10x God-Tier Stealing System: Pumping S-Rank SuperHeroines Daily!-Chapter 32- Consulting Thalia

’What.’

Seleyena’s hands stayed in her pockets. Nothing moved in her face. But her eyes—behind the glasses, tracking, recalculating—went just slightly wider before she brought them back under control.

’His drink too.’

She ran it back. Jake, bragging to Jenny about the drug he’d sourced from the lab. Jenny, asking whether he’d worn a condom or finished inside her. Jake’s phrasing—’he’s a rabbit in bed, a perverted bastard’—said about Cruxius like it was established fact. Like the outcome had been his fault, his choice, his nature.

But if the drug was in ’both’ drinks—

’Oh.’

The math shifted.

She looked at Thalia. The slight cleavage above the neckline of the dress. The marks at the neck barely concealed by the fabric and sunglasses. The careful posture of someone using control as armor.

Then she looked at Cruxius again.

He was looking at her.

Not at Alvian. Not at Jake. Not at Jenny. At ’her.’

Watching for something. Reading whatever her face did next.

"’LIES,’" Jenny burst out, voice cracking at the seams.

Every head turned.

Jenny stood with her fist at her side, face flushed now—the handprint still livid on her cheek—eyes skipping from Cruxius to Alvian to the crowd like she was calculating how much of this she could still claw back. "’We’ didn’t drug ’anyone—’"

"’Then,’" Thalia said, "’say it louder. Admit your mistake. Just once in your life—say it out loud.’"

Her voice didn’t shake. Her hands were. She was standing four feet from Jenny and her eyes were the specific bright of someone who had been holding something for a very long time and was done holding it. The scholarship. The slaps endured. The meals poisoned in the fridge, the letter torn, the decision made to leave that house and never return. And then one night—one night—that same woman had reached into Thalia’s life from across a city and ’arranged this.’

"Say it," she said again. Lower this time. More dangerous.

Jenny’s jaw worked.

Nothing came out.

Thalia’s hand moved.

SLAP—

"’Urghh—!’" Jenny reeled, hand clutching the second cheek now, eyes watering from shock and fury. "’You—’"

"’Miss Thalia.’" Seleyena stepped forward.

She moved with precision—coat, heels, the specific air of someone who’d identified what needed doing and was doing it. She took Thalia’s arm—gently, but with enough authority to steer—and pulled her sideways, away from Jenny’s orbit.

"’Hey—stop—let me—’"

"You need treatment," Seleyena said. Not asking. Her eyes moved from Thalia to Alvian with a message the dean couldn’t misread—’I know what happened. I’m a witness. Step carefully.’

"’I’m fine, let me go, I just need to—’" Thalia’s head turned back toward Jenny, jaw set.

"’I know,’" Seleyena said quietly. Just for her. "’I know what she did. But right now you need a doctor, and I need you to walk with me.’"

Thalia blinked.

Something in the doctor’s voice—the steadiness of it, the specific kind of steadiness that comes from having all the facts and having chosen a side—reached her somewhere under the anger.

She looked back toward the driveway.

Cruxius was still standing by the car, sleeves rolled, watching Alvian with the patient expression of a man who’d already decided what happened next. Darithi stood three feet to his left, eyes on Thalia. Their eyes met for one second—a single, clear message delivered without a word: ’don’t try it.’

Thalia’s middle finger rose.

Darithi did not blink.

Thalia turned back and grabbed Seleyena’s hand and started walking—properly this time, dragging the doctor at a pace that said ’fine, yes, hospital, let’s go, but I’m choosing this.’

"’Y-yes, of course—’" Seleyena kept pace, heels clicking double-time, one hand closing the folder she’d been carrying and the other holding Thalia’s as they moved through the entrance doors.

But she looked back.

One glance—

Just in time to see it.

Alvian, having watched his son writhing in the driveway and now facing a man whose family name was engraved on half the industries in the continent, had lowered his voice and spread his hands with the particular gesture of a man suggesting a private arrangement. ’No courts. No publicity. Just—compensation. Internal.’

Cruxius looked at him.

For a moment he said nothing.

Then he unfolded his left sleeve cuff. Folded it up past the elbow, neat, unhurried. Then the right.

And then he hit Alvian in the solar plexus.

Not a swing—a punch. Straight and compact, fist driving in with the practiced economy of a man who’d done it before and known exactly where to aim.

"’KHUCHKK—!’"

Alvian folded. Hands clutching his chest, saliva hitting the driveway, knees finding the ground in stages—first one, then the other. A nearby nurse dove forward to catch him before his face followed.

Cruxius straightened. Looked at his knuckles once. Then, without turning around, raised one hand behind him—a lazy wave, directed nowhere in particular, or maybe everywhere.

’Handle yourselves. I’ll be inside.’

Seleyena stood frozen at the hospital entrance. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Her mouth was slightly open.

She had expected a legal threat. A corporate ultimatum. The sophisticated financial violence of a man with resources that could make an institution disappear overnight.

She had not expected ’that.’

"’D-damn him,’" Thalia breathed beside her, staring back at the scene with wide eyes. She’d watched the punch land. Watched Alvian go down. Watched Cruxius stand over the dean of a private hospital in broad daylight like it was an errand he’d completed.

Then she caught the edge of that smirk—just barely, as he turned. The corner of his mouth. The specific quality of it.

Meant for her to see.

’This is what I do for you.’

Her chest did something she didn’t have a name for and immediately chose not to examine. She turned away and pulled Seleyena through the doors.

Behind them, the glass slid shut.

The cool hospital air enclosed them—sterile, controlled, the scent of linen and antiseptic and everything quiet and procedural that was the opposite of the driveway they’d just left.

Seleyena walked in silence for a few seconds.

’Cruxius Blac,’ she thought.

She’d come into this morning knowing one version of him—the one Jenny had framed, the one Jake had bragged about, the sex fiend, the rabbit, the predator who’d been handed an innocent girl like a gift.

She was leaving that version behind now.

Not replacing it with something better, necessarily. The marks on Thalia’s neck were real. Whatever had happened in that private jet or that backseat wasn’t simple.

But he’d brought her here. He’d named the drug. He’d hit Alvian for trying to bury it. And he’d looked at Seleyena—’specifically’ at Seleyena—and said her name, and trusted her to take Thalia where she needed to go.

Like he’d already read the room. Like he’d already decided she was worth trusting.

’Are you a criminal,’ she thought at the ghost of him still visible through the glass, ’or something else entirely.’

The doors didn’t answer.

Thalia exhaled—long, ragged, like something that had been held too tight for too long finally finding a seam to escape through.

"’Thank you,’" she said. Not to the doctor. Just—to the air. To the quiet. To the cold floor under her heels.

Seleyena looked at her.

"’Come on,’" she said. Steady. Gentle. "’Let’s start with the basics.’"