Chapter 150

Chapter 150
Alina's POV

When word came that Adams had woken, I was standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, watching the old oak in the garden sway its branches gently in the evening breeze.

The butler's footsteps paused at the door. Then came a knock.

"Come in."

"Miss Alina, Mr. Adams is awake. He says he wants to see you."

I turned. "I understand."

The poisoned wine had drained the life out of him, which was why he was only now regaining consciousness. The intensive care room lay at the far end of the estate's east wing. When I pushed open the door, Adams turned his head on the pillow to look at me.

The change in him was startling. The days of frantic treatment had wrung out the last dregs of strength from his body. In just a few days his face had grown so gaunt that his cheekbones jutted sharply. Seeing me approach, he managed a feeble greeting. "You've come."

"Mm." I said, and sat down in the chair by the bed.

Adams watched me. Those eyes, once sharp as a hawk's, were now filmed over with a murky haze, yet his gaze never left my face.

"A few days apart," he began, his voice like sandpaper dragged across rough wood, "and you've already become... someone who can take my place."

"No one is taking your place." I lowered my eyes. Inside, my fury clamored to let him know how I had struck down his most trusted men, how I had dismantled the criminal empire he had spent his whole life building.

But until the work was finished, I would admit to nothing. So I added, "I'm only assisting. I still hope to see you return to your prime, Father."

At my words, Adams gave a weak laugh.

"The poison... it was you."

"Father, I don't know what you're talking about. I was poisoned by the same thing you were. If it really had been me, why would I have staked my own life?"

"You... you're good... a fine performance... just what I'd expect from... my adopted daughter."

"But... you truly... disgust me."

"That man I hated... he was just like you... loathsome... contemptible."

I listened to his rambling grievances and stayed silent.

His breathing had grown heavier than before. He gasped, paused a moment, and only after his breath steadied did he speak again—lower now, slow and dragging, as though each word cost him dearly.

"Come here. Sit closer."

I hesitated, then rose, dragged the chair forward a little, and sat down again.

He turned his head toward me. The haze over his eyes seemed to thin, revealing something deeper and more tangled beneath—something I couldn't name.

"When I was young," he said, his voice hoarse and halting, his clouded gaze drifting to the ceiling as if peering through a thick veil of years at something long past, "I loved a woman. She didn't love me. She said my world was too dangerous, that she couldn't bear all of it. She wanted a clean life."

"In the end she chose an editor at a newspaper. An ordinary man. No family, no name, no money. But she thought he was clean." The corner of Adams's mouth curved—a bitter smile worn smooth by the years. "I hated that man. Not only for what he was, but because he dragged her into danger. He dug up things he never should have. My father said... he had to die."

"I agreed. All I wanted was that man dead—I never meant for her to die too. But fate favored me. I found a girl cut from the very same mold as that woman."

As he spoke, a hidden suspicion took clear shape in my mind.

"So that's why you brought me home."

"You look like her." Adams's eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling, his voice sinking lower. "Not entirely. But your presence made me feel she was still before me. So I adopted you. I thought that if you were a little like her, you might come to love me. But you didn't. You... you gathered together every flaw the two of them ever had. Insufferable. Sometimes I wanted to wring your neck—but I could never bring myself to do it."

"And the year you turned eighteen..." His voice slowed further, as if revisiting the most painful memory of his life. "You fell in love. It enraged me. It drove me mad. I wanted to keep you at my side forever, so I made you a part of me. For the rest of your life, there would be no one but me."

I sat there, the hand I had clenched into a fist stiff with tension.

"Is that so?" I twisted my lips into a rigid smile, doing my best to mask my rage. "Then you were wrong. If my mother knew this was how you treated her daughter after her death, she would only despise you more!"

"If in life she merely wished to keep her distance, now she would hate you without end!" I ground the words out through my teeth, aiming each one at the tenderest wound. "I will pray in the church, day after day, that she stays far from you—so that even after you die, you will never see her!"

At this Adams grew visibly more agitated. Several times he tried to push himself up from the bed, only to collapse back down.

Seeing him so wretched, I felt the knot of resentment lodged in my chest loosen a little at last.

"Oh, I forgot—a sinner as steeped in evil as you could never enter heaven!" I rose from the chair to stand over him, still spitting out my words. "When you die, you'll be cast into hell! And take that filthy love of yours for my mother down with you! No one will ever forgive you. You don't deserve love!"

Adams's breathing turned rapid. Beside him, the machines began to shriek.

"Do you know why my mother refused you back then?" I went on, my not-yet-healed hand clenched so hard it nearly drew blood. "Because she saw your baseness! Your actions turned her stomach! She knew long ago that you were something lower than the vilest scum—and that's why she kept away from you!"

"And you! Trying to bind the daughter she left behind through sheer violence—that makes you the scum of all scum! You will never win her favor, in life or in death!"

As the last word left my mouth, Adams had already passed out. Nurses poured in one after another, throwing everything into reviving him.

I stood to one side, watching coldly, wishing with all my heart that this revolting man would just die.