Victoria tiptoed to the bedside and instantly recognized the face she hadn't seen in twenty years. Though Sarah had aged and looked worn from illness, Victoria knew it was her the moment their eyes met.
She snapped completely. With a sudden violent yank, she tore the blanket off the bed and screamed, "It's you again, Sarah Wilson…!"
Lara, who had been following cautiously behind, jumped at the sudden explosion of rage. She had never seen her aunt like this and felt a chill of fear crawl up her spine.
Sarah jolted awake from the furious roar. The moment she opened her eyes, Victoria's hand whipped through the air. A sharp slap cracked across Sarah's cheek. The frail woman's head spun, the world tilting violently around her.
"You shameless woman! You still have the nerve to come back to New York? Back then you nearly destroyed my marriage, nearly made me miscarry—and now you dare show your face again?!"
Lara lunged forward and wrapped her arms tightly around the enraged Victoria, terrified. She had read Sarah's medical file: malignant brain tumor.
"Auntie, Auntie, calm down! Please calm down—don't do anything rash!" Lara strained to hold Victoria back as she tried to lunge forward again. "She has a malignant brain tumor! She could die at any moment! She can't handle stress—if the tumor ruptures, she'll die instantly! Auntie, please, calm down!"
Victoria let out a manic, almost hysterical laugh. "Hahaha! Retribution! This is divine retribution! You're going to die!"
She was practically unhinged. "Your whole family is shameless! When you were young, you seduced a married man, became the mistress, destroyed someone else's family. And now your daughter is doing exactly the same thing—using that innocent little face to seduce an aristocratic heir. Like mother, like daughter. Two peas in a pod—birds of a feather!"
The vicious words pierced straight through Sarah's heart. Still reeling from dizziness, she widened her eyes in shock and stared at Victoria. "Ma'am… what did you say? Say it again. My daughter—Sophie—how could she… how could she…?"
"Hmph! You really didn't know? I knew it. You and your daughter are exactly the same—cheap, sneaky little things who act first and think later. When the belly gets too big to hide, you'll just run away again—"
"What do you mean 'belly gets too big'?" Sarah used every ounce of strength in her body to sit upright. "Ma'am, explain yourself! Say it clearly!"
"Your daughter seduced my son! The two of them are even talking about getting married. What a ridiculous fantasy! Mother and daughter, both equally cheap and shameless!" Victoria spat the words like venom.
Just then, several nurses rushed into the ward.
One of them recognized the intruder as the wife of old Mr. Harrington (she'd seen their photos in the media often enough) and said politely, "Madam, Miss, please do not make noise in the hospital. It disturbs the patients' rest."
"She's already half-dead anyway, what rest does she—" Victoria started to retort.
"Ah—!" The other nurses suddenly dashed to Sarah's bedside. After hearing Victoria's tirade, Sarah had fainted dead away and collapsed heavily back onto her pillow.
A senior nurse immediately began checking Sarah's vital signs and ordered the others to summon the neurosurgery team at once. There was a real risk that the intense emotional shock had caused the tumor to rupture; the consequences could be catastrophic.
Within minutes, the American brain specialist who had just flown in sprinted into the room. After a rapid series of examinations, he declared that Sarah had to be rushed into emergency surgery immediately; there were early signs of pupil dilation, which meant the tumor had almost certainly begun hemorrhaging.
By now Victoria and Lara had retreated to the doorway, faces pale with terror. Forgetting all about their elegant, high-society composure, they yanked the door open and fled. The fear coursing through them far outweighed the arrogance they had arrived with. They ran all the way to the underground parking garage, scrambled into the car, and ordered the driver to speed away from the hospital at once.
"Take the patient to Backup Operating Room 2 immediately. Emergency call for type-B blood from the blood bank. Notify the first assistant who just finished his last case—he's needed in OR 2 right now…" One command after another rang out. The nurses' station erupted into orderly chaos; scenes like this, though life-threatening, were part of their daily routine.
"Hello, is this Miss Sophie Davies?" came the nurse's formal voice over the phone.
"Yes, this is she. What—"
"Your mother has been taken into the operating room for emergency surgery. Please come to the hospital as quickly as possible."
"O-okay, yes, I—I'm on my way right now!" Tears streamed down Sophie's face the instant she hung up. Colleagues nearby heard her choked sob and turned to look.
Hebe, who was sitting closest, immediately pulled out a handful of tissues and handed them over. "What happened? Do you need me to ask for leave on your behalf?"
Sophie didn't even have time to answer Hebe. She snatched her backpack, not bothering to zip it shut, and bolted out of the office like a streak of lightning.
Everyone in the room exchanged stunned glances; no one had any idea what had just happened.
She sprinted to the entrance of the C&C building and frantically waved for a taxi, but every single cab that passed was occupied. Not one empty car in sight. Panic overwhelmed her. "Where are the taxis?! I need a cab! Somebody, please, a car—!" she screamed, tears streaming down her face. "Mom, wait for me—I'm coming, I'm coming—!"
She started running toward the hospital, legs pumping as fast as they could carry her.
Suddenly, a sports car screeched up beside her, horn blaring nonstop. "Sophie! Sophie—!"
It was Archibald. He had come to C&C with his father for a political seminar that was supposed to end at three in the afternoon. As he drove out, he first spotted Sophie desperately trying to flag down a taxi, then saw her take off running like her life depended on it. Realizing something was terribly wrong, he floored the accelerator, caught up with her, and yelled, "Get in! Get in right now—this is a no-parking zone! Where do you need to go? I'll take you! Hurry!"
Sophie yanked the door open and threw herself into the passenger seat, choking on sobs. "Hospital—take me to the hospital! Mom, my mom, she—"
Without a word, Archibald whipped the car around and sped toward the original hospital.
"No—no! Not that one! It's the university hospital! We transferred her to the university hospital! Hurry, please, hurry—!" The last words came out as a frantic, almost feral scream. She couldn't hold it in any longer; the terror that she might never see her mother again was ripping her apart.
Archibald was visibly startled by her raw, guttural cries. For the first time, the usual playfulness vanished from his eyes, replaced by deadly seriousness. He pushed the car to its limit, weaving through traffic toward the university hospital while murmuring softly, "It's okay, don't panic. The best specialists are there. Your mom's going to be fine. We're almost there."
A trip that normally took twenty minutes, he completed in fifteen.
The instant the sports car screeched to a halt at the hospital entrance, Sophie flung the door open and leapt out, nearly colliding head-on with a medical gurney being rushed out of the building.