You Wouldn’t

The cigarette dropped out of Dimitri's hold, and he gripped Adeline's wrists with a nasty look. 

"What the fuck are you doing? Take your hands off me!" He roughly pushed her to the floor, his eyes boring at her with disgust. 

Adeline fell with a heavy thud, her shoulder rising and falling in frantic breathing. 

"You can't do that." She shook her head. "You two can't! He promised my father." She flashed him a deep glare and pushed herself up to her feet. "Your father said he would treat my mum until she got better. He gave his words!" 

"A promise made to a dead person is useless!" Dimitri refuted, amused by her words. "Jesus, Adeline, It's been two whole years, and my father has been spending a lot of resources on your mother. You didn't expect it to go on forever, did you? 

"You would be pretty stupid if you did! What do you think we are? A charity home?" He laughed, throwing his head back in absolute entrainment. "Unplug those pipes, and that old hag will be dead. No more enjoying and leeching off of-"

"Dimitri, no. W-what are you saying? You would never do this. You wouldn't!" Adeline's voice cracked in fear as she frantically shook her head and bubbles of tears welled up in her brown eyes. 

What have they done? What have they done? What have they fucking done?!

The disgusting heartless grin on Dimitri's face, she could see it! And she could guess what they had done. 

Her mother...the last warmth she had—the only family she had left. No...

Her body moved, taking shaky steps back before she turned, rushing to the door. She pulled it open, and while she ran to make her way to the last floor of the company, she heard Dimitri scream,

"Let's hope she's not dead yet!" Followed by heavy belly-bubbling chortles. 

But Adeline ran, dashing outside and scurrying to the car. "Let's go to the hospital, now!" 

Mr. Sokolov, who'd been waiting, looked at her with concern as he could glimpse the look of intense fright on her face. 

"Mrs. Adeline, are you alright? You don't look too-" 

"Let's go!" Adeline yelled at him and slammed the door of the car shut.

Sokolov nodded, despite being unsure of the situation, and turned on the engine. He drove off onto the road and raised the speed of the car per her request. 

She needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible. 

Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she rapidly began to scroll through her contact list. She was searching for the number of the nurse who was responsible for taking care of her mother in the hospital.

There had been neither a call nor a message from her to update her about her mother's health, which was weird. The lady had never failed to update her every day, but nothing had occurred since yesterday. No call, no messages, nothing at all. 

She typed out a message, backspaced it, and decided to call instead, while dabing her teary eyes with the back of her hand.

"What the heck is he doing?" Sokolov suddenly asked and turned the steering wheel to avoid the car coming in the opposite direction.

Looking up, Adeline only had time to hear the honking of the car barreling toward them before everything went to shit.

Faintly, she heard the sound of tires screeching, cars ramming into each other, and metal scraping the asphalt. Her forehead bumped into the back of the seat in front of her, and she groaned, lifting her head to watch Sokolov get out of the car. 

"Sokolov," she grunted. "What happened? Why are you-"

The abrupt sound of two men arguing caused her head to hurt. Thankfully, Sokolov had slowed down before the impact with the other car. If not, she would have sustained more than a mere head injury. 

"I signaled!" Adeline heard one of the men yell. "You recklessly crashed into me." 

"You were speeding. None of this is my fault!" 

"I lost a bit of control, and I was honking at you. You were the one who crashed right into me!" 

The back door creaked open. 

Adeline got out of the car and looked over to where Sokolov stood, arguing with a tall man whose brown, long hair was wrapped in a low, messy bun, either side of it shaved neatly.

"Ah...my head." She grabbed her hair, grunting painfully, the sense of something banging into her skull overwhelming her.

Her forehead was bleeding, and she could only groan in excruciating pain. 

"Sokolov!" 

Her gaze stretched far behind Sokolov, stopping on a man who was resting against the car with a broken front window.

He was at least two hundred and eight centimeters tall, with a large frame swathed in a perfectly tailored brown suit and a knee-length trench coat with a furred neck. His dark, shoulder-length hair with a fresh undercut was in a neat low bun, a few strands falling over his face. 

There was this sense of ruggedness that mixed with his intimidating appearance and deamnor. 

Adeline's forehead creased into a frown. "Sokolov!" she shouted, trying to stop him from arguing any further with the man's driver. 

They were still a bit far from getting to the hospital. 

Storming toward him in frustration, she snatched him by the arm. "What are you doing? We need to leave. I still need to-"

"Without saying something about these damages?" a voice, too icy with a dangerous edge to it, asked, silencing her instantly.