About six hours later, the secretary was declared to have successfully given birth to a healthy baby boy to the Aldebaran head's happiness.
Throughout the entire wait, Nile was wracking his brain on a whole bunch of ways to pacify his wife who kept throwing more and more unjustified accusations toward him. But rather than feeling slightly wronged, Nile always maintained a stoic expression characteristic of the original as he attended to her demands with eyes full of doting.
The boy was named Samuel before immediately being transported to the nursery after his parents had seen enough of him.
When he was being carried out, Alex couldn't help but wrinkle her brows at how ugly and raisin-like the baby was.
Her little baby would definitely be a thousand times cuter than that.
As the people who were formerly waiting in the hallway for the delivery to finally finish filtered into the room, they were met with the Aldebaran head sitting with a loving look beside the secretary on his own chair. His hand wrapped warmly around her own as his other hand gently caressed the woman's flushed cheek.
Nile and Alex showed no particular interest or reaction to the scene while Alice and the mistress's perfect masks showed signs of cracking.
Only when the head realized others had entered the room did he look up and paste on his flattering business smile as he stalked his way to Nile, the man he was looking forward to seeing the most that day.
Holding out his hand, his booming voice resounded in the room, "Nile! Thank you for taking your time to come today, I appreciate it."
But who was Nile? He kept his arm wrapped around Alex while his free hand remained tucked securely in his pant pocket. However, to make it known that he had indeed heard and noticed the other man's gesture he directed his blank gaze to the outstretched hand in front of him.
Knowing that the Betelgeuse heir was trying to make things difficult for him, the head could only awkwardly retract his hand and force a dry laugh.
Then he glared at Alex, who he assumed told Nile only bad things about himself and ruining their first impression of each other.
He was also trying to threaten her with his eyes to introduce them to each other since Nile was obviously not having it done on his own.
Unfortunately Alex could care less about what someone else wanted her to do, so she pretended to be clueless as she blinked her eyes that were staring back into her "father's."
To the head's surprise, instead of becoming annoyed by her lack of an introduction, Nile smiled! Infuriated, the slag dad really wanted to hit something!
Thankfully he had a more conscientious daughter, as Alice took it up for herself to introduce Nile. She didn't have the guts to hold his arm or even get close to the man, but it was just an introduction so she didn't think there was anything wrong with doing so from a distance.
"Dad, this is Nile from the Betelgeuse military family. Nile, this is my dad, Saul Aldebaran," she batted her lashes shyly with a sickeningly sweet smile when she turned to Nile to introduce the man to her father.
After that was done, Saul couldn't hide the proud smile creeping up his face but as to why he felt so smug nobody knew.
On the other hand, the slowly lifting mood in the room was instantly thrown back down as Nile just stood in silence refusing to acknowledge anyone else aside from the girl in his arms.
By this point, of course Saul knew that Alex had brought Nile to ruin the celebratory birth day of his first son! His face turned a shade of red in anger as his figure shook and he was about to drive his ungrateful eldest daughter out of the room.
It seemed he totally forgot that he was the one who invited trouble onto himself otherwise the duo would never have stepped into the hospital that day. Well, that's what Nile what like to say but in all actuality even if they weren't called, his bored and cunning wife probably would have dragged him over to crash the party anyway.
"Uh, anyway," the slag man tried his best to reign in the negative emotions he was feeling regarding his disgraceful daughter.
"Since you're here, Mr. Betelgeuse, let's get to know each other as future in-laws?"
As soon as he finished speaking the last part of his sentence, Alex's chiming laughter rang throughout the enclosed room.
"Oh, dad. We came here today to cut ties, not make new ones."
The second word was laced with heavy sarcasm as she disdainfully eyed the scum of a father up and down two times before having her vision blocked by a large and warm hand.
"Stop looking at other men. You already have me," Nile pouted, though his face still remained as expressionless as ever but one could clearly identify the aggrieved tone of his voice.
His statement caused two of the involved parties to want to cough blood and Saul as one of them didn't even have the energy to rebuke Alex after.
Alex wasn't actually checking out her own "father." Obviously, he couldn't meet her standards anyway it was just that she was wondering aside from his status and wealth what other aspect of his was able to attract the fairer sex?
She knew that she was unfortunately his blood-related daughter because the red hair was a distinctive trait of the Aldebaran house while her pale blue eyes came from her mother.
Not that it mattered. In the end, they really did show up just to cut ties with the Aldebaran family. It was laughable that Saul called them future in-laws when in fact the two of them were already married for months. Too bad he could never reap the benefits of their marriage.
That was probably enough to make him regret but for Alex and Nile that was just the beginning.
Aside from being extremely bored, they felt that any of the originals' enemies could be future threats to their child so they planned to get rid of all of them.
It was just the Rigel and Aldebaran families bad luck that they had antagonized Alex.
As for the Fomalhaut and Betelgeuse households, they were wise to stay on the sidelines the entire time. Well, aside from the fidgety Fomalhaut matriarch who disliked Alex for throwing her daughter to her death.
But out of consideration for the original Nile's friendship with Duke, and the fact that Duke would be able to keep his mother in check, they decided not to touch the Fomalhaut family.
And the duo knew that it was even more dangerous to keep a jealous woman around--namely, Alice.
While she really hadn't done anything yet, the fact that she was calculating ways to take over the Aldebaran family by using Nile was already reason enough to consider her a threat--albeit tiny--towards their child's survival.
Hell, the part where she had killed the baby in Alex's delusion was actually the most realistic part of it.
Seeing as Alex was leaving the family, Alice's eyes lit up. This meant that her father would support her own pursuit for Nile!
Sure enough, Saul had already switched from being uninterested in who Nile ended up with to siding with Alice as the more obedient daughter.
He had no hopes for trying to keep Alex from leaving the family since she had always been a disappointment due to her rebellious nature.
In truth, if Alex was truly rebellious she would have long since left the Aldebaran family and she never would have had to be suppressed by Alice in the past. But the head would never understand, and it's not like he cared to either.
"If that's the case, then you don't have the right to marry into a higher status anymore." He smugly asserted, then he turned to Nile with an accommodating smile as he tried to push Alice closer to him, "On the other hand, Alice is still an Aldebaran. My pride--"
Alex burst out into mock laughter before he could finish, making the father-daughter pair's faces darken simultaneously. Nile also backed away, maintaining the two-meter distance he'd formerly promised.
This brainless duo seriously rendered one speechless. As if it wasn't obvious enough, Nile clearly had no interest in the Aldebaran name or status.
It actually made more sense that as the two families were long standing enemies that the Betelgeuse would be more interested in a girl unrelated to the Aldebaran family!
While his parents really didn't care who he married as long as they could have their grandchildren, it would actually be the best thing if she wasn't related to the Aldebaran family just because of old hatreds.
Unfortunately while it was understandable that Alice wouldn't take that into consideration, but for Saul to disregard the old enmities between families only further strengthened the claim that he was a very incompetent leader.
"You are bringing up the family name to someone from the Betelgeuse family, Mr. Aldebaran. Think about it for just a second."
She politely reminded him.
In response, Saul's face turned from black to white to red and back and forth until he couldn't take the humiliation anymore as he pointed at Alex with a shaky finger,
"Y-you! Obviously, I want to mend the relationship between the two families!"
His poor attempt at trying to save his face knocked the smile right off of Alex's face as she turned serious,
"Accumulated hatred for over hundreds of years can't be resolved just like that, Mr. Aldebaran. And," she was already bored of the disappointing show, so she just decided to enlighten everyone before dragging Nile out of the hospital alongside herself, "We've already been married for months. Just give up."
Nile had on a silly smile as he was "possessively" pulled away from the wolves on the way out.
Throughout the entire exchange, Alice was confused. What was that about past enmities?! Why didn't she know about any of that?
Her desires clashed with each other as she wanted to become the next head of the Aldebaran family but Nile was a very enticing trophy. In the end, she was stuck with her own inner conflict and didn't even notice when Alex and Nile had left. She didn't even hear that Nile and Alex had already married and tied the knot.
The mistress was busy glaring at the secretary the entire time as she schemed new plans in her mind regarding that hateful son of hers, while the secretary was at first hopeful that Nile would bless her son by siding with him.
She was confident in her looks and experience as she was able to catch the Aldebaran head, so she was ready to use her charms to entice the younger man to help her son out. Unfortunately they left without even glancing her way...
As for the Aldebaran head, the moment he heard that the two had already married, he was regretful. The thought of all of those military resources, status, and wealth, slipping right through his fingers along with his ex-daughter left him standing frozen in a daze as he continued staring off towards the direction the couple had left.