Enrique raised his head and let her hit him, his eyes slightly lowered.
"I won't hurt her."
"You won't hurt her? If you won't hurt her, then why is she lying here now? Do you have to kill her and drag the entire Vellore family down with you?"
Hania struck him like a madwoman. The misfortunes that had fallen upon their family had already worn this once-noble lady thin. At this moment, she no longer had her delicate, elegant appearance. Her red, tear-swollen eyes and frail body finally gave out, and she fainted backward.
Henry quickly caught her, frantically calling for a doctor as he helped her sit beside him.
"I said, I won't harm her."
Enrique stood up, looked down at Hania and Henry, then turned and walked toward the emergency room door without another word.
Henry's expression was tense. He feared Enrique from the bottom of his heart, but at this moment, he suddenly stood and shouted, "Please let her go! Even if I have to beg you—please let my sister go! Her life is hanging by a thread. Can't you at least stop hating her for the sake of all the years she's loved you?"
Enrique's body stiffened. He stopped. His hands, hanging at his sides, clenched tightly. Then, he let out a sudden, cold sneer.
Hate?
He hated her.
For the past seven years, he had hated her.
He hated that she never asked about his feelings.
He hated that she placed love above all else, even interest.
He hated that she loved him, but never told him.
And more than anything, he hated her ruthlessness, the way she would stop at nothing to achieve her goals.
"Why shouldn't I hate her? If it weren't for her, would you have forced the Kim family into such desperation back then?
Everything I did was just to give her a taste of her own medicine."
His voice was cold and mocking. It wasn't clear whether he was mocking them, or himself.
Henry was stunned.
So were Hania, who had been weeping bitterly, and Samuel, who had stayed silent all this time. They couldn't help but look up at the man's cold, distant figure.
"You think... you really think the Kim Corporation incident was a trap we set?" Hania stood up, her body trembling. "You think we deliberately crushed Kim just to help Sana? That's absurd! If it hadn't been for the Kim scandal and the plummeting stock prices, how could the Vellore Group have forced Kim into such a situation? You're blaming everything on Sana, how could you treat her like this!"
"Absurd?"
Enrique closed his eyes. His mind was full of Sana's desperate, tear-streaked face, each image slicing into his heart like a knife.
He couldn't be wrong.
If Sana's father Sadrian Vellore hadn't orchestrated all of this, how else would Sana have shown up with that contract?
That had to be it.
It couldn't be wrong.
"You really misunderstood Sana."
Henry supported his mother and spoke with urgency. "Enrique Kim, this truly wasn't done by the Vellore Corporation. When the Kim Corporation was in crisis, we didn't even know Sana had feelings for you. I admit that back then, our father did want to acquire the failing Kim Corporation. But it was Sana who begged him to save it. That's why he made a condition—he asked you to marry her in exchange for his help."
Henry's explanations sounded desperate, but in Enrique's ears, they were hollow and meaningless. He had always believed what he saw.
"Shut up."
Enrique opened his eyes. In them was a bottomless well of pain.