Vivianne entered her mother's room. She sat by her side, silently crying. She couldn’t stay still because just a while ago she was able to talk to her mother properly, but now, she looked like a withered vegetable. Her skin was flushed, and she was lying bedridden.
“Mom… I’m sorry,” she whispered to her mother, gently squeezing her hand.
Vivianne felt that everything that happened was her fault. She couldn’t blame anyone else for this, but earlier she had exploded from the many problems she was going through.
Her trauma hasn’t healed yet. She has major trust issues. She also knew that she shouldn’t have treated Beckett the way she did earlier, especially since he just wanted to help. But because of what happened, her walls were up again.
“I’m sorry, Beckett…” she said, and soon after, her tears flowed freely.
But unbeknownst to Vivianne, Beckett had followed her. He had already opened the door and was ready to enter, but when he saw how sad Vivianne was while looking at Ella and heard her apologizing to him, he froze.
He felt his heart break into pieces upon seeing Vivianne crying her heart out. He lost the strength to talk to her. Instead of entering the room, he quietly closed the door and walked to the parking lot, then got into his car.
His current team was more competent than his previous one, so even though he was at the hospital, it didn’t make the press. No one else at the hospital could approach him either.
Hell, he wasn’t in the mood for anything… especially with what had happened.
But there was one thing that was bothering him.
‘Nosebleed… Comatose… All of that wasn’t in the list of the side effects I fixed when we were formulating the drug,’ Beckett thought, recalling how they had adjusted the medicine.
Beckett was one hundred percent confident that there was nothing wrong with the medicine. He had asked many people inside Agrianthropos who were also chemists just to be sure. He wanted to minimize the risk, like Vivianne had suggested he should do.
There was only one way for him to do that—return to Agrianthropos and re-examine the ingredients of the medicine he made.
[Be careful. I’ll be gone for a while, but I’ll come back for you.]
That was Beckett’s text to his wife before he put his phone in his pocket and started the car. He didn’t want to waste any time, so he would investigate it right now.
When he put away his phone, he didn’t notice that his text to Vivianne hadn’t gone through.
A FEW hours later, Beckett successfully arrived at Agrianthropos City. He quickly went to the warehouse where he made the drug, and there he re-examined all the ingredients for the medicine he created.
He even tried it over and over. His skin almost turned pale, and his lips dried out because he repeatedly used the drug, and his heart repeatedly stopped beating, but he didn’t mind.
Beckett was too desperate to find the problem, so he was frustrated to find none.
“Damn it,” Beckett swore because he was almost dizzy from thinking, but there was really nothing wrong with the medicine he had given.
It was perfect and had no side effects, so he didn’t understand why it had such an effect on Ella.
“I don’t believe you anymore.”
Beckett suddenly remembered what Vivianne had said, as well as the anger in her eyes before she left him alone at the hospital.
“Cazzo. Cazzo questa vita! [Fuck. Fuck this life!]” He couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He threw the items on the table until they all fell to the floor.
The staff outside heard the breaking cylinders, so they quickly came inside. They panicked upon seeing Beckett’s bleeding hand. He was holding a shard of glass in his hand.
“Sir Beckett!” one of the staff called out to him, but instead of paying attention, Beckett walked out of the warehouse without looking at anyone.
HE WAS feeling devastated, and the last time he felt this way was when his parents died. He didn’t know he would feel like this again, and he especially didn’t expect the fight between him and his wife.
So, he drowned himself in alcohol. He stayed at the bar in Agrianthropos for hours, trying to forget everything. He ordered different types of alcohol. He wanted to make sure he got drunk, and he did.
“Ah, fuck it,” Beckett complained because after drinking, he was dizzy as he walked out of the bar. He swore continuously and leaned against the wall to keep from falling.
Even in that state, no one paid attention to him. This was one of the things Beckett loved about Agrianthropos City. Here, he was just a normal person. No woman would approach him unless he initiated it himself.
And he had no intention of approaching other women. His eyes and heart had been fixated on Vivianne ever since.
Beckett shook his head to reduce his dizziness, but it only got worse. He forced himself to get out and rest. However, he bumped into a man.
It wasn’t a co-member, but an ordinary citizen who was as drunk and devastated as he was.
“What the hell? Fuck you… Do you even know how to walk?!” the man shouted at him, but Beckett ignored him, which made the man even more annoyed. “Apologize to me, asshole!”
“Why would I? If you were watching where you were going, I wouldn’t have bumped into you.”
“You bastard!” The man was enraged and punched Beckett in the face. He fell to the ground. “Fuck you, just because you’re a celebrity, you think you’re someone important here? Apologize! Fuck you!”
The man was about to punch him again, but unexpectedly, Beckett caught his fist. He gripped the man’s hand tightly, causing him to shout in pain.
“Starting from now, everything that I’ll do… will be considered self-defense.”
Beckett didn’t wait for his opponent to speak and immediately punched him. He hit him repeatedly and with force. The opponent couldn’t move because with each punch from Beckett, his head seemed to shake.
Beckett poured all his anger and all the pain he was going through into his punches. He thought it was considered self-defense, after all.
So, he was greatly surprised when things didn’t turn out that way.
“According to our investigation, and with the permission of the founders, what happened here was assault and not just self-defense,” said the man guarding the bar. “You will be imprisoned for three days with no phone, no television, and other gadgets.”
“What? Three days?” Beckett asked in disbelief. “No way! I need to go back!”
“For your photoshoots? I’m sure the founders have already made arrangements for that,” the man replied. “No matter who you are, no one escapes the punishments given by the founders when they break the rules. You should have known that, especially since you’re a member of the Foedus.”
“Damn,” Beckett swore in his mind before running his hand over his face.
There was nothing he could do about it. It would only be harder for him if he tried to escape from here.
AS THE man had said earlier, Beckett was imprisoned in a room where there was nothing but a bed, a table, and a window. It was locked from the outside, so he couldn’t escape from there either.
“I wonder how Vivianne and her mom are right now…” he muttered to himself as he stared outside, watching the people walking below. “I wonder if her mom has woken up. I don’t understand why she went into a coma after taking the medicine—”
He stopped talking when he realized something. He’s one-hundred percent confident about the drug he made, especially since he had tried it several times, and it was based on Ella’s DNA.
But in thinking that the medicine was at fault, he had forgotten to consider other aspects of the situation…
‘Could it be that Alfred gave Ella something to drink?’ Beckett thought. ‘Is that why the effect of the medicine suddenly changed?’