Nine Hot Therians and Their Only One Queen novel Chapter 949

Chapter 949 Indifference

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Lange noticed Emma’s continued silence, her expression giving nothing away, and panic began creeping into his own chest.

He assumed Emma simply didn’t believe him, that she’d genuinely fallen for the charms of this deceptively beautiful, lowborn

schemer.

It wouldn’t matter much if Emma simply wasn’t interested in him.

But if Emma actually distrusted him, thought less of him as a person because of this, and grew to despise him, he couldn’t continue working alongside his father under Silas after that.

That outcome was completely unacceptable.

“Ms. Emma, you have to believe me! He really is a thief!”

The more Lange thought about it, the more desperate he became, and in an attempt to prove his innocence, he reached out and grabbed a fistful of Rafael’s shirt.

“Ms. Emma, I’ll search him myself right now and show you exactly what he stole.”

He needed to prove, beyond any doubt, that he hadn’t been lying, that he was truly the victim here.

As he spoke, he began tearing at Rafael’s clothing.

“Stop right there!”

Just as Lange started–ripping at Rafael’s shirt, Aria stepped forward from behind the ice wall.

“Lange, let him go.”

“Ms. Aria?”

Lange froze, his hands stilling as he turned toward her, clearly frustrated.

“Ms. Aria, please don’t let this male’s pretty face fool you. He genuinely isn’t good person.”

The instant Rafael saw that it was Aria who’d come to his defense, a flicker of darkness passed through the depths of his eyes.

His rescuer had turned out to be Aria after all, not Emma, the outcome he’d been counting on.

“Ms. Aria…”

Rafael lifted his gaze toward her, his frail body trembling violently, his tangled silver hair falling loose across his shoulders with every movement, making his ghostly pale face look even more drained of color.

He didn’t even glance at Lange, keeping his tear filled, glasslike eyes fixed entirely on Aria, his voice weak enough to suggest he might stop breathing at any moment.

“I didn’t… I truly never stole anything from him. I know my status is far too low for me to belong in a grand hall like this.

“But all I wanted was to reclaim the star coins that were rightfully mine, to buy medicine for my dying brother. If… if you insist on condemning me with these baseless accusations, then I…”

1/3

1:25 pm

Chapter 949 Indifference

+20 Free Coins

As though the humiliation and physical agony had finally become too much to bear, he descended into another violent, wracking cough, and thick crimson blood poured from the corner of his mouth in heavy streams, staining his already ruined white shirt an even more jarring shade of red.

Anyone looking at him in that moment would have seen nothing but a pitiful soul, driven to the edge of despair by the cruelty of the powerful, refusing to break yet powerless to fight back.

But in that same instant, as he lowered his head, a strange, feverish flush colored the corners of Rafael’s eyes, and he tilted his face slightly, letting those eyes, brimming with heartbreak and despair, slip past the freezing, unforgiving wall of ice to find Emma standing behind it.

That gaze carried the weight of a man tormented by an unfair fate, along with a desperate, silent plea directed at someone he believed held real power over this situation.

He was gambling everything on this one moment.

He was betting on Emma’s sympathy as a human female.

No matter how composed she’d remained until now, surely facing a scene this close to death, her mind, shaped by growing up on some peaceful, sheltered world, would eventually awaken some deep, protective instinct toward the weak.

If Emma showed even the faintest flicker of pity, if she uttered even a single word in his defense, then his entire plan would already be halfway won.

“Stop pretending to be pitiful.”

Lange’s face had turned green with fury, and he jabbed a finger at Rafael, shouting furiously.

“You filthy, lowborn creature, you’re putting on quite the performance. If I’ve wronged you in any way, I’ll take my own head.”

He turned back toward Emma and Aria, desperate to clear his own name.

“My ladies, my temper may run hot, but I would never stoop to stealing star coins from some lowborn man, especially not inside the Executive Department’s own building. If word of that ever got out, how could my family maintain any standing at all?”

“It was him.” Lange pointed accusingly at Rafael. “He’s the one who stole my storage button first.”

The standoff hung heavy in the air, and the crowd of onlookers kept growing larger by the second.

Rafael coughed up another mouthful of blood, his expression twisting with despair as he squeezed his eyes shut, as though Lange’s accusation had pushed him right to the edge of a cliff.

“I never stole anything… I truly never did…”

His shoulders shook violently, and he suddenly snapped his eyes open, those glassy, broken, humiliated eyes locking onto Lange with unwavering intensity, his voice hoarse but carrying a note of reckless, all or nothing resolve.

“If you insist on humiliating me by branding me a thief in front of everyone and stripping me bare in public…

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