Chapter 21

The sharp smell of disinfectant and the steady beeping of a heart monitor formed a bleak backdrop in a third-class ward of a public hospital. There, on a bed with thinning sheets, lay Emely Nasution. The woman who was once known as Jakarta’s socialite queen now looked like a shadow of her former self. Her face was deathly pale, her once meticulously pampered skin now wrinkled and dull, and her body appeared fragile beneath the coarse hospital blanket.

Since Dewangga’s assets were seized and his empire collapsed, Emely had been forced to move from one cramped rental to another, living with the remnants of her son’s anger. Chronic stress and burning shame eventually broke down her physical defenses. A mild heart attack and kidney complications had landed her in the hospital. But without luxury insurance or unlimited credit cards, she was now just one of hundreds of patients waiting for the mercy of an overburdened healthcare system.

With trembling hands, Emely reached for her old phone, its screen cracked. Only one name came to her mind—not Dewangga, who was likely drunk somewhere, nor her socialite friends who had blocked her number.

“Serena…” she whispered weakly when the call was finally answered. “Serena, it’s me… Mother is sick, dear. I need your help.”

Two hours later, the ward door opened. The firm sound of high heels echoed across the cold ceramic floor. Serena Zea stepped into the room, dressed in an elegant black suit and dark sunglasses covering her eyes. Her presence in that third-class ward felt like an anomaly—a figure from another world stepping into the least desired place.

Emely tried to sit up, her eyes shining with pitiful hope. “Serena… you came. I knew you wouldn’t let your mother suffer like this. Please move me to a VIP room, Serena. It’s so noisy and hot here. I need the best specialists.”

Serena removed her sunglasses and looked at Emely with a flat, emotionless gaze. There was no anger, no tears—only a chilling emptiness.

“Mother?” Serena repeated, the word sounding foreign on her tongue. “As I recall, seven years ago, under the rain, you said I had no right to call you that. You said I was nothing but a parasite chasing your son’s wealth.”

Emely’s face flushed with embarrassment, but the pain in her chest was more urgent. “That… that was the past, Serena. I’m sick now. You’re rich, your film is a huge success. What does a little money for my treatment mean to you? You wouldn’t want to be called an unfilial daughter-in-law, would you?”

Serena pulled a creaking metal chair and sat beside the bed. She leaned slightly forward, making Emely instinctively shrink back under the weight of her presence.

“When Clarisa had a high fever and I begged you for money to take her to a specialist, what did you say?” Serena asked calmly. “You said, ‘a girl doesn’t need an expensive doctor, she’ll recover on her own.’ And now, you’re asking for VIP treatment just because you feel a little short of breath?”

Serena took a folder from her bag and placed it on the rusted patient table.

“I’ve paid your hospital bills,” she said.

Emely’s eyes lit up. “Thank you, Serena! Quickly call the nurse so I can be moved to—”

“Wait,” Serena cut in sharply. “I paid for this class. Third class. Standard care, generic medication, and the on-duty doctor. That’s what you’ll receive.”

Emely was stunned. “What?! You’re humiliating me?! I am Emely Nasution! I cannot be treated like ordinary people!”

“The Emely Nasution you’re referring to no longer exists, Madam,” Serena replied coldly. “The one before me now is just an elderly patient with no one left. The parasite you once despised is now the only reason you’re not being thrown out of this hospital onto the street.”

Serena stood up and straightened her outfit. “I’m doing this not because I consider you family, but because I still have a fragment of humanity you once discarded when you treated me and Clarisa like trash. I won’t let you die on a sidewalk, but don’t expect the luxury you once used to crush my dignity.”

Emely broke into tears—tears filled with regret, though Serena knew they came only because she was now powerless.

“Serena, forgive me… I was wrong… please, bring Clarisa here. I want to see my granddaughter…” Emely pleaded weakly.

Serena paused at the door and glanced back one last time at the woman who had once destroyed her happiness.

“Clarisa doesn’t have a grandmother. Her grandmother ‘died’ the day you twisted her ear and let her cry in hunger. Don’t ever say her name again. You don’t deserve her affection.”

Serena walked out, leaving Emely sobbing amid the noise of the crowded ward. Outside, Haris Nasution was waiting, his expression filled with concern.

“How did it go?” Haris asked.

“It’s done, Haris. I’ve paid for her treatment until she stabilizes. That was my final debt of humanity to the past,” Serena replied, taking a deep breath.

“You’re very strong, Serena. Many people would have chosen to ignore her completely,” Haris said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Serena looked down the long hospital corridor. “Ignoring her would have been easy. But showing her that the ‘parasite’ she despised now holds control over her survival… that’s the greatest lesson she can receive before it all ends.”

That night, Emely Nasution fell asleep in the darkness of the crowded ward, surrounded by the smell of cheap medicine and the groans of other patients. She finally realized that all the gold and jewelry she once worshipped could never buy the love or respect she had destroyed. Now she lived on the mercy of the woman she once cast out—a reality far more painful than any illness in her body. Serena Zea had won, not through violence, but by letting karma work through her hands, now filled with power and dignity.