Chapter 189: And yes, I was too late
The doctor looked at the monitors, then turned to Xavier for a subtle nod of approval before addressing April politely. "She was given a mild sedative to help her rest after the extreme physical and emotional shock, but her vitals are entirely stable. I can administer a reversing agent right now. She will wake up within a few minutes."
"Do it," April said, calmly.
The doctor stepped up to the intravenous line, injecting a clear fluid into the port.
Beside them, near the back wall, Oliver Baxter’s eyes sharpened as he recorded the precise dosage on his tablet, his mind calculating her neurological response time already. Two minutes, his mind stated. She’ll wake up in exactly two months.
Silence washed over the room once more, broken only by the steady, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor.
April sat down on a chair provided while the rest stood and watched.
After exactly two long minutes, just as Oliver predicted, Emily’s eyelashes fluttered faintly. A soft, breathless murmur escaped her lips as her head shifted against the crisp white pillow.
"Mother..." Emily whimpered softly, her voice raspy and choked with lingering exhaustion.
Her eyelids slowly lifted, her brown eyes blurred and disoriented as she tried to focus on the sterile white ceiling above her.
The scent of antiseptic and the soft hum of machines gradually pulled her out of the dark void. But as memory came rushing back—the cold floor of the attic, her mother’s lifeless, freezing body, the rope burning into her throat—a sudden, sharp gasp tore through her chest.
Emily sat up abruptly, her heart rate spiking violently on the monitor as tears instantly flooded her eyes. "Mother—!"
She scrambled backward against the headboard, her body shaking violently as her hands shot up to clutch her throat, searching for the thick rope that had been choking the life out of her just hours ago. But there was no rope. There was no pain. Her skin felt completely smooth.
When her blurred vision finally cleared, she froze.
Standing in the sterile, brightly lit room was a group of towering, dangerously imposing men. Each one radiated a suffocating, absolute authority—a ruthless tycoon, an underworld lord, a disciplined assistant, an imposing heir, and an unbothered surgeon taking notes in the corner.
Emily shrunk back into the headboard, her chest heaving in sheer intimidation. She had spent her entire life under the boots of lower-tier aristocrats, doing project jobs for Johan and Clara in the shadows, so the sheer presence in this single room was overwhelming.
And then, her gaze locked onto the woman sitting by her mattress.
Emily’s jaw dropped, speech completely abandoning her.
She remembered seeing this face last night in the chaotic blur of the foyer, right before she was taken out by some men and she lost consciousness.
She had spent the last few hours assuming it was all a vivid, hallucinated dream born from oxygen deprivation. She was supposed to be dead. The rope... the darkness... it was supposed to be over. Who could possibly come to save someone like her at a time like this, when it was already too late?
"I saved you," April’s voice cut through the heavy silence, flat and devoid of dramatic flair as if she had read Emily’s thoughts. "I did. And yes, I was too late."
Emily’s hands trembled as she clutched the white blanket to her chest, her voice cracking into a terrified whisper. "Who... who are you?"
"My name is April," April stated, her dark brown eyes unblinking. "And twenty-six years ago, Eleanor Gabriel paid a nurse to steal me from the delivery room the night we were born. She replaced me with a stillborn infant so her own daughter would have no rival."
That was the entire gist of it.
Emily froze, the world spinning on its axis as she absorbed the impossible words. A twin. Her twin sister was standing right in front of her.
Her mother had often told her about how if her twin sister had been alive, at least they would have each other’s backs. She had regret in her tone each time she spoke about the dead twin, because she was so weak to stand up against Victor and Eleanor.
But here... the twin that was supposed to be dead was right in front of her, whole... healthy...
And it had all been that witches scheme. It was always her.
"Mother... they killed mother," Emily choked out, a harsh, bitter sob tearing from her chest as tears overflowed, pooling at her jaw.
She did not feel as relieved as she had imagined herself to be if she by some miracle met this twin her mother was always talking about. In death or anywhere else. A profound, crushing sorrow settled over her face as she looked at her twin sister. It was a quiet, heartbreaking guilt that her twin sister had returned to a dark graveyard and nothing more.
"You said you were stolen?" Emily whispered, her voice trembling as her fingers dug desperately into the bedsheets, "I’m actually glad. Because you didn’t live in that house with me, April. The life you lived must have been way more pleasant than the one I lived."
April stood motionless, feeling the raw, bitter pain vibrating in Emily’s cracked voice.
Looking at her sister’s pale, frail frame, April felt a quiet, heavy reflection pass through her mind. Emily was right in a sense—her childhood with the impoverished old lady had contained warmth and genuine love, things Emily had been cruelly denied. But the tragic irony was that both of their paths had been engineered to lead straight into hell.
"Yes, I did live a better life than you when I was living with the old lady who picked me up as a baby," April said, her tone smooth and devoid of defensive pride. "But after sixteen, that all turned to naught. I came back to find the Gabriel family, but I was kidnapped by Eleanor instead. She had my memories wiped clean and sent me to the Morgans to suffer as a slave. I endured relentless abuse and punishments for ten years."
April paused, her sharp gaze locking onto Emily’s tear-streaked face.
"But don’t think I’m trying to compare my pain with yours," April added flatly. "Only fools have the time and energy to waste on comparing who suffered worse and who needs sympathy more."
Emily swallowed hard, fighting the fresh torrent of tears gathering in her eyes as she absorbed the horrifying truth. Eleanor hadn’t just tormented her—she had deliberately ruined April’s life from the moment she took her first breath.
"They are horrible..." Emily whispered, her voice trembling with a mixture of grief and disgust.
April took a quiet, steadying breath, stepping an inch closer to the side of the bed. Her dark eyes remained cold, impenetrable, and intensely focused.
"Do you still want to die?" April asked directly.
Emily’s hand instinctively came up to rest over her neck, where the ghost of the rope still lingered in her mind. Her chest heaved as she stared at her blanket. "I... I want..."
"Before you answer," April interrupted, her voice dropping into a quiet, razor-sharp line that commanded absolute attention, "let me tell you that if you truly want to die, I will not force you to live. I will give you a peaceful way out, and no one in this room will judge you for it."
Emily looked up, her tear-filled brown eyes meeting April’s identical ones, waiting for the rest.
"But if you have even a single shred of anger left in you," April murmured, her voice dropping into a sharp whisper that carried the terrifying weight of absolute truth, "then open your eyes. Because the family that starved and poisoned your mother, the stepsister who tormented you, and the husband who cheated on you and beat you... are currently locked in a dark cell in the underbelly, completely at our mercy."