Chapter 8
Lisbeth's arms clung tight. Her feverish heat seeped through the prison fabric into his skin.
Nicholas looked down at the flushed face pressed against his chest.
Her eyes were closed. She rubbed against him without a shred of dignity.
Whistles erupted from the corridor. The male inmates pressed against the bars, their filthy stares boring straight through.
Nicholas clamped the back of her neck with one hand and shoved her away.
Lisbeth lost her balance and crashed onto the concrete floor.
The impact tore at her wounds, but she didn't even cry out. She just curled into herself, trying to smother the maddening fire consuming her from the inside.
"What happened here?" Nicholas didn't look at Lisbeth. His gaze cut to Randy.
Randy mopped his forehead and fumbled a file from his bag.
"Mr. Stuart, this really isn't on us. Ms. Berkeley transferred here voluntarily." He swallowed hard and jabbed at the paperwork. "The medical unit ran an evaluation before her transfer. Ms. Berkeley was diagnosed with severe sexual addiction—caused all kinds of problems at the women's facility. She signed the transfer papers herself."
Nicholas opened the file.
Diagnosis. Signature. Thumbprint. Everything in order.
Black ink on white paper. Crystal clear. Lisbeth had transferred here of her own accord.
The old Nicholas would have thrown the file in Randy's face.
But now, staring at Lisbeth sprawled on the floor with her clothes in disarray, all he could see were those two men in the wasteland—and the explicit photographs Adalyn had shown him.
Prejudice is an insurmountable wall.
Once trust collapses, even the most absurd lie finds solid ground.
Every single thing Lisbeth had done lined up perfectly with this ridiculous diagnosis.
The drug had devoured most of Lisbeth's reason.
She lay face-down on the concrete, ears ringing, Randy's words drifting in and out.
Sexual addiction. Voluntary.
She wanted to stand. She wanted to rip that forged document to shreds. But her limbs were boneless.
All she could do was bite down on the back of her own hand, trading pain for a sliver of clarity.
"I didn't—" Lisbeth lifted her head and looked at Nicholas.
Her voice came out hoarse and raw from the drug's effects.
But to everyone listening, it sounded like something else entirely.
Nicholas tossed the file back into Randy's arms.
"Didn't what?" He stepped closer. His shoe stopped at the edge of her fingers and ground down. "Didn't go into heat? Or didn't go looking for men?"
Lisbeth shook her head desperately.
Sweat had soaked her hair, plastering it to her cheeks in dark streaks.
"It's the drug… Adalyn did this…" She forced the words out, every breath scalding.
Nicholas laughed coldly.
"Even now, you're still pinning the blame on someone else?" He crouched down, studying her blood-ravaged lips. "The way you threw yourself at me just now didn't look like a woman who'd been drugged. What's the matter—am I not enough for you? You had to come here for a bigger thrill?"
Lisbeth closed her eyes in despair.
He would never believe her.
Eight years of love, and it couldn't outweigh a few flimsy pieces of paper.
The inmates in the corridor, seeing Nicholas make no further move, grew bolder.
"Hey, Mr. Stuart—if you don't want her, pass her over!"
"Yeah, the lady's clearly desperate. Let us help her out!"
The obscenities came in a relentless tide.
Nicholas stood and brushed the dust from his trousers.
"Since Ms. Berkeley has a condition, she needs treatment." His voice was calm, measured. "And a prison is full of people who can help with that."
Randy stood frozen, unable to process what he'd just heard.
"Take her." Nicholas turned to the guards. "Find a cell with plenty of occupants. Let her put on a show. Give everyone something to watch."
The guards exchanged stunned glances.
In Lisbeth's current state, this was the same as throwing live prey to wild animals.
"Are you deaf?" Nicholas's voice cracked like a whip.
Two guards rushed forward, seizing Lisbeth's arms from either side.
The moment her feet left the ground, pure terror flooded through her.
She could endure beatings. She could endure starvation. But she would not endure being violated by these animals.
"Let go of me!" Strength surged from nowhere. She kicked a guard hard in the shin.
He yelped and released her. Lisbeth scrambled on hands and knees toward Nicholas and clamped onto his leg.
"Nicholas, just kill me!" She looked up at him, her eyes a web of burst blood vessels. "Kill me outright! Don't use this—this filthy way—"
Nicholas looked down at her.
"Death is too good for you." He pried her fingers off one by one. "You owe me. And you'll spend the rest of your life paying it back."
Her fingers bent at agonizing angles. She clawed at his pant leg, nails scraping across the fabric with a shrill, desperate sound.
"I'm begging you…" Her pride lay shattered on the concrete around her. She pressed her forehead to the floor. "I was wrong… it was all my fault. Please—let me go…"
It was the first time she'd begged since entering prison.
To preserve the last shred of her dignity.
Nicholas watched her grovel. But the satisfaction he'd expected never came. Only a deeper, more suffocating restlessness filled his chest.
He jerked his leg free and shook off her hands. His voice was merciless.
"Take her."
The guards didn't hesitate again. They dragged Lisbeth toward the far end of the corridor.
Her shoes had fallen off. Her bare feet scraped across the concrete, leaving two trails of blood behind her.
"Nicholas! I carried your child!" The scream ripped from her throat raw and ragged—a last, desperate attempt to reach whatever humanity remained in him.
It had the opposite effect.
Nicholas closed the distance in three strides, seized her hair, and wrenched her head back.
"You still dare mention that bastard?" His teeth were clenched so hard the tendons in his jaw stood out. Hatred spilled from his eyes. "A thing you made with another man—and you think you can use it to bargain with me?"
Lisbeth's scalp burned. Her tears broke free like a dam collapsing.
"It was your baby… Nicholas, it was your own child!"
"Shut up!" He flung her back at the guards. "Gag her. Lock her in."
A filthy rag was stuffed into her mouth, choking off every cry.
The guards marched her to the last cell at the very end of the corridor.
The iron door swung open. The stench of sweat and stale tobacco hit her like a wall.
Six men—some lying down, some sitting—turned their heads in unison.
When they saw a disheveled woman being shoved inside, six pairs of eyes lit up like predators spotting wounded prey.
"Well, well—the guards brought us a present?" A bald man with a leering face rubbed his hands together and sauntered over.
The guard said nothing. He pushed Lisbeth inside, turned, and locked the iron door behind him.
The heavy padlock clicked shut.
The last thread of hope severed.
The drug peaked.
Lisbeth sagged against the iron door. Her legs couldn't hold her anymore. She slid down the bars to the floor.
Five men closed in.
Lisbeth pressed herself into the corner. Nowhere left to retreat.
A hand seized her collar.
The sound of tearing fabric. The ruined prison uniform ripped wide open.
She closed her eyes. Tears slipped from the corners and fell to the concrete.
Despair.
A despair worse than death.
Outside the cell, the corridor light was dim.
Nicholas stood motionless, lighting a cigarette.
He inhaled deeply. Nicotine traveled down his throat and into his lungs, but it couldn't suppress the nameless agitation gnawing at his core.
From the nearby cell came the sound of fabric ripping, punctuated by coarse male laughter.
"Filthy whore—playing innocent? You're the one with the problem. Let me give you the cure!"
The bald man's snarling voice punched through the iron door and drilled into Nicholas's skull.
His fingers tightened around the cigarette until the filter crumpled.
He told himself this was what Lisbeth deserved.
She'd betrayed their marriage. Carried another man's child. And now she was seducing inmates.
A woman this shameless deserved to be thrown into the gutter and trampled by the lowest of the low.
Only this would quench the hatred burning in his chest.
Inside the cell, two men pinned Lisbeth's hands against the wall.
Rough hands tore off her prison jacket, exposing the bandaged shoulders beneath.
Blood had already seeped through the gauze from her earlier struggle.
"She's wounded." One of the men didn't care. He reached for her waistband. "Bleeding makes it more fun."
