Chapter 18
Eleanor struggled desperately.
Because she’d witnessed Caitlin being skinned alive without anesthesia. That agony worse than death. The triumph she’d felt then mirrored her despair now.
Soon she was strapped to the table.
Xander sat coldly in the observation room, watching like a routine procedure, no emotion in his eyes.
When preparations finished, he picked up the microphone and calmly instructed: “No anesthesia. Graft skin matching Ms. Leonard’s burn area. Honor this mother–daughter bond. Just keep her breathing.”
Maddison Leonard’s burns covered seventy percent.
Without anesthesia, cutting off 70% of her skin was no different from death by a thousand cuts.
The surgeon drew a sharp breath.
Yet he dared not disobey–Xander held damning evidence against him, and his career depended on the man’s support. Self–preservation prevailed.
After weighing his options, he made the first incision.
“Ah-!”
Eleanor’s face twisted in agony.
The pain radiating through her body exceeded anything she’d imagined.
Chapter 18
How had Caitlin endured this?
Then came the second cut, the third….
Until both her thighs became a mangled mess, the number of slices long
lost to count.
Eleanor’s cries shifted from pleas to hysterical curses, finally fading into. hoarse, exhausted whimpers. Only then did regret truly take root.
But this realization came far too late.
Growing up in poverty, she’d worked hard to escape the countryside and. attend university in the city, only to be utterly dazzled by its glamour. –
She thought shortcuts could buy lifelong wealth, never realizing she’d be thrown away like trash.
In the observation room, Xander’s eyes burned crimson.
Not out of pity for Eleanor, but because her agony reminded him of Caitlin.
How excruciating it must have been for her.
Yet that pain was something he’d personally orchestrated.
When he first learned the truth, mere descriptions had been unbearable. Now witnessing it firsthand, his chest tightened with suffocating anguish.
He couldn’t bear to think further.
Abruptly standing, he stomped out without courage to watch another second.
After the surgery, Eleanor was practically ruined.
Chapter 15
Her body swathed in bandages, she lay on the hospital bed with only the faintest breath, a single tear silently trailing down her pale face.
But this wasn’t the end for her.
To clear Caitlin’s name, Xander had handed evidence of Eleanor leaking.
–
company secrets to the police once she woke, she’d face legal
consequences.
After leaving the hospital, Xander found himself in turmoil.
Rumors swirled about his moral bankruptcy: how he’d let his mistress. steal partners‘ trade secrets, then heartlessly sacrificed the wife who’d built everything with him from nothing.
The internet exploded instantly.
The public branded him a treacherous snake, partners withdrew their trust, and rivals piled on by purchasing more dirt to sensationalize the scandal.
The Jackson Group’s stock price plummeted.
The PR department tried every means to suppress the trending topics, but it seemed someone was working against them, continuously manipulating public opinion until the heat only intensified.
Finally, an emergency shareholders‘ meeting was convened.
Xander, originally en route to the airport, was summoned back to the company by a phone call.
At the board meeting, shareholders condemned him one after another.
Seated in the high–backed chair with a stormy expression, his already foul mood turned volcanic: “The Jackson Group is an empire I built from
Chapter 18:
scratch. Did you think it’d crumble overnight? You stayed silent while feasting on the spoils, yet now tremble at the slightest rustle in the grass?”
He hadn’t even blinked at this crisis.
Since founding this company, what tempests hadn’t he weathered? Each blow only forged greater strength.
He was completely preoccupied with Caitlin. If not for these people. stopping him, he might have been in Chicago by now.
At this thought, Xander stood up.
In a leader’s tone, he declared, “I’ll address this crisis for everyone, but I must leave now. Feel free to continue discussing.”
Such arrogance left the shareholders fuming.
Yet no one dared protest–after all, Xander held controlling shares, leaving them no choice but compliance.
Just then, a voice cut through from the doorway: “Hold on! This shareholder meeting isn’t adjourned.”
