Chapter 3
Elicia pressed her forehead to the floor until blood streaked her hairline. She looked utterly broken. "I raised Lisbeth from the time she was a little girl. She would never hurt anyone. She's innocent—please!"
Nicholas stared down at her, his face devoid of any expression.
Lisbeth burst out of the hospital room. She grabbed Elicia and hauled her to her feet with every ounce of strength she had, her eyes brimming with tears. "Mom, what are you doing? Get up!"
Her mother—Elicia—was the most elegant woman in their social circle, a woman who prized dignity above all else. And now she was on her knees before Nicholas. Lisbeth felt her heart shredding apart.
She turned to Nicholas, biting her lip so hard it nearly bled, her eyes blazing with fury. "Nicholas, if you have a problem, take it out on me. Leave my mother out of this."
Nicholas scoffed. "Pathetic. I didn't ask her to kneel."
Lisbeth held Elicia tighter, heartbroken and helpless. "Mom, I didn't do anything wrong. Don't beg him."
"Lisbeth…" Elicia sobbed against her shoulder. "I have no other choice. Your father tried to save you—he crossed the Stuart family, and our business collapsed overnight. We don't have the power to get you out anymore. But you're my only daughter…"
Lisbeth froze. She stared at Nicholas with raw fury. "Nicholas, how can you be this heartless?"
Nicholas turned his head slightly, his gaze arctic. "Who I choose to do business with is my decision. Don't tell me the Berkeley family can't survive without me."
"You—" Lisbeth started to speak, but Elicia suddenly went limp in her arms, her breath cutting short. She collapsed.
"Mom! Mom, are you okay?" Lisbeth shook Elicia's unconscious body, then screamed down the hospital corridor. "Somebody help! My mother fainted—I need a doctor!"
"Stop shouting. I locked down this hospital hours ago." Nicholas addressed his bodyguards without turning around. "Take this woman back to prison."
The bodyguards moved in immediately, pinning Lisbeth and prying her away from Elicia.
"Let go of me! Nicholas! Do whatever you want to me, but my mother is innocent—you can't just let her die!"
Lisbeth fought with everything she had. Elicia was still unconscious. She couldn't go back—not like this. But she had no power to resist. She could only watch as the distance between her and her mother grew wider and wider.
She spent another week in prison, dazed and hollow, crying herself to sleep every night, sick with worry over Elicia.
Lisbeth had already lost her child. She couldn't lose Elicia too. If she did, she wouldn't have a single reason left to live.
A few days later, Adalyn came to visit. A smug smile played at the corners of her mouth.
"What do you want?" Lisbeth asked coldly.
Weeks of torment had stripped away every trace of the stunning Mrs. Stuart she'd once been. Her hair was matted, her face gaunt and hollow—a stark contrast to the polished, radiant Adalyn on the other side of the glass.
"I just came to let you know." Adalyn's tone was light, almost casual. "Your mother is dead."
"What?" The words hit Lisbeth like a bolt of lightning. Her eyes went wide. She pressed her palms flat against the glass partition, her entire body shaking. "You're lying! I just saw her a few days ago—how could she—"
"Heart attack. The one from a few days ago. They couldn't save her." Adalyn's lips curled. "Lisbeth, I told you—this is only the beginning. I'm going to take everything you love, one piece at a time."
Lisbeth's mind went blank. She shot to her feet and slammed her fists against the glass, screaming, completely unraveled. "Let me out! I need to see my mother!"
The guards rushed in and forced her back into the chair, pinning her down.
Adalyn's eyes glittered with contempt. "If I were you, I'd just die already. You're nothing but a curse on everyone around you."
"Ahhh!!"
Lisbeth clutched her head and screamed. Her world had shattered. The last thread of hope she'd been clinging to snapped, and there was nothing left but endless, suffocating darkness.
The guards terminated the visit.
Adalyn glanced at her one last time through the glass—cold, indifferent—then turned and walked away.
Lisbeth was escorted back to her cell. She slumped against the corner wall, her eyes vacant, her lips white. There wasn't a trace of life left in her.
The only person in this world who loved her was gone.
All that remained inside her was despair—and an endless, consuming hatred.
She hated Nicholas for his cruelty. She hated Adalyn for her venom. She hated herself for being too weak to stop any of it.
"Hey—heard your mommy died?" The inmate who always bullied her sneered. "A whore like you, your mother was probably a whore too. Good riddance."
The words had barely left her mouth before Lisbeth launched herself at the woman like a wild animal. Her hands locked around the inmate's throat, her eyes feral. "Say that again. Say it."
The woman's face turned purple, gasping for air. The other inmates swarmed in, tore them apart, then turned on Lisbeth—fists and feet raining down from every direction.
Lisbeth stopped fighting back almost immediately. She let the blows fall like a storm she no longer cared to survive.
One inmate drove a savage kick into her lower abdomen. Searing pain ripped through her. Blood ran down her thighs, and the women around her stumbled back in shock.
The guards had no choice but to rush her to the hospital. Lisbeth lay on the bed with an IV drip in her hand, a guard stationed beside her.
She turned her head toward the guard. Her face was blank. Her voice was dry and cracked. "I want to see Nicholas."
The guard glanced at her and looked away.
Lisbeth stared at the ceiling. Silence. Then, without warning, she slammed her forehead into the metal railing of the headboard.
The guard jumped and grabbed her shoulders. "Are you insane?"
Blood trickled down Lisbeth's forehead, but her expression was eerily calm. "If you don't let me see Nicholas, I'll bash my skull in. And when I'm dead, you'll be the one explaining it."
The guard stared at her. Opened her mouth. Closed it. After a long moment, she reluctantly agreed.
Half an hour later, Nicholas arrived at the hospital.
He'd been planning to come anyway, even without the guard's call.
Three days ago, Elicia had suffered a cardiac arrest in the hospital corridor. He'd ordered the doctors to try to resuscitate her, but it was too late.
Thinking about what he'd put Lisbeth through these past weeks, he felt something close to exhaustion. He intended to have a proper conversation with her.
If she behaved, he would consider releasing her—divorcing her—and cutting her out of his life permanently.
Nicholas pushed open the door to the hospital room.
It was empty.
He started to turn around and call for someone—and a fruit knife plunged into his back, burying itself in his abdomen.
Lisbeth's face was twisted with rage, her eyes burning with hatred and grief. "You murderer! You killed my baby. You killed my mother. Now I'm going to make you pay!"
