Chapter 71 : Nigel, Don’t Hit Allison
Back in middle school, he had once fractured a bone while playing basketball. Allison had made him a crude herbal plaster. It looked ugly and old-fashioned, but it worked better than anything the hospital gave him. It didn't hurt at all.
Ronan glanced at the door. Allison was in this hospital too. Why hadn’t she come to see him?
At the same time, Jareth was changing his bandages in another room, while Allison wandered the hallway outside.
From a distance, the voices of Nigel and Sherrie drifted closer.
Nigel was saying, “The Rogers family does have a formula for pain relief, but only Allison knows how to make it.”
Sherrie said anxiously, “Maybe we should call the police, find Allison, and have her treat Ronan. That should be the priority right now…”
Nigel dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “Forget it. She probably heard about your engagement and hid on purpose, thinking it would make us anxious. If we ignore her, she’ll come crawling back in a few days.”
Sherrie let out a sigh. “If only I could make that pain-relieving medicine. I’d definitely give the formula to you. It would be a huge boost for your hospital.”
Her words struck a chord with Nigel.
A technical monopoly was the greatest advantage a company could have. So far, no hospital has successfully developed a painkiller without side effects.
Allison clearly had such an effective solution. Why wasn’t she helping his hospital through its current crisis?
As he was thinking this, they turned a corner, and there she was.
Nigel stopped in surprise. “Allison?”
Leaning against the wall, Allison showed no surprise at all when she saw them.
Funny, wasn’t it? She had been missing for three days, yet her dear brother had not even bothered to call the police. He had even found time to visit Ronan.
But she wasn't disappointed. Not anymore. From the moment Nigel had left her in that burning building, she understood that her life meant absolutely nothing to him.
“Allison! I finally found you!” Sherrie exclaimed, genuinely overjoyed. “We’ve all been worried sick these past few days...”
“Worried sick?” Allison sneered, and her voice was filled with sarcasm. “Worried how, exactly? Covering the streets with missing person posters? Going door to door asking about me?”
Nigel’s face darkened at her mocking tone. “The whole family is busy preparing for Sherrie’s wedding. If you don’t care, fine. But do you expect us to leave everything just to look for you?”
Then he added angrily, “Look at you, perfectly fine. You clearly went missing on purpose, just to get attention. And I actually wasted my time worrying about you!”
Allison let out a cold laugh.
“You’d better worry about the Lopez family’s precious son. If he ends up crippled and impotent, wouldn’t Sherrie basically be a living widow?”
“You!” Nigel had not expected Allison’s words to cut so deeply. His face darkened, and he raised his fist, wanting to teach her a lesson.
However, Sherrie quickly grabbed his arm, trying to calm him down. “Nigel, don’t hit Allison! She may speak harshly, but deep down, she already prepared medicine for Ronan!”
That was true. If Allison had shown up at the hospital and even known Ronan’s leg was injured, then she must have come to deliver medicine.
Nigel lowered his fist and turned his palm upward instead. “Hand the medicine to Sherrie.”
Allison’s expression turned cold. “Why should I give it to her?”
“You think you can just walk in there by yourself?” Nigel retorted impatiently. “Ronan is Sherrie’s man. Are you planning to barge in and stare at his bare leg like you’re the lead character? Have you no shame at all?”
Allison shot back immediately. “If just seeing his leg counts as shameless, then when Sherrie helped him take off his pants, shouldn’t they both have been dragged away and drowned in a pig cage?”
Nigel’s face flushed in fury, and he lifted his hand again to slap her. “Is this the kind of filthy talk you picked up while you were gone?”
“Mr. Nigel.” A cold voice interrupted them.
All three of them turned toward the voice.
It was Jareth. He had changed into a dark red dress shirt, the sleeves casually rolled up to reveal his lean, powerful forearms. When he tightened his grip on his cane, the veins on the back of his hand stood out, silently showing his strength.
Sherrie’s eyes swept over him. She had rarely seen Jareth before. All she had ever heard was that he was a cripple. But standing there now, his presence felt even more commanding than Luke’s. The pressure he gave off made people instinctively overlook his inconvenient limp.
Why was he speaking to Nigel?
Nigel was also looking him over, his eyes cautious. He had grown up on the same side as Ronan. What could Jareth possibly want to say to him?
Was it because Jareth had been beaten last time and seen by me, and now he wanted revenge?
Countless thoughts raced through his mind, yet none of them prepared him for what happened next.
Jareth didn’t even spare him a glance. His eyes went straight to Allison.
Jareth lifted a hand in a small gesture. “Come here.”
Allison glanced at Nigel, then at Jareth, and without hesitation, she ran to him.
Jareth sneered at Nigel as he reached out and pulled Allison behind him, shielding her without any attempt to hide it.
His intention was unmistakable. He was protecting Allison.
Nigel was taken aback, thinking Jareth had misunderstood something. “She’s my sister!”
He called out to Allison in a rush, and his voice was filled with worry. “Allison, come here.”
As her brother, wasn’t it his responsibility to protect her from someone like Jareth?
Jareth’s voice was calm, but every word cut deep. “So she can go back to you and get beaten again?”
Nigel choked and instinctively looked at Allison. But she kept her head lowered, and she refused to look into his eyes.
Still, Nigel felt justified. “What’s wrong with a brother disciplining his sister?”
It wasn’t like he would actually hit her. How could Allison turn her back on him and stand on someone else’s side?
“Sister?” Jareth sneered, the word rolling off his tongue like poison. “When your sister was kidnapped, where was her brother then?”