Chapter 306: 306/Flashback (27)
Chapter 306: Shattered Ambition and Shadows of Doubt
Flashback: 22 Years Ago
Author’s POV
Every feature of Violet’s mother’s face convulsed with extreme violence, and the fatal shock fell upon the lines of her face like a destructive thunderbolt that struck her tongue tied. Her eyes widened in astonishment, terror, and a sudden rush with which her pupils protruded, and she said in a semi-choked, broken, and helpless voice: "What are you saying, for hell’s sake?! What is this cursed talk?!"
Violet remained standing in her place with absolute steadfastness like a statue without motion, and her green eyes did not blink at all as she repeated the exact same sentence in a cold, dry tone, devoid of any expression or fear: "I am pregnant."
The mother, out of oppression and heartbreak, slapped both of her hands against her thighs with extreme agitation, advanced toward her with troubled, trembling steps, and said angrily: "Have you gone completely mad, Violet? Has damage and ruin struck your mind?! Or are you joking with me right now mockingly to test my patience and the extent of my endurance?!"
Violet moved her head with utmost lightness and tightened her strong grip on the strap of her leather bag without showing any signs of confusion, fear, or regret: "I do not joke in these matters, certainly... I am truly pregnant, and my body carries a fetus again."
The mother’s face congested with crimson blood until it almost exploded, and the lines of her face tightened with a burning nervousness and severe distress, and she shouted in her face with blame and reproach: "Will you truly get pregnant and give birth to children every time without a legal marriage or an official cover?! Do you not possess a single atom of shame from the talk of people and the hell of scandal?!"
Violet was not affected by her harsh reprimand or her sharp screaming at all; rather, she threw her handbag onto the adjacent sofa with complete indifference and unparalleled coldness, and turned her entire body toward her, saying with a dry, stern condition that did not carry within its folds a single atom of maternal emotion or mercy: "Then... if his existence disturbs our family, let my sister Meredreth not take him to raise him and adopt him in her name; I will simply go and abort him and get rid of his weight."
The mother retreated a step and a half backward, shocked by her harsh response, placed her trembling palm over her head in helplessness, turned her face right and left in complete incapacity and lack of resourcefulness, and said with a lump in her throat: "I truly do not know what to say to you anymore, Violet... all my words and justifications have run out because of your stubbornness and your actions."
She rose with her entire body and began circling around the corners of the living room with fast, chaotic, and troubled steps like a madwoman who had lost her mind, while interlocking the fingers of her hands with immense tension and future fear. Then she stopped suddenly and directed her sharp, critical gazes toward her daughter, saying commandingly: "Who is the father of this upcoming child? Tell me the truth immediately without twisting or turning!"
Violet looked into the vacuum extending before her for a single second as if she was remembering the details of what occurred, and the features of her face remained rigid and frozen like ice, and she said with a deadly simplicity that exposed everything: "His father does not want me... he has expelled me from his life and thrown me far away."
The mother knitted her eyebrows with a lack of comprehension and a vagueness that wrapped her mind, and advanced toward her again with a panic and anxiety that dominated her tone: "How did he expel you with this simplicity? I truly do not understand the nature of your relationships and what is happening with you!"
Violet averted her gaze and the piercing of her eyes away from her, and crossed her arms over her chest with decisiveness and strength, saying cuttingly: "Mother... I do not want to talk or discuss the details of this matter anymore; it is over."
The mother sighed powerfully and violently as if she was expelling fire from her inside, scrutinized the depth of her daughter’s eyes with complete despair, and shook her head in hopelessness of reforming her condition: "I truly do not understand, by any human measure, from where did you bring all this deadly coldness and psychological dryness in the most dangerous situations?!"
Violet looked at her with two dead eyes devoid of the luster of life, and returned to put forward her stern option with firmness and clarity: "Now... let us leave the talk; do I go and abort him immediately by myself, or do I leave him upon his birth for my sister to bear his responsibility?"
The mother convulsed in terror from the idea of crime and abortion, and waved her hand in the air with absolute denunciation and complete refusal: "Of course I will not allow you to abort him and kill an innocent soul, no matter what the circumstances and complications surrounding your pregnancy are!"
In those difficult, dark, and fateful moments, on the other and distant side of the city, Thomas was lying helplessly on a cold iron bed inside the sterilized operating room illuminated by bright, revealing white lights, where the doctors and surgeons surrounded his naked body, and he remained there for several long and successive hours under the weight and scalpel of precise surgery.
With strenuous effort, superb focus, and held breaths from the entire surgical team, the doctors finally succeeded in extracting the fatal and treacherous bullet from his lower back; but to their extreme and profound regret, it was lodged in an extremely sensitive, complicated, and dangerous place directly adjacent to the spinal cord. The features of the doctors’ faces were highly grim, dominated by immense anxiety and fear of the complications of that deep injury, as they were intensely afraid that the destruction of those sensitive nerves might afflict him with complete paralysis and permanent disability.
And to profound regret, what they were intensely afraid of and cautiously expecting did indeed happen; for when the effect of the powerful anesthetic wore off gradually and Thomas’s eyelids opened with extreme heaviness and he woke up inside his private room in the intensive care, he tried with panic, distress, and hysteria to push the transparent white sheet with his legs and move his lower limbs to stand... but the shock tied his tongue as he could not move his feet a single inch or budge them, finding his entire lower body from the waist downward had become dormant, dead, and completely paralyzed.
Thomas began screaming with a crazy panic and acute hysteria that shook the walls of the hospital, and his entire upper body shook violently on the bed while he tried to push the sheet with his trembling hands that were grasping the air, saying with a bitter screaming: "I cannot move my feet at all... oh my God, I cannot control them!"
The doctors and nurses rushed with fast, anxious, and successive steps into the room due to his screaming and surrounded his bed from every side; the surgeon advanced quickly and placed his palms firmly on Thomas’s shoulders to stabilize him and prevent him from harming his injured back, and said in an attempt to calm his terror: "Mr. Thomas, please calm down a little and do not move violently so that your wound does not bleed!"
But Thomas was writhing in terror, and the lines of his face tightened with bitter crying and fatal dread, and he shouted again while his eye overflowed with tears: "I told you that I cannot move my feet in any way! What have you done to my body?!"
The doctor turned immediately without an answer toward the lower end of the bed where Thomas’s bare feet relaxed motionless; he inserted his hand quickly into the pocket of his white coat and pulled out a small, sharp, and precise medical needle, then bent with his entire body and passed it firmly and pricked with it the bottom of Thomas’s foot deeply to test the nerve response. All the nurses and consultants in the room held their breaths in anticipation, but Thomas remained lying in his place, and his body or his lower limbs did not show any reaction, nervous contraction, or even a feeling of pain at all, as if the two feet did not belong to him.
The doctor raised his head with very grim features, looked into Thomas’s eyes with sadness, and said quietly: "Mr. Thomas, do you feel any prick or needle prick right now?"
Thomas moved his head right and left with absolute despair and a blackness that wrapped his eye on the pillow, and said in a faint, low voice mixed with tears and sobs: "I do not feel anything at all... the two feet are dead."
The doctor sighed with extreme regret and heartbreak, lowered his hand holding the needle to his side, and said in a sad, quiet but decisive and shocking tone to the patient: "I am truly very sorry, Mr. Thomas... the bullet completely destroyed the spinal nerves, and you have lost the ability to walk for the rest of your life."
At that harsh and destructive moment for his pride, Thomas collapsed completely and lost his temper entirely; he began striking the two sides of the iron bed with his fists crazily and screaming with hysteria and a terrifying voice demanding revenge and death, until the nurse advanced by order of the doctor and quickly injected his arm with an extremely powerful sedative and anesthetic substance, causing his upper limbs to relax gradually and his fury to calm down, and his eyelids closed and he slept again under the influence of the heavy drug.
Meanwhile, in those moments charged with oppression, and on the other side of the city, Morgan was sitting alone in the pitch darkness of his office without lighting, his eyes fixed with concentration and detachment on nothingness in complete rigidity and a scary silence; he was never believing or absorbing what had occurred and followed in the recent hours; how did Violet abandon him and their love with this ease, simplicity, and coldness? How did she stomp with her feet on their feelings without mercy? And also, his mind was burning with rage, hatred, and heartbreak from the cursed Thomas, whom he learned from his men a little while ago that he did not lose his life and survived that fatal bullet by a miracle, despite the disability that afflicted him.
As for Violet, she was lying in her full comfort in her room in complete quietness and coldness on her warm bed, not caring about the chaos of the world outside her walls. Suddenly and without introduction, the door opened with violence and noise, and Meredreth entered the apartment, walking with angry steps toward her room; she stood at the threshold and her face flushed with flying evil, malice, and spite, and she shouted while pointing at her with her finger in disgust and revulsion: "You cursed, manipulative whore! Are you actually pregnant again with another fetus and from an unknown man?!"
Not a single inch or muscle in Violet’s body moved due to her sister’s screaming, and her gaze remained suspended on the white ceiling of the room, and she said in a quiet voice without any indifference, respect, or care for her violent reaction: "Get out of my room and from before me, Meredreth."
Meredreth took two additional steps with momentum inside the room, and gripped her palms with a burning nervousness, saying: "I will not get out, you cursed woman, and I will stay to expose your reality!"
Violet turned her head with extreme slowness toward her, narrowed the pupils of her eyes with detachment, coldness, and haughtiness, and said: "What do you want exactly, Meredreth? Tell me so this headache ends."
Meredreth shrieked with extreme agitation while striking her chest with her palm violently: "Do you think in this mind of yours that I will accept submission again and repeat the tragedy by raising your second fallen child and attributing his lineage to me?!"
Violet moved her shoulders with a deadly and dry coldness over the mattress and answered with confidence: "I offered the option of abortion, but my mother is the one who does not want me to abort him and insists on his staying."
Meredreth stepped with fast steps toward the edge of the bed and bent with her entire body toward Violet’s face, asking with a spite and deep-seated hatred that permeated her tone: "Tell me now... who is the real father of Steve? And who is the father of this new child residing in your entrails?!"
Violet adjusted her seating with lightness and flexibility, and looked directly into her sister’s eyes with a silent, decisive challenge and piercing looks, and said coldly: "This matter is none of your business at all, and it will not concern you by a letter."
Meredreth’s features tightened with immense doubt, suspicion, and an anxiety that appeared clearly in her eyes, and she pressed with her fingers firmly on Violet’s arm, saying: "Answer... is this fetus Morgan’s son? Tell me the truth!"
Violet threw her hand off her with complete detachment and revulsion, and the exact same cold and provocative smile that drives everyone mad sketched on her lips, and she looked at her with piercing looks that shook her pride and said with a cutting insolence that slapped her face: "Why do you ask with this urgency and apprehension? Are you afraid and getting psychologically tired already from the idea that they might be Morgan’s children?"
Meredreth retreated a step backward with a slight confusion and a shock she tried to hide and adjust her features quickly, and crossed her arms, saying with a fabricated sharpness and a trembling voice: "And why would I be afraid, in your opinion, of this matter?!"
Violet’s smile widened in a mysterious and secret-exposing way, and she leaned her head with biting sarcasm while exposing what was hidden in cold blood that proves her intelligence: "Because you simply fucked Morgan behind my back on the basis that you were me... and because in that small and limited mind of yours, you foolishly thought that you could steal Morgan and take my place in his heart, but you have already failed."
