"Brother Severin, please don't kill that woman," Liraine pleaded as she knelt before her older brother.
"Why do you want her to stay alive? Is it because she looks like Renata?" Severin asked as he stared down at his sister kneeling before him.
"I miss Renata... I miss my best friend..."
"But she's not Renata. Renata is dead, Liraine. You saw it yourself when she died by my own hands," Severin replied, shifting his gaze to the glass of martini with a few ice cubes in his hand. He swirled the glass slightly, watching the ice clink and move with the motion.
"Renata is gone, and you can't use that woman as a replacement just because she resembles her. That's exactly what Lucien wants—to place one of his pawns among us." Severin downed the drink in one go. "Go back to your room, Liraine."
Liraine shook her head, tears streaming down her face again. "If you kill that woman, I'll kill myself."
"Liraine!" Severin growled furiously.
And it wasn't just Severin who was enraged—Nikhael, Liraine's right-hand man, also frowned in displeasure. He was upset that Liraine would go so far as to threaten her own life to save a woman she didn't even know from the death sentence Severin had passed.
"You don't understand how I feel. My best friend died at the hands of my brother. Now I've met someone who looks just like her. Of course, I don't want to watch her die again because of you. I'd rather die than live with that guilt for the rest of my life."
Severin's jaw clenched. He threw the glass in his hand, smashing it against the floor beside Liraine. She instinctively shut her eyes tight, startled, and let out a small cry as shards of glass cut into her arm.
Severin rose from his seat. "Fine. If you don't want me to kill her, I won't. But don't think for a second that I'll let her walk away and go on living as if nothing happened. I won't kill her... but I'll make sure her life is worse than hell until the only choice she has left is to end it herself."
He pointed to Nikhael, who had been standing stiffly beside the couch. "Take Liraine out of here. Bring her home, and don't let her come back without my permission."
Nikhael gave a slight nod of acknowledgement. He stepped forward and pulled Liraine up from the floor, but she resisted. Eventually, Nikhael was forced to throw her over his shoulder despite her angry screams demanding that he put her down.
.
.
.
Isolde's head snapped up at the sound of the door creaking open. Was it Nikhael coming to execute her?
But no—she was wrong. The person who entered was not Nikhael but Nikhael's boss. Who else, if not Severin—the very man Lucien was after and the reason Isolde was trapped in this dreadful situation?
Severin didn't come alone. Two men followed him, whom Isolde quickly assumed were his subordinates. It wasn't hard to tell, judging by their wary demeanour and the way they obeyed every command Severin gave without hesitation.
Severin ordered his two subordinates to release Isolde from the restraints that kept her pinned to the chair—only the ones tying her to the chair, not the ones binding her hands, which still restricted her movement.
He also told them to carry away the corpses of the bodyguard and Madam Liora. Severin shoved Isolde forward, forcing her to follow the two subordinates carrying the bodies while Severin walked behind them. Isolde could feel the heat on the back of her neck from the oppressive presence behind her—she could sense Severin's sharp gaze and murderous intent aimed right at her.
She knew there was a firearm tucked behind Severin's belt, ready to blow a hole through her skull at any moment. The two men walked toward what appeared to be a dead-end hallway. At the far end, there was only a wall and a framed painting of The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo.
Isolde watched one of the men carrying the body lean in toward the painting, and, to her shock, the wall opened—revealing a hidden passageway with an elevator inside. An elevator that couldn't open or function without identity verification caused a blue light to scan the subordinate's face.
The security system didn't just scan his face—it scanned everyone who entered, including Isolde's and Severin's, except for the corpses whose heartbeats had long since ceased.
The lights inside the elevator turned red when it detected Isolde's presence—someone unauthorized.
Not long after, the alarm lights shut off, thanks to something Severin did on his phone—something Isolde couldn't see nor dared to peek at. Her life was already hanging by a thread, and she didn't want to make a single wrong move that might lead her to end up like the two corpses being carried alongside her.
The elevator finally moved once the alarm was silenced—but it didn't go up. It descended. When the doors opened, another corridor came into view—this one far more sinister. The dim lighting flickered as if the power was on its last legs.
Goosebumps rose on Isolde's arms; she could feel danger lurking ahead. She hesitated to walk into the corridor, but Severin grabbed her by the hair and dragged her forward. Isolde stumbled, nearly falling, forced to keep up with his steps.
He pulled her into a room that was the complete opposite of the dim hallway. A ceiling-mounted surgical lamp brightly lighted this room. On the operating table lay a corpse with its abdomen sliced open. A man wearing surgical loupes and latex gloves stood over it, his hands deep inside the corpse's body.
The man looked up as Severin and his men entered. He pulled off his bloodstained gloves and removed his loupes before walking over to Severin, leaving the open corpse behind.
"Tch. Why did you shoot them in the head?" the man clicked his tongue in annoyance upon seeing the two bodies.
"You should've just dragged them here after sedating them. Now their heads are ruined, their eyes are useless—and Corvin has been pressing me nonstop to find an eye donor for his wife."
"It's pointless. Their eyes aren't good quality. Corvin won't accept eye donations from those two corpses," Severin replied casually. The man who was talking with Severin turned his eyes to Isolde. As he looked at her, a mischievous smile appeared on his face.
"Who's this? Is she the one I'm supposed to operate on today?" He stepped closer to Isolde and lifted her chin with his finger so he could get a clear look at her eyes.
"Wow... this woman has beautiful eyes. Corvin would love these. The colour is very similar to his wife's eyes before she went blind in that accident."
Isolde's eyes widened in horror at the man's words, terrified that her eyes would be taken and sold to this Corvin.
"But unfortunately, I need to operate on those two corpses first. Their organs are critical, and I have to extract them before they deteriorate. There are also many patients waiting for the organs they've requested," the man said as he let go of Isolde's chin and pointed toward Severin's men.
"Hey, call the next person on the list. Tell them we've got fresh organs. If they want them, they need to get here fast for the transplant before everything goes to waste."
Isolde felt nauseated, realizing the place she was standing in was an illegal operation site where people were killed for their organs—not due to natural death, accidents, or illness. The thought that she could become one of the victims made her want to vomit.
"Where's Malric?" Severin asked the man.
He turned to Severin and jerked his thumb toward the wall behind him. "Next room over."
Severin yanked Isolde by the hair and dragged her into the adjacent room, ignoring the man's shout, asking what he was planning to do. Inside, a woman wearing bloodstained clothes was playing on her phone. Her sleeveless outfit revealed tattoos running along her arms.
"Oh, the esteemed Mr. Severin. It's been a while since you stepped foot in here. What brings you? It's not like you to personally escort a patient here yourself," the woman said, quickly standing and approaching Severin. She tried to hug him, but Severin pushed her away.
"Ah... I forgot I'm covered in blood," the woman muttered, only then remembering her appearance. She frowned as she glanced at Isolde.
"Wait... am I seeing things, or is my brain just fried from not sleeping since yesterday because of all the surgeries? Why does this woman look exactly like Renata?"
The woman—Malric—cupped Isolde's face in her hands, clearly stunned by how much she resembled Renata despite their different eye colours.
Severin pulled Malric's hands away from Isolde's face. "I want you to do something to this woman."
"Do what? Cut open her stomach and harvest her organs, like I did with Renata's corpse?" Malric asked with a blank expression, making Isolde more certain than ever that this woman was utterly insane.
How could people in this place talk so casually about tearing apart another human being's body without consent, as if it wasn't wrong in their eyes?
"At first, I wanted you to do just that," Severin said, clearly displeased, "but Liraine threatened to kill herself if this woman died."
Liraine?
Ah, Isolde remembered. Liraine was the woman who had suddenly hugged her and cried, calling her "Sister Renata."
"Your sister still can't accept Renata's death—just like Lucien, who refuses to accept his own sister's death and keeps interfering—wait, don't tell me this woman was sent by Lucien again?" Malric's eyes widened as she realized something was off with Isolde's appearance, especially her uncanny resemblance to the late Renata.
Severin's silence confirmed that Malric's guess was correct. She glanced toward the bound Isolde. "So what do you want me to do with her? Kill her like Renata?"
"I already said Liraine doesn't want her dead. I want you to implant a chip in her neck. Lucien isn't the only one trying to bring me down—I want to kill him too, but no one knows where he is. He shows up without warning and disappears just as fast. Suppose this woman stays alive, and Lucien tries to save her to extract everything she's seen here. In that case, I'll finally have a chance to find out where Lucien is and send him to meet his sister in the afterlife."
Malric nodded. "Yeah… at the very least, she should be useful if she's going to stay alive. Liraine's threat alone doesn't make her life worth sparing. Alright, I'll do it."
Malric forced Isolde into a metal chair. Her hands were untied but quickly replaced by metal restraints that clamped down on her wrists and ankles, preventing her from moving freely.
Isolde stared in horror as Malric powered up some device—whatever it was, Isolde could easily guess from Severin's earlier command that it was the tool to implant a tracking chip in her neck.
"Once you're done, have someone take her to the Marrow Chamber," Severin said, turning to leave the room.
"You're making her a prostitute here?"
"As long as she's alive, she has to be useful. Do you think she should be treated like a guest of honour here? Of course not. Her foolish decision to come here must be paid for. The life I spared doesn't come for free," Severin replied before disappearing behind the closing door.
Malric shook her head. "What a pitiful fate you have. If I were you, I'd have chosen to be shot dead rather than live as Severin's prisoner. Your life will be hell. You should've refused when Lucien sent you here—no matter what reward he promised, it's not worth what you're going to face under Severin. That man has no heart."
Malric moved behind Isolde and injected a substance into her body, causing her limbs to go limp. Her vision blurred. She couldn't stop herself from slipping into unconsciousness.
The last thing Isolde saw was Malric preparing her tools to implant the foreign object into the back of Isolde's neck—humming softly as she worked.
…