Chapter 172
Elizabeth lifted her head and looked at Nathan. She smiled but there was no warmth in it. "Mr. Turner, I think you've misunderstood."
Nathan raised a brow. "Misunderstood what?"
"That I would agree to this." Her voice was perfectly calm, the way you'd discuss the weather. "I have a husband, a son, a home. I don't need a second husband, and my son doesn't need someone else telling him what to do."
Nathan's smile faltered. He glanced at Sawyer, who sat holding his teacup, face unreadable.
He turned back to Elizabeth, his smile fading. "Ms. Windsor, your husband is in Mirandia running things over there. Has he ever once thought about what you're going through here?"
Elizabeth stood and moved Jack behind her. "I'm not going through anything."
"No?" Nathan rose too, looking down at her. "You're alone with a child in a foreign country with no one to lean on. Sawyer's health is failing—no one knows how much time he has left. You're holding onto those businesses with everyone watching, waiting for you to slip. How long do you think you can keep that up?"
"That's my business," Elizabeth said, word by word. "Not yours, Mr. Turner."
Nathan's expression darkened. His eyes went cold and mean. "Ms. Windsor, I came here with good intentions, and this is how you repay me? Who do you think you are? You're nothing but a—"
He never finished.
Elizabeth stepped forward and slapped him hard across the face.
The crack rang through the living room. No one moved.
Nathan clutched his cheek, staring at her. The left side of his face was already swelling, a thin line of blood at the corner of his mouth.
"You—" He'd barely opened his mouth when her fist connected with the bridge of his nose.
Blood poured out immediately, running over his lips and dripping onto his suit.
Nathan screamed and stumbled backward into the coffee table. Teacups hit the floor and shattered.
"You hit me?!" He held his nose, voice shrill. "You actually hit me?!"
Elizabeth didn't answer.
She stepped in and drove her foot into his knee.
His leg buckled. He went down. He looked up at her from the floor, face smeared with blood, eyes burning. "You're insane! Sawyer! You're just going to sit there and watch your sister—"
Sawyer hadn't moved. He sat with his teacup, watching, his face completely blank.
Not a word. Not even a frown. As if the whole thing had nothing to do with him.
Elizabeth looked down at Nathan. Her voice was ice.
"Mr.Turner. That slap was on behalf of your parents, to teach you what respect looks like. That punch was on behalf of whatever woman is unlucky enough to end up with you, to teach you what shame is. And that kick," she paused, "was on behalf of my son, to teach you how to speak like a human being."
Nathan knelt on the floor shaking, whether from pain or rage it was hard to say. He pointed at at her, lips trembling. He wanted to say something, but not a single word came out.
Elizabeth didn't look at him again. She scooped Jack into her arms and walked to the door. At the threshold she stopped, not turning around. "Sawyer. Don't ever bring me into something like this again."
She pushed the door open and walked out.
The living room was dead quiet. Nathan dragged himself to his feet, bloody and disheveled, and turned on Sawyer. "What the hell was that?"
Sawyer set down his teacup and walked over. His face was still empty, his eyes flat and still. "She didn't want to."
"Didn't want to?" Nathan's voice shot up. "You said—"
"I said I'd introduce you. I did. She doesn't want to. What exactly do you want me to do about it?"
Nathan stared at him. Something cruel flickered behind his eyes. "Fine," he said. Then again: "Fine." And once more, quietly: "Fine." He turned and walked toward the door, then stopped and looked back. "Remember today, Sawyer." He said it slowly, one word at a time.
He pushed the door open and left.
Sawyer stood where he was, looking at the closed door. Slowly, the corner of his mouth curved. There was no warmth in it.
Nathan got into his car and slammed the door. His nose was still bleeding, his face had swollen grotesquely on one side, and his knee screamed every time he shifted. He pulled out his phone and dialed a number.
"Get me some people," he said, his voice a raw, hate-soaked rasp. "I want that woman dead."
A brief silence. "Mr. Turner, she's Sawyer's sister—"
"I don't care who she is!" he roared. "She hit me. She dies. Tonight I want to see her—".
The car door was ripped open. A hand closed around his throat and hauled him out before he could finish the sentence. His bodyguards didn't even get the chance to move before shadowy figures dropped them to the ground and pinned them there.
Nathan was dragged to the trees at the side of the road and thrown down. He hit the dirt hard. He looked up.
A man stood over him. Tall, massively built, dressed in black from head to toe, his face completely still. His eyes were like blades.
"Who are you?" Nathan's voice shook.
The man said nothing. He reached down, took Nathan's right hand, and twisted. The bone snapped with a sound that cut through the silence like a gunshot. Nathan's scream tore out of him and then collapsed into something thin and broken.
"This hand shouldn't have touched her." The man's voice was low, like it were rising from the depths of hell.
The left hand.
"This one either."
The left leg.
"This leg shouldn't have knelt in front of her."
The right leg.
"Neither should this one."
Nathan lay in the dirt, all four limbs broken, twisted at angles that made no sense.
He couldn't scream anymore. He could only drag air in and push it out, shallow and ragged, like something that hadn't quite finished dying.
The man crouched down and looked at him. His eyes hadn't changed.
"Go back and tell your father that if he has a problem, he can come to me directly. As for today," he stood, looking down at what was left of Nathan, "you brought this on yourself."
He turned and disappeared into the dark.
The bodyguards were released. They scrambled up, saw Nathan on the ground, and went pale.
"Mr. Turner! Mr. Turner!" He was unconscious. All four limbs broken, nose crushed, soaked in blood.
They got him into the car and floored it toward the hospital.
Back in the castle, Sawyer stood alone in the study.
He had already turned the entire castle upside down.