Chapter 5
Nicholas let out a cold laugh.
Doesn't want to live?
She doesn't get to make that choice.
"Use the best drugs available. Keep her breathing." Nicholas stared at the figure on the hospital bed, his voice like frost. "I don't care if she's headed for heaven or hell—I'll drag her back."
The doctor nodded repeatedly and hurried out.
Nicholas walked to the bedside and looked down at Lisbeth.
Her face was painfully small, her chin sharp as a blade, her eye sockets sunken deep.
Where was the Lisbeth who'd once been radiant and alive—the one whose eyes had been full of nothing but him?
The thought flickered through his mind. He crushed it instantly.
She betrayed him first.
She broke their vows.
She brought all of this on herself.
The room fell silent except for the steady beeping of machines.
Lisbeth lay unconscious for three days.
Beneath the oxygen mask, her face had lost every trace of color. She looked like something already dead.
Nicholas sat on the sofa, his tie yanked loose. He stared at the shell of a woman on the bed, his patience finally spent.
The doctors had exhausted every medical option. The patient was subconsciously refusing to wake, and there was nothing they could do. The attending physician stood nearby, barely daring to breathe.
"She won't wake up?" Nicholas asked.
The doctor answered with a slight bow. "Her will to survive is extremely low. Clinically, these cases are very difficult to manage."
Nicholas laughed out loud.
Wants to die? Since when was dying that easy?
She hadn't paid her debts. She didn't get to die.
"Bring Jagger here," he told the bodyguard beside him.
Half an hour later, the door opened.
Jagger Berkeley was dragged in by two bodyguards.
The patriarch of the Berkeley family—gray-haired, clothes dusty, stumbling with every step. The Berkeley Group had been crushed nearly to bankruptcy under the Stuart family's pressure. Jagger looked like he'd aged a decade in days.
"Mr. Stuart, come after me if you want—leave Lisbeth alone!" Jagger shouted the moment he crossed the threshold.
Nicholas ignored him.
He walked over and kicked the medical cart beside the bed. Metal crashed against metal with a piercing shriek.
"Draw his blood." He pointed at Jagger and gave the order to the doctor on standby.
The doctor moved efficiently. The needle slid into Jagger's arm within seconds.
Blood flowed through the tube into the collection bag.
Jagger clenched his jaw, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
Nicholas walked to the bed, pulled off Lisbeth's oxygen mask, and gripped her chin.
"If you don't wake up, I'm draining every last drop of blood from this old man's body."
Lisbeth's eyelashes trembled.
The metallic scent of blood clawed at her senses.
Survival instinct forced her eyes open.
The moment her vision focused, she saw the blood bag—bright, violent red.
"Dad!" The word tore from her throat, raw and broken.
She struggled to sit up. The IV needle in the back of her hand ripped free from the vein, and blood beaded instantly on her skin.
Nicholas pressed one hand against her shoulder and pinned her flat to the mattress.
"Stay still. Don't miss the show." His tone was casual. Almost conversational.
Lisbeth wrenched her head to the side, her eyes locked on the tube draining her father's blood.
"Nicholas, you've lost your mind! He's an old man! Let him go!"
"I've lost my mind?" Nicholas raised an eyebrow, gesturing toward Jagger. "You're the one who refused to wake up. I had to get creative."
The blood bag above Jagger swelled.
His face grew whiter by the second. His legs buckled, and only the bodyguards' grip kept him from collapsing.
Looking at Lisbeth on the hospital bed, Jagger wept openly. "Lisbeth… don't worry about me. Just go—get out of here!"
Nicholas scoffed. "Go? Where? Down to hell to find that bastard child?"
The words hit Lisbeth like a live wire.
Her fingers clawed into the sheets, veins standing out across the backs of her hands.
"What—can't handle the truth?" Nicholas leaned closer. "That thing you made with another man deserved to die. And your mother? She died of shame—because she raised a daughter with no decency. The Berkeley family is rotten to the core."
Jagger couldn't take it. He tore free from the bodyguards and lunged at Nicholas. "Nicholas! You're spewing lies! Lisbeth never did anything to betray you! Those photos were fake!"
A bodyguard kicked the back of Jagger's knee.
He crashed to the floor, kneecaps cracking against the tile.
"Dad!" Lisbeth threw herself halfway off the bed, but Nicholas grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her back.
"Please…" All the fight drained from her body. Tears and sweat streaked down her face. "I'm begging you—let my father go. Take my life. It's yours."
"What would I want with your life? It's worthless."
Nicholas snapped his fingers, signaling the doctor to stop drawing blood.
He walked over, picked up the blood bag, and snipped it open. He poured the contents into a glass on the side table.
A full glass of dark red liquid. The metallic stench filled the room.
He carried the glass back to the bedside.
"The doctor says you've lost too much blood. You need to replenish. The hospital blood bank isn't clean enough—this is your own father's blood. Same type as yours."
Lisbeth stared at the glass. Her stomach heaved.
"Get away from me… don't touch me!"
Nicholas squeezed her cheeks, forcing her jaw open, and pressed the rim of the glass to her lips.
"Drink. Spill a single drop, and I'll have them draw another pint from him."
The warm, metallic liquid flooded her mouth.
Lisbeth choked violently. Blood ran down her chin to her neck, staining the hospital gown crimson.
Tears streamed from her eyes as she gagged and twisted her head away. Every swallow tasted of rust and despair.
Her stomach convulsed. She dry-heaved.
Nicholas clamped his hand over her mouth.
"Swallow it."
Lisbeth's eyes flew wide, bloodshot and wild.
She stared at the man before her. Once, she had loved him with every fiber of her being. Now all she felt was revulsion.
Despair burned through the last of her reason.
She clenched her jaw and bit down hard on her own tongue.
But Nicholas was faster. Two fingers jammed between her teeth, prying them apart.
Blood seeped around his fingers.
Impossible to tell whose it was—Lisbeth's, Jagger's, or Nicholas's own.
"Trying to die?" Nicholas hurled the glass to the floor. It shattered, scattering shards across the tile. His voice turned to ice. "If you die in this room today, Jagger goes with you. And let's not forget—the Berkeley family still has your eighty-year-old grandmother, Emma Wyatt. Tell me, Lisbeth—how's Emma's heart? Think she can handle the stress?"
Lisbeth released her bite instantly. She gasped for air, chest heaving violently.
Her tears had run dry. She looked at Nicholas, and her eyes were dead.
"Nicholas, you're a monster with no limits."
"Yes. I am." Nicholas pulled his fingers from her mouth and wiped them with a tissue. His tone was perfectly flat. "So I suggest you behave. While you're alive, they get to breathe. The moment you die, I'll wipe out every living thing in the Berkeley household—down to the dogs."
He turned and walked toward the door.
"Send Jagger back. Station men at the Berkeley Villa to check on Emma every day. They stay until Ms. Berkeley can get out of bed and walk on her own."
The door closed.
The hallway light was a sickly white.
Lisbeth lay curled on the bed, staring at the glass shards and bloodstains on the floor. Her body was completely destroyed.
But now, every hollow space inside her was packed with hatred.
Nicholas wanted her alive? Fine. She'd live.
She closed her eyes and swallowed the last trace of blood lingering in her mouth.
That mouthful—she swallowed the Berkeley family's humiliation with it. And every last illusion she'd held about Nicholas Stuart for the past eight years.
Adalyn's forged paternity test had led to her eight-month baby being drowned alive.
Elicia had been driven to her death in a hospital corridor.
And now it was Jagger and Emma's turn.
