Chapter 2 I Will Kill You!

The operating room fell into an oppressive, eerie silence.

After a brief moment of stillness, Sophia's head snapped up. As if burning through her last reserves of strength, she lunged straight at Isabella.

Isabella clearly hadn't expected her to fight back in this condition. She stumbled backward, her spine slamming hard against the cold equipment cabinet with a dull metallic clang.

"I'll kill you!" Sophia screamed, her hands locking around Isabella's throat. She sank her teeth into Isabella's cheek—she looked ready to die taking Isabella with her.

"She's insane! Get her off me!" Isabella shrieked in terror. Searing pain shot through her face. The pressure on her windpipe made her vision blur.

The doctor and nurses finally snapped out of their shock and rushed forward to pull them apart.

It took several medical staff working together to pry Sophia off Isabella.

Sophia was pinned to the cold floor, but she still stared at Isabella with unblinking intensity, low ragged breaths rattling from her throat like a dying animal.

Isabella clutched at her throat, now marked with angry red welts. Fear and hatred twisted in her eyes. The careful facade she'd maintained shattered completely, revealing the vicious malice underneath.

"Sophia! You crazy bitch!" She walked over in her high heels and ground the sharp point into Sophia's hand.

She lowered her voice to a poisonous whisper. "Instead of thrashing around like a rabid dog, why don't you go check on that precious little sister of yours upstairs?"

Sophia went rigid. Confusion flashed through her eyes, quickly replaced by panic.

Clara?

Isabella watched the shift in her expression, her lips curling slowly. She continued in that ice-cold tone. "You don't know yet, do you? To settle the score for Emily, James went to quite a bit of trouble. He hired some street thugs to give your sister special 'attention.'

"I heard there wasn't an inch of her left untouched. Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl."

Sophia's breathing stopped. Her chest felt like it had been hit with a sledgehammer. A ringing filled her ears—she could barely hear the rest of Isabella's words.

"Your sister was stubborn, though. She dragged that broken body of hers all the way to the roof, and then—" Isabella made a downward motion with her hand, smiling cruelly. "Jumped straight off the seventh floor."

She shook her head with mock sympathy. "Such a shame she didn't die. She's in the ICU now. The doctors said the best-case scenario is she'll be a vegetable. Poor thing. Only eighteen years old."

"No… that's impossible… you're lying!" Sophia's voice came out shattered with trembling, the taste of blood thick in her mouth. Every word carried flecks of red.

James hated her—she'd known that for a long time. But Clara was innocent. Their parents had died young. The two sisters had only each other. Clara was the last warmth, the last thing she cared about in this world.

Isabella laughed coldly, her voice like a serpent's hiss. "Want me to take you to see her? She's in the ICU on the top floor of this very hospital. You can see for yourself what's become of your beautiful little sister."

Sophia wrenched herself free from the medical staff's grip. Without even a backward glance at Isabella, she staggered out of the operating room.

Blood still poured from between her legs, soaking through her hospital gown and leaving horrifying trails across the hallway tiles.

"Clara, hold on! I'm coming!"

She ignored the shocked stares of people in the corridor. Driven purely by instinct, she rushed to the elevator and jabbed the button for the top floor.

Every second of the elevator's ascent felt like torture.

The moment the doors opened, Sophia stumbled toward the ICU. Through the thick glass, she saw Clara lying in the hospital bed, eyes closed. Her once-bright face had lost all color. Thick bandages wrapped around her head. The visible parts of her neck and arms still showed purple bruises from fingers.

The monitor beside the bed emitted a steady, cold beeping, maintaining her fragile vital signs.

Sophia's legs gave out. She collapsed against the glass, her nails scraping across its surface with a harsh screech.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! This is all my fault!"

Her forehead struck the cold glass again and again. Tears mixed with blood streamed down her face, but all she could manage were choked, strangled sobs—like a wounded animal crying out in despair.

She had been wrong. Catastrophically wrong.

She had thought she could protect the people she loved. But she had underestimated James's hatred. She had underestimated Isabella's cruelty.

Her child had been dismembered into cold fragments. Her only sister had suffered inhuman torture because of her and was now a senseless vegetable.

Hatred surged through her like molten lava. She slowly lifted her head and made a silent vow through the glass. "Clara, don't worry. Everyone who hurt you—I won't let a single one of them get away with it. I'll make them pay in blood."

The last trace of warmth vanished from her eyes, leaving only boundless hatred and cold resolution.

The Smith Group headquarters, executive office.

James stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows, a shadow of darkness settled over his features.

Sophia's words before she'd lost consciousness—"I didn't betray you"—circled through his mind like a curse he couldn't shake.

But then the images came flooding back. Emily's brutal death. The Johnsons' parents sobbing accusations. The scene at the hotel with Sophia and that man.

He yanked irritably at his tie.

Just then, the office door slammed open with a heavy crash.

James spun around to see Sophia stumbling inside.

She looked like hell. Her hospital gown was covered in dried blood. Her hair hung in tangled strands against her deathly pale face. She was barefoot, the soles of her feet torn and bleeding, leaving faint crimson prints with every step.

She looked like a ghost crawling out of a pool of blood. Her eyes blazed with fierce, incandescent hatred.

James's pupils contracted sharply. Something tightened in his chest—why was she here? Shouldn't she be recovering at the hospital?

"What are you doing here? Get out. I don't want to see you."

Sophia acted as if she hadn't heard him. She moved closer, step by agonizing step.

"James," she said, her voice so hoarse it sounded like it was clawing its way up from hell itself, "the biggest regret of my life was falling in love with you."

James's frown deepened.

"I hate you! I wish I could tear you apart, burn you to ash, and erase you from this world!"

Before the words had fully left her mouth, her right hand shot out. A fruit knife gleamed in her grip.

She threw every ounce of strength she had left into driving it toward James's heart.

James's pupils dilated. But his reflexes were sharp. At the critical moment, he twisted to the side.

The blade plunged into his body. Blood erupted instantly, staining his expensive suit crimson.

James let out a grunt of pain. Agony flared through him, and a savage fury blazed in his eyes.