Chapter 223: Chapter 223: Little Haven

It was a beautiful day in Solaria City.

The sky above gleamed a soft blue, and sunlight spilled across the glimmering skyline, massive glass towers, gleaming metal spires, and ultramodern structures that proudly represented humanity’s rebirth after the Great War. The city was a living monument to human resilience and ambition, rebuilt from ashes to showcase strength.

Yet all that beauty was dulled by the city’s most persistent enemy, traffic.

The streets below were a mess of honking horns, screeching tires, and irritable drivers leaning out of windows to shout at one another. It was lunchtime, the dreaded hour when nearly every office worker decided that they had to be somewhere right now, restaurants, cafés, food stalls, you name it.

But through all this chaos, one person sliced through effortlessly.

A red scooter zipped and weaved between the sluggish lines of traffic like a phantom, bypassing everything in its path. The driver leaned forward with practiced ease, turning the handles sharply to slip between two cars with barely an inch of clearance. Drivers cursed and honked in irritation as he passed, but the rider didn’t even slow down.

It was Mika.

He wore a casual dark jacket over a white T-shirt, jeans, and a helmet. His scooter weaved through the gaps between vehicles, slipping past bumpers and side mirrors with the kind of precision that came only from someone utterly confident in his reflexes.

Horns blared all around him, but he paid no mind, one hand casually resting on the handlebar as he accelerated toward his destination.

It had been a few days since he had "changed". And in those few days, he had made sure the house was never quiet.

From morning to night, Mika had been relentlessly pursuing Yelena.

He didn’t give her a moment’s peace.

Whether it was while she was cooking, tending to the garden, or simply walking through the hallway, Mika always seemed to appear at the worst—or best, possible time, with that teasing smile on his face and words and actions that made her heart race and her temper flare.

He flirted shamelessly, closing the distance between them whenever he could, whispering in her ear, touching her hair, her hand, her waist, her breasts, her butt, wherever he could get away with.

At first, Yelena tried her best to avoid him. She kept her distance, hid in her room, and even tried changing her routines so she wouldn’t cross paths with him.

But no matter how carefully she planned, Mika always found her. And when he did, he was merciless.

Sometimes, he’d corner her playfully against the wall and steal a kiss before she could react. Other times, he’d sneak up behind her in the kitchen, wrapping his arms around her waist while grinding against her that made her knees weak.

Once, he even caught her as she was leaving the shower...and made her put her clothes back on while she watched.

Of course, she managed to stop him from going too far each time.

But even she knew that every close encounter chipped away at her resistance, little by little.

And Mika could feel it.

He could feel her changing, her walls weakening, her pulse quickening when he came near, her breath catching at the smallest touch.

It wasn’t victory yet, but it was progress. And that was enough to make him savor every moment.

The other pleasant surprise was Charlotte.

After the last incident and Mika’s clear warning, she had finally stopped interfering. Whether it was guilt or acceptance, she no longer tried to get between them.

She didn’t scold him or question him anymore. She simply...ignored it. Or pretended to.

If her mother happened to be blushing and flustered because of Mika’s antics, Charlotte would just sigh and scroll through her tablet. Sometimes, she even smiled faintly, as if she’d resigned herself to the inevitable.

That alone made Mika’s plan unfold perfectly.

Piece by piece, everything was falling into place.

But today...today wasn’t about the two of them.

As much as he enjoyed his little ’domestic project’ there was something else that demanded his attention.

Today, he had a meeting.

His lips curved into a faint smile as he took a sharp turn, swerving neatly between two long vehicles.

He wasn’t heading to a restaurant, or the market, or anywhere near home.

He was going to meet her.

Fauna.

Anya’s mother.

The Plague Maiden.

Even saying her name carried weight, a chilling kind of reverence, mixed with unease. She was a legend and a nightmare, wrapped in one. Her name alone evoked the kind of respect and fear usually reserved for calamities.

And for Mika, this wasn’t just a casual visit.

Today, Mika was going to her hospital to get some tests done.

You see, ever since the near-fatal truck accident with Charlotte, Yelena had been insistent that he get a full physical checkup to ensure his body was completely fine.

Mika had tried to brush it off, but he couldn’t ignore it after what the phonecall Yelena had made.

The previous night, when Mika had started acting strangely before he dramatically ’fainted,’ Yelena had actually called Fauna for medical advice.

And when Mika fell off the bed, Yelena completely forgot about the call, leaving it open.

So, Fauna, who answered, heard only the frantic, muffled screams of Yelena and Charlotte repeatedly shouting Mika’s name.

To Fauna, that had sounded like a crisis, a fatal one. She had dropped everything she was doing and immediately boarded an express craft halfway across the world to reach them.

The Plague Maiden didn’t hesitate when it came to family.

But in all the confusion, when Mika had finally stabilized, Yelena remembered the call too late. She’d scrambled to send a follow-up message through Charlotte, telling Fauna everything was fine, completely fine, and that there was no need for her to come.

Fauna, halfway through her flight and dealing with a global-level medical emergency on her end, had reluctantly turned back.

But she didn’t forget.

The very next day, she called Yelena herself, her voice soft but heavy with suspicion.

"What happened, Yelena? I heard screaming...What happened to my baby boy, Mika?!"

Yelena, heart racing, had managed to keep her voice calm. "Nothing serious, Fauna. Mika just had a fever, a strange one. We panicked, that’s all. He’s fine now."

Yelena, of course, had simply made up a lie, claiming Mika had a high fever and was acting strange due to the illness. There was no way she could tell the truth about their incestuous activities.

Fauna hadn’t been convinced, of course. A fever didn’t sound like something that would make Yelena scream like that.

But she let it go, outwardly.

Inwardly, she had already made her decision: she would get the truth out of Mika herself and one thing led to another.

And now, a few days later, here Mika was, heading to her hospital for a routine checkup.

At least, that was what Yelena believed.

But Mika had no such intention of keeping it routine and was going to use this opportunity to work on her as well.

He hadn’t seen her in quite some time, but she wasn’t the sort of woman anyone could forget.

In the old days, the mere mention of visiting her would have made him hesitate.

Not out of fear, Fauna wasn’t frightening in that way.

Rather, she was...too much. Overbearing in her affection, smothering in her love.

If Yelena was stern warmth and Nadia was easy companionship, Fauna was pure intensity—the kind of woman who treated everyone she loved like a fragile, precious child. Especially Mika.

She had always pampered him, fussed over him, hugged him till he couldn’t breathe, and drowned him in endearments that made even Yelena sigh in exasperation.

There were stories, many of them. Like the time she’d insisted he stay in her home for a week because he had a scratch on his hand, or the time she’d sent him a care package the size of a small car because he’d caught a mild cold.

But Mika now wasn’t the same as before. He wasn’t shy, or hesitant. He wasn’t going to squirm under her affection.

He was going to use it.

Because he needed to widen his scope, not just Yelena—but the others too. And what better start than Fauna herself?

As he turned a corner and slowed down, the skyline shifted, and there it was.

Little Haven Medical Centre.

The name didn’t do it justice.

The building was colossal, a sweeping complex of glass and white steel, its architecture so pristine and modern that it could easily be mistaken for a luxury mall or a grand palace.

Lush green gardens surrounded the main structure, filled with flowers that shimmered faintly in the sunlight.

The front plaza had fountains shaped like angelic wings, their misty spray cooling the air as patients and visitors moved between the entrances.

Inside, the hospital was unlike any other.

It wasn’t white and cold, it was alive.

The lobby alone was larger than a stadium, filled with warm light, polished marble, and the gentle hum of ambient music meant to calm even the most anxious patients.

Shops lined the interior walkways, cafés, bookstores, even small boutiques.

On the upper levels, restaurants served food so exquisite it could rival Solaria’s top culinary districts.

And above all that, atop the massive structure, a rooftop garden spread out like a paradise in the sky, where patients could walk, relax, and recover beneath the open air.

It wasn’t a hospital. It was a haven. Just as its name promised.

And the best part?

It was all free.

No fees. No insurance. No bureaucracy.

Fauna had made sure of that.

Her medical empire, her network of hospitals across the world, ran entirely on her own wealth, powered by the technologies she’d helped develop and the influence she wielded as one of the battle angels.

To her, medicine was sacred. A right, not a privilege.

"Life is not a commodity. It’s a promise." She had once said in an interview.

That was Fauna.

The Plague Maiden, the woman who once stood in the midst of pestilence and death, cleansing the sick and the dying, healing entire cities at the cost of her own strength.

To the people, she was a saint, the Mother of All Children, the Guardian of Life. Her hospitals treated more than ninety percent of the world’s population, and yet she never charged a single cent.

She was kindness incarnate. Compassion given form.

And Mika...smiled to himself as he parked his scooter near the front gate.

Because he knew something most of the world didn’t.

Behind that divine kindness and boundless compassion—Fauna had another side, one that Mika didn’t plan to awaken.

After all, no matter how saintly someone might appear...every saint has a point where kindness turns into something far more human.