Free Web NovelChapter 70: Chapter 70 Fake suicide attempt
_Author’s POV_
The next day.....
At the Varkos Mansion, Virella sat in her room.
She had always believed she was smarter than the results she had been given in life.
She had watched Rowena build something real from nothing and had decided the only difference between them was opportunity. She had an opportunity now. The Varkos name still carried some weight in certain circles and she intended to use it before it depreciated further.
She launched a line of premium herbal wellness tinctures. Small bottles, elegant packaging, marketed as traditional remedies for energy and clarity and general wellbeing. She had found a supplier willing to work quickly and cheaply and had priced the product at a premium without fully understanding what was even inside it.
People bought the items, and she was super excited, already feeling like she’d moved Varkos family out of poverty with this new found knowledge.
But sooner than expected, the first round of customers that got those items reported headaches.
The second round reported something worse.
They reported rashes, in most cases. Stomach cramping in several others. Two people required medical attention and filed formal complaints through the regional trade registry. Some said their wolves even lost communication with them.
Fear clouded her heart. Virella tried to manage the fallout by pulling the initial batch and relaunching with slightly different packaging. The supplier had not changed either, which was a stupid move. The product had not meaningfully changed too. The second round of complaints came faster than the first.
A formal warning even arrived from the Alpha King’s office within the week.
It was brief and direct. The Varkos name was not to be used in commercial ventures until the outstanding complaints were resolved and the products had passed proper safety review. Engaging in further commerce before that process was complete would result in formal sanctions.
Virella read the letter three times and each time her face went a different color.
She went to see Maelis, thinking the woman would take her side as usual.
This was a big mistake.
Maelis had been in fragile health since the last episode with her legs and had been specifically told by her physician that stress was to be avoided.
Virella sat down and explained the situation in full, including the complaints, the medical incidents, the letter from the Alpha King’s office, and the current state of the family accounts.
Maelis listened to all of it.
Then she had what her physician later described as a stress-induced episode that put her back in bed for the foreseeable future.
Elira sat by her mother’s bedside that night and said nothing for a very long time.
The Varkos family debt had grown in a direction that was becoming difficult to look at directly. The wellness tincture venture had not only failed to generate income, it had generated liability. The suppliers still needed to be paid. The complainants were pursuing reimbursement. The legal costs of managing the registry complaints were adding up quietly in the background.
Virella sat in her room and stared at the wall and thought about who was to blame for all of this.
She arrived at the same answer she always arrived at. Rowena. She believed if Rowena hadn’t pulled out, life would have been easier.
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And on the other side of the city, inside the Ashthorne mansion, Alice sat in her restricted rooms and thought carefully.
She had been watching the walls close for weeks. She understood what Rowena had done, dismantling everything from the inside out, methodically and without anger, which was somehow more unsettling than if she had done it with rage. Alice could have worked with rage. Calm was harder to find an edge against.
She needed a lever.
She thought about it for two days. Turned over every remaining option. Considered and discarded and reconsidered.
Then she picked up the small sewing scissors from the desk in her room, the ones nobody had thought to remove because they were small and domestic and unremarkable, then she cut her wrists.
Not deeply. She was precise about that. Enough to bleed visibly and dramatically. Not enough to do any real damage. She had calculated the difference carefully.
She arranged herself on the floor where she would be found quickly and waited.
The guard found her within minutes.
The household was summoned. There was noise and movement and the controlled chaos of people responding to an apparent emergency. Someone sent for medical help. Someone else went for Rowena.
Rowena arrived and stood in the doorway and looked at Alice on the floor.
She looked at the wounds. She looked at the scissors still nearby. She looked at Alice’s face, which was arranged into an expression of despair that had been constructed with some care.
Then she stepped back and spoke quietly to the guard beside her.
"She needs her wounds dressed," she said. "Make sure that’s done properly. Then return her to her rooms and restore the previous restrictions." She paused. "Add the sewing kit to the list of items to be removed."
"Shouldn’t we....." the guard started.
"She’s not going to die," Rowena said simply. "She doesn’t want to die. She wants me to feel responsible for something." She looked at Alice once more. "Dress the wounds. Then her rooms."
She walked away.
Alice lay on the floor and listened to the sound of Rowena’s footsteps moving calmly down the corridor without hesitation or pause.
Her expression, when she was certain nobody was watching it anymore, shifted.
Rowena was not going to be moved by this. She had known it was possible, had thought Rowena might have enough softness left to react, but the footsteps told her everything.
She was going to have to think of something else.
Rowena, meanwhile, had already decided she was done waiting.
It was time to have a direct and final conversation with Alice.
She would have it tomorrow.
Tonight she was going to rest, the competition was coming faster than she would like.
She went to bed and slept without difficulty.
