Chapter 20
“We?”
The word struck Isabella like a physical blow. Her pulse spiked as she lunged for the steering wheel.
“Don’t move!” Nathaniel barely managed to restrain her with one hand while keeping the car steady. As she struggled, the sapphire bracelet slipped from beneath his cuff-and suddenly, Isabella understood why such a modest piece had been included among those priceless jewels.
Mr. Hawthorne knew.
He’d been testing her.
Keeping an admirer on a leash had seemed harmless enough before, but now-
“Nathaniel, I’ll admit I’m exceptional. Magnetic, even. But that doesn’t justify this… kidnapping!” Her manicured nails dug into the leather seats. “You’re just a dog Emily picked up off the street! How dare you presume-”
Screeching tires drowned her words as the sports car fishtailed to a stop at the mouth of an alley.
Nathaniel’s knuckles whitened on the wheel. “Look around. Don’t you recognize this place?”
Did she just call him a dog?
Last night, she swore he was the most important person in her life!
Even marrying into the Hawthorne family couldn’t change that!
Were all those sweet, honeyed words-every time she cooed ‘Nathaniel’-nothing but lies?
Isabella glanced at the pitch-black alleyway and the unfamiliar surroundings, her blood running cold. “Let me go if you want to live!”
“Look at me.” He shoved his bangs aside, revealing a faint T-shaped scar. “Ten years ago, you said you saved a boy here. His head split open right-”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” She recoiled as headlights flooded the scene-the Hawthorne family motorcade arriving in a swarm of black SUVs. Wrenching the door open, she stumbled toward the armed guards. “Arrest him! He tried to-”
The words died as thirty bodyguards froze mid-draw.
Nathaniel slowly pushed open the car door and stepped out, his expression growing increasingly grim as he watched Isabella’s shrill tirade-howling about dismembering him, all bravado borrowed from another’s power.
The assistant arrived just in time to murmur, “Miss Montgomery, this is Mr. Hawthorne. Whose eyes and bones did you wish to carve out again?”
“That’s… impossible…” Her knees buckled.
Nathaniel had no words left.
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He ordered Isabella’s ruby bracelet to be removed and clasped together with his sapphire one-only for…
The interlocking teeth-designed to fuse into a single united band-refused to align.
“The matching piece was destroyed three years ago.” Benjamin materialized from the shadows, his smile a razor slash. “By her hands. Deliberately.” He watched Nathaniel’s face with grim satisfaction. “Isabella’s always had a habit of breaking what she can’t steal from Emily.”
A muscle jumped in Nathaniel’s jaw.
“When Emily slapped her for ruining that bracelet, I returned the favor twice over.” Benjamin’s laugh was raw, bloody. “She never came home after that day.”
“Tell me, Mr. Hawthorne-” He pressed a shaking hand to his own chest. “-should I keep breathing?”
The alley spun.
Two slaps from a brother paled against what he’d done to her.
Darkness swallowed Nathaniel whole.
Chapter 20
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