spotless—too spotless—like someone who didn't plan to come back.

He rummaged through her things without a clear aim.

Only a few plain outfits hung in the closet. Her jewelry box was empty. Even the supplementary credit card he had tossed her ages ago lay neatly on the nightstand.

So she really planned to walk away with nothing?