From Villain to Virtual Sweetheart: The Fake Heir's Grand Scheme(BL)-Chapter 749: The One Who Didn’t Deserve It

Micah offered a quiet farewell to both Patric and Ilyas, his voice measured and controlled despite the turbulence stirring within him, before turning to follow after Darcy, who had already begun making his way down the corridor toward the hospital cafeteria. His footsteps fell into rhythm behind him, neither hurried nor slow, as though he were carefully maintaining a fragile sense of composure that threatened to unravel at any given moment.

The hour was well past midnight. It was nearing three in the morning, a time when the world beyond the hospital walls had long since fallen into silence. Outside, the streets would be empty, the glow of storefronts extinguished, and every nearby restaurant or catering service shuttered until daylight returned. The usual bustle of life had faded entirely, leaving only the sterile, artificial stillness of the hospital to fill the void.

Under such circumstances, their options were limited. At best, they would find pre-packaged sandwiches sitting behind refrigerated glass, or perhaps lukewarm soup that had been kept available for late-night visitors and exhausted staff. It was hardly appetising, yet neither of them seemed in a position to be concerned with such trivial matters. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Micah’s phone had vibrated not long ago with a message from Clyde, informing him that he had gone to the police station to handle matters personally. The briefness of the message did little to ease the tension that lingered in Micah’s chest. If anything, it only added another layer of unease, a reminder that the situation had escalated far beyond what he had anticipated.

It seemed Clyde had been disappointed in him too. Of course he would. Seeing all four of his exes, out of the blue, lined up in front of him... who could remain indifferent?

Micah sighed inwardly.

The dim corridor stretched ahead in silence, like a tunnel leading to the execution chamber.

Micah’s gaze settled upon Darcy’s back as he walked several steps ahead, his figure outlined by the dim, artificial lighting.

There was something striking about the way Darcy carried himself, even in such circumstances. His posture remained upright and composed, his back straight with an almost unyielding sharpness, as though he refused to allow the weight of the situation to visibly bend him. His shoulders were squared, firm yet not overly rigid, tapering down into a slender waist that gave his silhouette a quiet elegance. His black hair, which had grown slightly longer than before, brushed softly against the nape of his neck, lending him a somewhat softer appearance that contrasted faintly with the tension in his stance.

"Why were they there? Did they harass you again?" Darcy asked suddenly, his voice calm and even, though there was an undercurrent of concern that had not been entirely concealed.

Micah’s expression cracked, the question struck deeper than he allowed himself to feel. "No," he replied without hesitation, the lie forming smoothly upon his lips as though it had already been prepared. "I was feeling anxious when I couldn’t find Ilyas, so I contacted Leo. I asked whether he knew who Ilyas had been speaking with.... That’s why he knew I was here..."

His voice faltered at the end.

Fuck. Micah cursed at himself. He was trying so hard to explain. Wasn’t that basically screaming "Guilty Conscience"?

The words he uttered sounded reasonable, believable even, yet they left a bitter taste in his mouth.

He couldn’t tell the truth, not without unravelling far more than he was prepared to explain. If he admitted that he had already been on the phone at the moment he realised Ilyas had gone missing, questions would inevitably follow. Why had he been on call with Leo? Why had he reached out to him? And more importantly, how could he justify being in contact with Leo at such a time?

Would Darcy not begin to question him? Would he not suspect that Micah had been maintaining some form of connection with those individuals behind his back?

Even if Micah attempted to frame it as an act done for Darcy’s sake, it would not sit well. No one desired to be pitied. No one wished to hear that their tormentor had sought forgiveness only because someone else had forced their hand. Such knowledge would not bring comfort, it would only deepen the humiliation.

Micah’s eyes stung faintly, a subtle redness creeping into them as he lowered his gaze slightly. He pressed his teeth against his bottom lip, a small, unconscious gesture betraying the distress he worked so hard to conceal.

Darcy clicked his tongue in mild irritation. "Tsk. Let me guess," he muttered, his tone sharpening just slightly. "He did not know anything. Completely useless. And now they show up here, pretending to care. Parasites."

Micah did not respond.

His thoughts had already drifted elsewhere, drawn inexorably back to the image of Ilyas lying motionless upon that dirty floor of the vehicle, bound and vulnerable. The sight lingered vividly in his mind, refusing to fade no matter how much he wished to push it away.

He had never truly witnessed, with his own eyes, the full extent of what had been done to Darcy in the past. The closest he had come was during his second life, when he had stumbled upon those videos stored on Leo’s laptop. Even then, what he had seen had only been fragments, distorted glimpses of cruelty that failed to fully capture the depth of what Darcy had endured.

And that had not even been the worst of it.

The memory surfaced unbidden, sharp and unforgiving. The time Darcy had been taken. The time he had been locked away in that suffocatingly dark room. The time Aidan had...

Micah’s breath faltered abruptly, his chest tightening as though an invisible force had wrapped itself around his lungs.

If anything that had happened to Ilyas bore even the slightest resemblance to that...

His blood ran cold.

A tremor passed through him as he lifted a hand to his chest, fingers pressing instinctively against his heart as though he could steady its erratic rhythm through sheer force. The thought alone was enough to send a wave of nausea rising within him, his stomach twisting painfully as images he did not wish to imagine forced their way into his mind.

Those events, those moments of unspeakable cruelty, circled endlessly within his thoughts like vultures, refusing to release their hold.

Why?

The question rose within him again and again, growing louder with each repetition until it became almost unbearable.

Why had it been Darcy?

Why had someone like him, someone loyal, someone decent, someone who had done nothing to deserve such a fate, been subjected to that kind of treatment?

Micah’s chest ached, a suffocating pressure building within it as though his own emotions were turning against him, tearing him apart from the inside. His throat tightened, his vision blurring faintly as the urge to cry clawed at him with relentless persistence.

He wanted to shout. He wanted to demand answers from a world that had never offered him any.

Why would anyone allow this to happen?

Why would fate, or whatever cruel force governed their lives, choose someone like Darcy as its victim?

The thought twisted violently within him, shifting, distorting, until it settled into something far more corrosive.

It was his fault. The realisation struck with brutal clarity, leaving no room for denial. It should have been him.

He was the one who should have suffered. He was the one who had placed his trust in that system, who had believed, foolishly, that things would unfold as they were meant to, that the roles assigned to them would not stray too far from their intended paths.

What a naive, idiotic belief that had been.

His hands curled slightly at his sides, fingers trembling faintly as the weight of his guilt bore down upon him with crushing force.

Why Darcy?

Why had a young man who was loyal, smart, and quietly kind, been reduced to nothing more than a plaything in the hands of those four men?

The injustice of it burned within Micah like a slow, consuming fire, one that showed no signs of extinguishing itself.

All of the emotions he had suppressed, anger, grief, regret, self-loathing, rose to the surface at once, colliding violently within the confines of his mind. There was no longer any space to contain them, no barrier strong enough to hold them back.

They erupted all at once, overwhelming him completely.

And beneath it all, heavier than anything else, was the guilt.

It settled deep within his chest, suffocating and inescapable, as though it had taken root within him and would never again loosen its grip.