Chapter 151
Elizabeth looked at him and suddenly laughed.
There was a kind of unnervingly calm stillness in that smile.
"Let them come," She gritted her teeth, her voice ice-cold, "I had been waiting for them for a long time."
Nolan watched her, and something complicated surged in his eyes—relief, aching tenderness, worry, and a thin thread of fear he couldn't quite name.
He was afraid. Afraid that this kid he had watched grow up would be swallowed whole by hatred, afraid she would step onto a road she could never come back from.
But he didn't say it out loud.
Because he knew it wouldn't matter even if he did.
That kid had already made her choice.
By the time Elizabeth walked out of the infirmary, the rain outside had turned heavy.
She stopped in the hallway, staring out at the dense silver curtain pouring past the windows, her mind churning with everything she had just heard.
Dahlia had been poisoned, Hughes had been poisoned, and Gray had been dragged down and killed by association.
And the mastermind behind all of it had been hiding right beside her.
She closed her eyes and drew in a long, deep breath.
When she opened them again, the calm in her gaze was back where it always was.
No matter who those moles were.
No matter how deeply they had buried themselves.
She would dig them out.
One by one.
Slowly.
With her own hands.
And made them pay.
For Hughes.
For Dahlia.
And for that man, she still had no idea how to face.
She turned and headed upstairs.
At the end of the corridor, Jacob was standing there.
He must have just come in from outside; there were damp streaks of rain on his suit jacket.
The second he saw her, he strode over and took her hand,"What took you so long? What did Nolan say?"
Elizabeth looked into his eyes.
Those dark, bottomless eyes were full of concern and worry.
Her lips parted. She wanted to say something, but nothing came out.
"Nothing." Her voice was soft. "Mr. Martinez brought up some things from the past. I just needed a minute to process."
Jacob studied her, his brows tightening almost imperceptibly.
He could tell she was hiding something.
But he didn't press.
He just pulled her into his arms, holding her tight.
"Whatever it is," he murmured, his voice low and steady, warm against her ear, "I'm here."
Elizabeth leaned into him and closed her eyes.
His arms were so warm, so safe, she almost wanted to stay right there forever and never move.
But she knew she couldn't.
Those blood debts, those buried truths, those enemies lurking in the dark… she had to face them.
No matter how it ended.
No matter what it cost.
Elizabeth picked a nondescript coffee shop as the place to meet David.
Calling it a coffee shop was generous; it was one of Nightfall's covert contact points, tucked away off the main streets, security layered and tight, perfect for conversations that didn't belong in the daylight.
David showed up right on time.
The second Aiden son really wasn't as handsome as Henry—he was downright ordinary, if she was being blunt.
But his eyes were much deeper, much sharper than Henry's. The kind of eyes that had weathered storms and seen too much of how ugly people could be, and learned to stay clear-headed anyway.
"Ms. Windsor," He sat down across from Elizabeth, his tone even. "Didn't expect you to be the one asking me out."
Elizabeth poured him a cup of tea and got straight to the point,"David, I have a proposal."
David lifted his coffee, took a small sip, and stayed quiet, waiting for her to go on.
"You knew better than I did what shape the Aiden family was in right now," Elizabeth said. "Henry was done. Your father was getting old. All those gray-area businesses under the Aidens? They were going to collapse sooner or later. You wanted to take over, but did you actually have the capacity to pull that off?"
David's gaze darkened a shade.
"Was Ms. Windsor looking down on me?"
"I wasn't," Elizabeth shook her head. "I was just telling the truth. The Aiden family's foundation was rotten. Rotten all the way to the bone. Even if you took it over, you couldn't clean it up. Instead of clutching that mess and waiting for it to drown you, why not—"
She paused, then said each word distinctly, "Join Nightfall."
David's hand stilled for a fraction of a second.
He looked up at Elizabeth, surprise flashing in his eyes, followed by scrutiny—and a flicker of something like temptation buried deep.
"Nightfall?" He repeated. "Ms. Windsor was with Nightfall?"
Elizabeth didn't answer that. She just continued, "Nightfall was restructuring. I needed people. People who were competent, who could think, and who didn't come with a hundred layers of complicated baggage. I had been watching you for a long time. You were miles better than that useless Henry, and a hell of a lot sharper than those old parasites in the Aiden family who only knew how to drink and party."
She met his gaze head-on and said slowly, "Come to Nightfall, and I'll give you a position. You can bring along the ones who were willing to follow you, the ones who wanted to go legit. You took them, and we would get you all cleaned up and on the right side of the law."
David fell silent.
He lifted his coffee again and drank slowly, his eyes shifting as he thought.
After a long moment, he set the cup down and looked at Elizabeth. "Ms. Windsor, did you know what kind of organization Nightfall was? Murder, robbery, every crime in the book—everyone in this circle knew the stories. You were talking about getting my people washed clean and back on shore. Once we were there, then what? What did we live on, air?"
A faint smile tugged at Elizabeth's lips.
"You thought Nightfall was only about the dirty work?"
She reached into her bag, pulled out a file, and slid it across the table to him.
David took it, opened it—and his pupils tightened.
It was a detailed business plan—security firm, logistics and freight, overseas trade, financial investments… a fully fleshed-out industrial layout, all aboveboard, all legal, with real growth potential.
"Nightfall's foundation was cleaner than you think," Elizabeth said. "The shady stuff, the ugly jobs, that was just what people saw on the surface. The real backbone was right here."
When David looked up again, his eyes on her were completely different.
"Ms. Windsor, who were you, really?"
Elizabeth still didn't answer.
She just lifted her coffee, took a small sip. "I'll give you three days to think about it. Three days from now, either you show up, or we pretend this conversation never happened."
She got to her feet and walked toward the door.
At the threshold, she stopped abruptly, not bothering to turn around as she added, "Oh, and about you helping get Vivian thrown into the Aiden family's basement—thanks for that. I owed you one."
Then she pushed the door open and stepped out.
David stayed where he was, staring down at the business plan for a long, long time.
Eventually, he let out a low laugh.
There was a sliver of something like anticipation in that smile.
"Interesting," he murmured. "This was really getting interesting."
Three days later, David showed up.
And he didn't come alone—he brought more than twenty young men and women with him. They were all people who used to work in the Aiden family's gray businesses, people with real skills and actual brains who had been sick of the Aiden family's filth for a long time.
"Ms. Windsor," David stood in front of her, his gaze steady. "I made up my mind. We're with you."
Elizabeth looked at him, then at the group behind him, and nodded,"Welcome."
Inside Nightfall, though, the place exploded.
David? Aiden family scum? Henry's brother, same mother and all?
And she wanted to let someone like that into Nightfall?
"I didn't agree!"