Chapter 3

Artemis Thaleia's Perspective

"Are you okay?"  I blinked a few more times, then looked at Saffron.

"Is this about Calvin?" Saffron inquired.

"No. This isn't about him."  Saffron nodded at me. 

I put a few loose strands of my hair behind my ear and heard Saffron groan.

"If this isn't about Calvin, perhaps it's about your work?"  She murmured.  I leaned back in my chair and started playing with my bracelet.

"Yeah, I guess you can say that."

"And by work, you mean Sin Cruorem."  I narrowed my eyes at her, but in return, Saffron just frowned at me even more.

"Why are you suddenly dragging that mafia boss into our conversation?" I said.

"Because he is your work, Thaleia. You've been acting weird since yesterday; you're paranoid. You're acting like Uncle Isaiah."  Saffron mumbled in a low tone, like what she said was a secret anyone should never hear about.

"Is he still unconscious? Is he dead? Brain dead? Comatose?"  She fired me up with tons of questions.  As much as I want to open this up to her, I can't.

I looked at Saffron and tried to curve my lips for a small smile.  She raised both of her hands in mid-air as she stood up.

"Okay, okay, I get it. I won't ask again, Dr. Belmont."  Saffron glanced at her wristwatch.

"I need to go, Thaleia. A doctor needs to do what a doctor needs to do." Saffron uttered and wore her lab coat and stethoscope.

The memory of Sin staring and smiling at me earlier at the NBI quarters flashed back, but my musing soon ended as my phone rang. 

I hung my bag on my shoulder and left Saff's office.

"Where are you?" Papa's inquiring remark welcomed me.

"I just finished reporting to my supervisor, Pa. I stopped by Saffron's office for a while, but I'm on my way back to NBI."

I searched for my key from the pocket of my bag, and before I could unlock the door of my car, I heard a noise of something breaking from the other line.

"Pa, what's that?" Isaiah Belmont sighed violently before I heard him give an order to his agents.

"What is going on?" 

"Pa—" Isaiah dropped the call seconds later. 

I opened the car's door and got in 

It was around 2 pm when I arrived at the headquarters. I strode towards the building and walked past everyone without greeting them back.

"Pa?"  I looked at Agent Segovia and Agent Enrile, who were still guarding the room where Sin was.

"Detective Belmont is in the chief's office. Chief Campbell called for him," Agent Segovia answered.

"Could you tell him I'm here?" I asked and was about to reach for the doorknob when the door opened. The janitress walked out of Sin's room.

I turned to Agent Segovia with a questioning look.  "What happened here?" Agent Enrile shrugs his shoulder. I gritted my teeth at that.

"We don't know how it happened, but Sin managed to free his feet from his cuff, and then he went feral, kicking everything in sight," Agent Segovia explained.

I didn't finish what he was saying and went straight inside.  I walk toward Sin's bed to check his condition.  As I suspected, his wounds were bleeding.

I'm sure the stitches in his wound opened. 

"Damn it!  Don't they have someone who can stitch his wounds? Except for me?" I spat.

"I'll treat and stitch his wounds. Knock if you need anything," I said to Agent Segovia before I closed the door. 

After preparing the medical supplies that I'd need for cleaning and stitching Sin's wounds, I calmly walked towards his bed.

"Hey, a-are you up?" I asked nervously.

Using the scissors, I ripped his shirt. I'm not really a fan of abs and sculpted body to perfection like he has, but I find myself blushing at the sight of his eight-pack abs and well-built body.

Sin winced and groaned in pain as I began stitching his wound again.

I looked at him and alerted myself in case he'd do something again. Thank God he didn't and remained still.

I heard him groan once more as I cut the thread with a scissor. That groan sounds so sexy that I think he needs to be charged with another crime because of it.

"Why did you do that? You went feral, and as a result, your wound opened up. You can't move like that yet. Your wounds haven't healed yet," I said to him as I bandaged his wounds that I had finished cleaning and stitching

"Y-you."  I looked up when I heard Sin's baritone voice.  The way he blurted out those words sounded like I was obliged to stare at him and listen carefully to what it was that he was about to say.

"You remind me of someone, y-you look exactly like her."  

I stopped what I was doing and looked at him with curious eyes.

"That woman who died when I blew up her husband's car. You look just like her. She shouldn't have died there. It should have been her husband."  I froze at what Sin had said. He was referring to my mother!  

He remembered my Mom!

I gulped and pursed my lips.

"I'm glad that you still can remember her. That woman was my mother. I'm the daughter of the woman you killed to get back to my father.  I'm just one of the many children you deprived of a complete and normal family, Sin."  I closed my eyes and turned my back on him as I placed the supplies back on the table near the room's door.

"If there's anyone to blame for your Mom's death, it's your Dad, sweetie. If only he had stopped chasing me when I warned him before then, I wouldn't have planned to kill him. I wouldn't have planted that bomb in his car. Your mother wouldn't have died then."

I covered my ears as I didn't want to hear more of it.

"Let's just say your father is the reason why your Mom died. He wanted to become the nation's hero, but he could not be to his family. Poor you. Everything was your father's fault, Doctor."