Chapter 210
Chapter 210
Quinn wanted to say it was fake, that the transaction records had been tampered with, that she had no connection to that supplier—but she couldn't open her mouth.
Because she knew too well: if the full history of transactions between her account and that supplier were pulled, this wasn't the only transfer.
She couldn't speak. Not another word.
Octavius drew out the third document—a written transcript of an audio recording, with a QR code beside it that linked to the original file.
He held up the page and read aloud a passage from Quinn's phone conversation with the supplier.
Her voice on that call carried a cold, clinical precision. Every sentence probed dosage and onset time.
"I need something that makes her flushed, weak in the limbs, mentally foggy—but doesn't knock her out completely. Ideally, she looks like she's willing, but she's physically unable to resist... you understand what I mean?"
As Octavius read the transcript word by word into the silent corridor, the only other sound was the distant PA system from the spectator stands next door.
The last trace of color drained from Quinn's face before he'd even finished reading. Her mouth moved. Nothing came out.
Ondine stood beside her, equally ashen.
She hadn't known Quinn said these things during that call. She hadn't known this recording existed. She'd simply told Quinn to source the drug—never asked what it actually was.
Now she stood before every camera, shackled to each cold syllable in that transcript. Inseparable.
---
The silence shattered under a barrage of shutters.
Questions detonated like rapid fire.
"Ms. Sullivan, that's your voice in the recording, isn't it?"
"You said you were only listening passively—then who made that phone call?"
"You asked the supplier about dosage and onset time. You claim ten years in medicine—are you saying you didn't know this was illegal?"
"So you've been lying from the start?"
Quinn stumbled back two steps. Her spine hit the cold corridor wall.
She stared at the wall of lenses and the microphones pressing closer, and every contingency plan in her mind crashed simultaneously.
Ten years. The image she'd built over ten years—medicine's golden standard, goddess to ten million followers, pioneer of health education content.
All of it was being incinerated by a recording under thirty seconds long.
She wanted to say the audio was fabricated, that the voice had been digitally altered, that this was a trap Octavius had set to protect Seraphine. But she knew the situation too clearly.
The recording was real. The bank transfer was real. The employee's statement was real. Every piece of evidence closed in from all directions like walls.
No matter which way she ran, she'd slam into the same wall.
Octavius had laid every card on the table at once, giving her zero time to react.
---
Ondine stood beside her with a single thought pounding through her skull: It's over. This time it's truly over. Even Quinn can't talk her way out of this.
She instinctively stepped back, hoping to slip away while every camera was trained on Quinn.
She'd barely shifted before several reporters behind her turned around and blocked her completely.
A female reporter with a stabilizer aimed the lens at her face, speaking rapid-fire: "Ms. Windsor, you just said you were being used. But the evidence shows you personally handed cash to the employee, and the drug was purchased by your accomplice. How do you explain that?"
Ondine's mouth opened. Not a single word came out.
That face—the one that had fooled Kieran with tears countless times—now held nothing but hollow, bloodless blankness under the siege of cameras.
She suddenly remembered the recognition banquet. The moment the screen lit up. She'd been standing in the crowd, looking up, ready to watch Seraphine's expression crumble—only to see her own intimate photos with Gavin splashed across the display.
The feeling was identical. A pit she'd dug with her own hands, falling into it herself, surrounded by spectators, every flail broadcast live.
---
The livestream wasn't scrolling anymore. It was exploding.
Quinn's ten-million-follower account hemorrhaged nearly six figures of fans within minutes. The comment section fell completely.
[Unfollowed. Done.]
[Disgusting.]
[I supported you for so long—you don't deserve to call yourself a doctor.]
[A disgrace to medicine.]
Someone dug up her symposium debate with Seraphine, re-edited it alongside the audio clip—"ideally she looks willing"—and turned it into a side-by-side comparison video.
The title was four words: 'Jealousy Makes You Ugly.'
That video shattered view-count records in record time, reposts climbing every minute.
#QuinnDrugsSomeoneOutOfJealousy and #OndineFramesSeraphineAgain trended simultaneously at number one.
In the comments, someone compiled Ondine's entire history—the leaked intimate photos at the recognition banquet, the rumors of house arrest at the hillside villa, and now conspiring with Quinn to drug Seraphine—into a complete timeline.
The caption was brief: [Ondine. Repeat offender.]
That post was shared endlessly. The comments were a flood of outrage. The top-liked reply read: [A cancer on the elite class.]
---
Quinn stared at the layered wall of cameras and the reporters pressing ever closer. Her eyes finally went fully red.
This time it wasn't an act. Not the restrained, wounded look she performed for cameras. This was terror seeping from her bones—inescapable, absolute.
Her face looked distorted on screen. At some point tears had smeared across it, but no one cared anymore whether they were real or fake.
A male reporter shoved his phone in her face, voice loud enough to echo through the entire corridor: "Ms. Sullivan, you said you spent ten years in medicine. So when you used your expertise to calculate dosage, onset time, and metabolic compatibility—was that 'passive listening'? Was that 'being used'? That was you weaponizing a decade of professional training to hurt someone!"
Quinn's entire body flinched. She tried to push through the crowd, but the reporters had sealed her in.
She turned left—influencers with stabilizers. She turned right—journalists with microphones extended.
Behind her—a cold, blank wall.
She was trapped inside the very crowd she'd invited. A spider caught in her own web—every struggle pulling it tighter.
Finally she ducked her head, shielded her face with one hand, and forced her way through the mass of bodies. Her heels struck the terrazzo floor in a frantic, sharp staccato. A pack of reporters surged after her, cameras raised, still chasing.