Chapter 228 Exorcism
In the center of the living room stood a cross built from two rough planks nailed together.
Dylan worked fast and did not keep William waiting long.
Crude and rough, but impossible to escape.
Isla was tied to it, arms spread wide, ankles crossed.
She was still shaking, muttering under her breath, impossible to make out.
William stood before her, holding a hammer and nails.
He turned to look at the wheelchair.
"Isabella, I'm going to start now."
No response.
He pressed a nail against Isla's left palm.
The hammer came down.
Isla's scream echoed through the living room.
Blood spattered across William's face.
The nail was only halfway in.
"We are all sinners."
"You and I, both guilty."
William raised the hammer again.
Isla's wailing made his hand pause for a moment.
This was Isabella's mother.
He sneered inwardly—the world was better without her.
The hammer slammed down hard.
Along with Isla's screams.
He heard a voice in his head.
A husband like this, better off without him.
Cry. Scream.
Anyone who hurt Isabella deserves this judgment.
The nail pierced through the wooden board, blood flowing down her palm.
Isla's screams shifted pitch, her face paler than her knuckles.
Cold sweat soaked her hair.
Her split lower lip was bleeding.
She could not scream anymore, just convulsing, struggling like a fish gasping on land.
The cross was raised upright, and Isla was suspended in midair.
Blood dripped to the floor, each drop ringing in the silence.
William stepped back a few paces, looking up.
His eyes were bloodshot, but his mouth twisted into a smile.
"Isabella, look, she's atoning for her sins."
William's smile slowly faded.
He looked down at his own hands, the hammer stained with Isla's blood.
That voice spoke to him again.
What about you? You have not atoned yet.
William answered the voice.
I am guilty too; I will not escape judgment.
Once everything was done, he would not run.
He gripped the hammer, wanting badly to nail himself up, too.
The harm he had done to Isabella was no less than Isla's.
He was the most sinful one, deserving many times more pain.
William's eyelashes trembled.
He put down the hammer, walked to the wheelchair, crouched down, and held Isabella's hand.
"Isabella, now is not the time yet."
He pressed that cold hand against his own face.
"Once I finish everything."
"I will nail myself up."
"That is what I deserve."
His voice was as soft as a whisper in sleep.
Isla's blood was on his hands, and also fell on Isabella's hand.
He suddenly stood up, hitting himself in the face again and again.
"I deserve to die."
"How could I be so careless?"
"I am sorry, Isabella, I got your hand dirty."
William's cheeks were red and swollen, but he felt no pain.
He tore off his shirt and wiped the blood from Isabella's hands.
"It is all my fault, it is all my fault."
"I should have been more careful, I should have..."
"I should have taken better care of you."
William's tears, at that last sentence, finally lost control. The emotions suppressed for nearly two weeks, like a bursting dam, could no longer be held back.
He collapsed on Isabella's lap, his tears soaking her skirt.
"Isabella, why did you jump?"
"You want to torture me, make me feel guilty forever, regret forever."
"You are so cruel."
William held onto her legs and would not let go.
"I am so tired, so lonely."
Dylan watched, his eyes misting over.
William's inner softness, no longer disguised in this moment.
This was William's truest voice.
In the afternoon, William gave Dylan a task.
At first, he was excited, thinking William was finally going to return to the company and resume normal life.
But seeing the task clearly, he still did it.
Under the overpass, many homeless people gathered.
Their lives are like ghosts drifting through a garbage dump.
Even before getting close, you could smell the rotting odor, mixed with body odor and mildew.
This was what William had carefully considered, chosen from ten locations.
Because this place was dirtier and more chaotic.
Dylan worried William would not enter such a place.
The ground had almost no clean place to step.
But William praised him.
William eagerly pulled open the car door.
He had stripped Juniper's clothes.
Left her completely naked, without any covering.
Around her neck was a collar; her hands and feet were shackled.
Most horrifying was her head.
Dense stitches, and those two protruding ears.
So jarring they made your scalp tingle.
William led Juniper, walking into that filthy place.
Several bodyguards followed, hands inside their jackets.
The homeless people under the bridge, one by one, their eyes lit up.
Juniper's naked body, in William's eyes, was no better than livestock in a slaughterhouse.
In their eyes, more tempting than any coin.
The homeless all stood up.
They were bold, staring straight at Juniper.
No one fled.
Juniper crawled bit by bit, the filth on the ground unavoidable under her hands and knees.
She could only look ahead, forcing herself not to think about it.
But those gazes ahead made her more terrified.
Blackened fingernails, clothes stained with grease.
And the dirt caked on their necks.
Juniper was both scared and disgusted, stopping and not daring to go forward.
She knew what would happen next.
Just like what Lester was going to do to Isabella back then.
She felt wronged; this was so unfair.
Lester never even touched Isabella.
Why should she suffer this pain?
She did not dare go on.
Turned back pleading.
"Mr. Spencer, do not."
"Do not do this to me."
"I am willing to bear the pain Isabella went through."
"But she was never touched by other men, from start to finish, her body was pure."
"Her heart and her body always belonged solely to you."
William surprisingly did not lose his temper.
Juniper's words forced him to face his own sins.
Whether or not Lester was caught, he already knew the whole truth.
And that phrase "she belonged solely to you" instantly took William back to the past.
He was too arrogant, never thought about this.
William only thought about making her belong to him, but did not know that when she said those words at the funeral.
She had already made that commitment.
William's eyes welled up with tears.
He tilted his head back, forcing the moisture back.
This was a road with no turning back.
Juniper's fear proved exactly one thing—his decision was right.
Over thirty homeless men, drunks.
They were the cruelest punishment for Juniper.
He wanted Juniper to get pregnant by these men, to never know who the father of her child was.