Chapter 167

Chapter 167

Sawyer's doctor came by twice a week, and every time, he would stay in the study for a long while and walk out with a tight, ugly look on his face.

She had asked about it once. Sawyer hadn't answered; he had only smiled and steered the conversation away. After that, she stopped asking.

She just watched. She watched his complexion grow worse and worse, watched him cough more and more often, and watched the way he would suddenly go blank sometimes, his pupils unfocused and empty.

That afternoon, Sawyer called her into the study. He was sitting at the desk with a pile of documents spread out in front of him, a bottle of pills and a glass of water at his elbow. When he saw Elizabeth come in, he slid the pill bottle into a drawer and pointed at the chair across from him. "Sit."

Elizabeth sat down and watched him push the documents toward her, one by one.

"These are The Scott family's assets in Italy, real estate, vineyards, a shipping company, and several overseas investments. These are the share transfer agreements. I've already signed. All you need to do is sign your name."

Elizabeth froze. She looked at the documents, then at Sawyer, suddenly at a loss for words.

Sawyer leaned back in his chair and looked at her, the corners of his mouth tilted in a faint smile. "What, did I scare you?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"The literal meaning." He picked up the top document and flipped through it. "These assets have always belonged to the Scott family. You're the Scott family's blood. Naturally, you're the one who should inherit them."

Elizabeth remained silent for a long time. "Sawyer, what are you really trying to do?"

Sawyer looked at her, and there was something in his eyes she couldn't read. Not calculation, not testing her, but something closer to exhaustion.

"Elizabeth," he said, his voice much lower than usual, "do you know why I was able to win that war?"

Elizabeth didn't answer.

"Because I was more ruthless than they were." His tone was very calm, as if he were telling someone else's story. "I didn't blink when I killed people. I never left anyone a way out when I set a trap. I pushed myself harder than I pushed anyone else. And the price?" 

He lowered his head and looked down at his own hands. They were long-fingered and pale, the joints clean and well-shaped, but right now they were trembling ever so slightly. "My body collapsed a long time ago. All the injuries over the years, the poison, the drugs—they don't just disappear. They eat away at you, day after day, until there's nothing left."

He raised his head and looked at Elizabeth. There was still a smile on his lips, but there was a nameless sorrow folded inside it. "Elizabeth, I probably don't have much time left."

Elizabeth's breath hitched for a second. She stared at him—at his bloodless face, his cracked lips, the dark bruised shadows under his eyes that never seemed to fade—and suddenly felt that he might actually be telling the truth.

She should have seen it earlier. Someone who had been poisoned, hunted, and targeted for assassination since he was five years old, someone who had lived on the edge of a blade for more than twenty years—how could his body possibly still be intact?

"Those times when I lose it," Sawyer's voice dropped even lower, "It's because of the hallucinogens. Back then I was hurt too badly. I couldn't survive without the drugs, and once I started, I got addicted. I can't quit them, and I don't even want to."

He paused, let out a self-mocking little laugh. "Sometimes I can't tell whether it's the drugs that make me crazy or if I was a lunatic to begin with."

Elizabeth sat there, her fingers twisting tightly in the hem of her dress. She wanted to say something, but her throat felt blocked, and she couldn't force out a single word.

Sawyer looked at her, then suddenly reached out and gently patted the back of her hand. "Don't look at me like that. I don't need your pity."

"I'm not pitying you." Elizabeth's voice was hoarse. "I just…"

She didn't finish.

Sawyer smiled, let go of her hand, and pushed the documents closer to her again. "Sign them. These things will be yours sooner or later."

Elizabeth was quiet for a long time.

Then she picked up the pen and signed her name on each document. She didn't do it because she coveted those assets; she did it because she knew that if she didn't, Sawyer would grow suspicious.

A woman who had given up on Jacob, a woman who had decided to stay in Italy, had no reason to refuse.

Sawyer watched her sign the last document and nodded, satisfied. "By the way, the day after tomorrow is my birthday."

Elizabeth looked up.

"You don't have to prepare anything," he said. "I don't want a party. Just the three of us, having dinner."

He stood up and walked to the window, turning his back to her, his voice very soft. "It might be my last birthday. I want to spend it with family."

Elizabeth looked at his back—the back that had always been ramrod straight—and was startled to find it slightly hunched.

She stood up and walked over to stand beside him, speaking softly. "Okay. I'll spend it with you."

Sawyer turned his head and looked at her, and smiled.

On his birthday, Sawyer didn't throw a party. The entire castle was quiet, with only the kitchen busy at work.

Elizabeth went to the greenhouse herself, cut a bouquet of white roses, tied them with a ribbon, and set them on the dining room table. Jack drew a picture—a wobbly little castle with three stick figures holding hands at the gate, one tall, one shorter, one even shorter. On the back of the picture he scrawled a line in crooked letters: [Uncle Sawyer, happy birthday.]

When Sawyer saw the drawing, he stared at it for a long time. Then he crouched down, picked Jack up, and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you, Jack."

Jack wrapped his arms around his neck, his eyes bending into crescent moons as he grinned. "Uncle Sawyer, I picked the cake! Strawberry! Mom said you love strawberries!"

Sawyer glanced at Elizabeth, something flickering in his eyes. "Yeah, Uncle Sawyer loves strawberries the most."

At dinner, Sawyer talked more than he usually did. He put food on Jack's plate, ladled soup for Elizabeth, told stories from his childhood, talked about which room in the castle was haunted, and how that old tree in the garden was planted by Ryder. He laughed a lot and seemed genuinely happy, but beneath the smile there was always the sense that he was hiding something.

After they finished eating, Jack got sleepy and was taken off to bed by the nanny.

Sawyer asked Elizabeth to come to the study. He opened a hidden compartment in the bookcase and took out a safe. It wasn't big— just a solid black box with a square, old-fashioned shape, clearly several years old. He set it on the desk and pushed it toward Elizabeth.

"This is what our father left you," he said.

Elizabeth looked at the safe without moving. "What's inside?"

Sawyer shook his head. "I don't know. On his deathbed, he gave it to me and told me to pass it on to you. He said you're the only one who knows the code."

"Me?" Elizabeth frowned. "I've never seen this thing before. How could I know the code?"

Sawyer smiled faintly. "Maybe he knew you'd figure it out. Maybe he wanted you to. Either way..." he patted the safe, "It's yours now. If you can open it, whatever's inside is yours. If you can't, then just treat it as a keepsake."

He turned away and picked up his jacket. "I've got an event tonight. I might be back late. You don't have to wait up."

Elizabeth watched him walk toward the door, then suddenly called out, "Sawyer."

He stopped and looked back.

"Happy birthday."

Sawyer was stunned for a second, then smiled. There was a kind of indescribable gentleness in that smile. "Thank you."

When the door closed, Elizabeth was alone in the study, staring at the black safe. She crouched down and examined it carefully—no fingerprint reader, no keypad, only an old-style numbered dial with the digits from 0 to 9. A six-digit code. She tried Hughes's birthday. Wrong. She tried her own birthday. Wrong. She tried her mother's birthday. Wrong again.

She tried many combinations, and every one was wrong. Leaning her back against the leg of the desk, she stared at the safe, her mind racing. Sawyer had said the code was known only to her. But what did she know? She knew nothing.

She didn't know where she came from, didn't know her mother's past, didn't know anything about the grudges and entanglements between Hughes and The Scott family.

Elizabeth felt as if she had fallen into a puzzle, the whole world gone quiet.

The window suddenly rattled.