Chapter 386: Homebound
The moment the door clicked shut, Charles's fingers clenched violently, knuckles bleaching white.
He stared at that door, emotions churning beneath the surface, forcing them down into frozen stillness.
How could she be so good?
So good that he wanted to reverse every decision he'd made.
But he couldn't.
Night deepened. The hospital corridor lights burned harsh and unforgiving. Charles lay in bed, chest tight with pain, Emily's words echoing endlessly: I'm not leaving.
He was terrified he'd jump up and chase after her. Terrified that one glimpse of her red-rimmed eyes and forced composure would shatter his resolve, and he'd confess everything.
What terrified him most was this: if he told her the truth, she'd never leave.
Charles closed his eyes and pressed the call button.
Nathan appeared almost instantly. "Mr. Windsor?"
"Discharge me. Tonight. We're flying home."
Nathan froze. "But the doctor said you—"
Charles's gaze cut through him like ice. "Now."
Nathan swallowed and nodded. "I'll arrange it."
Charles added quietly, "Don't let her know."
Nathan understood immediately, his chest tightening. "Yes, sir."
Less than two hours after Charles left, the VIP ward's night shift began their handover.
The corridor remained brightly lit. A nurse wheeled her medication cart around the corner, murmuring as she cross-checked charts. A doctor emerged from a patient room, rubbing his temples wearily.
Then the elevator doors slid open without a sound.
Several figures in civilian clothes stepped out, their footfalls eerily soft. The leader raised his hand. A sleeve shifted. Cold steel flashed.
The first sound was a muffled wet noise—a throat being slit.
Blood sprayed across white walls.
The nurse didn't even have time to scream before a hand clamped over her mouth. The needle snapped. The cart toppled. Glass vials shattered across the floor.
The assault was surgical, rehearsed to perfection—a calculated purge.
Ollie's security detail stationed at the corridor's end reacted simultaneously. Several bodyguards burst forward, guns raised but muzzles lowered, trying to drag medical staff toward the emergency stairwell.
"Retreat! Everyone inside, now!"
But the attackers had no intention of engaging.
Their eyes held only one objective: total elimination.
One of them produced a remote control and muttered something in a foreign language.
A bodyguard lunged to intercept. Too late.
"BOOM—!"
The explosion tore through the entire floor. Fire doors were blown off their hinges. Glass rained down like hail. The ceiling's sprinkler system burst open, water gushing everywhere—but it couldn't extinguish the fire or wash away the blood.
White lab coats flew up, then fell.
Not a single medical staff member survived.
By the time Windsor family reinforcements arrived, only wreckage and collapsed walls remained.
Ollie's men, eyes blazing with rage, pinned one of the surviving attackers to the ground, gun barrel pressed to his forehead.
"Talk! Who sent you? Was it the Rivera family? What's their next move?"
The man's lips curled into a blood-stained smile.
In the next instant, his pupils contracted sharply. A strange rasping sound escaped his throat. Black blood poured from his mouth. His body convulsed violently before collapsing.
Immediately, another captured accomplice began seizing, fingernails clawing at the floor.
The bodyguard roared, "Poison! Get medical—"
But the hospital was already in ruins. Sprinklers still flooded the corridor. Smoke and shattered glass covered everything. There wasn't even a functional stretcher to be found. Even if they tried dragging the men to an emergency room, it would be too late.
The man pinned to the ground convulsed uncontrollably, eyes rolling back, black blood streaming continuously from his mouth. Yet suddenly, he laughed—a broken, rasping sound.
The bodyguard grabbed his collar. "Speak! Whose orders are you following?"
The man struggled to form words, voice fractured. "The Rivera family... never leaves... witnesses."
He gasped for air, as if finally realizing he'd been discarded. A flicker of vicious hatred surfaced in his eyes.
"The Rivera family." He grinned, black blood coating his teeth. "Gerald's men... if you catch us... we die anyway."
Beside him, the other accomplice began seizing harder, nails scraping the floor with a grating sound. He struggled to lift his head, voice urgent and chaotic:
"It's the Rivera family! We did it! The hospital attack..." He coughed violently, spraying black blood, yet his gaze locked onto the bodyguard. "You want to know what's next? Next—next is..."
He looked like he was trying to force the words out, neck veins bulging, lips turning purple, fingertips frantically scratching the ground.
"The next step is—"
His words cut off abruptly.
His pupils contracted sharply. His body went limp. His head slammed into the floor. Two more convulsions, then complete stillness.
The first man tried to laugh again, but the expression froze on his face. Black blood dripped from his chin. A rattling noise came from his throat as he forced out one last breath:
"The Rivera family... wants... you all..."
He used every last ounce of strength to lift his hand, as if pointing at something—or reaching for one final lifeline.
The next second, his arm dropped.
Dead.
The bodyguard stood frozen, chest heaving, knuckles white. The enemy had talked—admitted they worked for the Rivera family, even tried to reveal more—but the poison acted too fast. They all died in that corridor before finishing.
The air reeked of charred metal, blood, and a chilling silence.
The Rivera family hadn't just come to kill.
They had another objective.
On the private jet heading home, darkness stretched endlessly beyond the windows.
Charles sat rigid in his seat, coat draped across his lap, face pale under the cabin lights. He wasn't sleeping. Wasn't speaking.
The divorce agreement lay on his tray table, flipped open to the final page.
The signature line was blank.
That blank space hovered like a blade before his eyes—one stroke, and Emily would be safer.
But that same stroke would be him personally sending her away.
Charles stared at the line for a long time, fingertip tracing the paper's edge over and over, as if suppressing an impulse. The pain in his chest wasn't sharp—it was slow and suffocating, drowning him inch by inch.
Nathan sat across from him. After a long silence, he finally spoke quietly. "Mr. Windsor, I've reinforced Mrs. Windsor's security detail in Seraphim."
Charles didn't look up. "Good."
Nathan's throat tightened. He forced the words out anyway. "If you do this... she'll hate you."
Charles's finger paused. His voice was flat, almost cold. "Doesn't matter."
When he looked up, his eyes were glacial. "Her being alive is all that matters."
Nathan watched him, but he couldn't bring himself to say what both of them already knew.