Ryan took the reagent and stared at Niamh’s wary expression. He spoke coldly, “Out, all of you.”
The maids made a sound of acknowledgment and left, so did Adam.
Just as he was closing the door, Adam glanced subtly at Niamh through the gap before he finally shut it.
Niamh was now left alone with Ryan in the large bedroom.
Niamh sat by the bed where the early morning sunshine splashed over her fair features. Ryan felt his heart skip a beat at the sight.
He walked toward Niamh who resembled a delicate ice sculpture as she stared coldly at the approaching man without moving at all.
“What do you want this time?” Niamh asked calmly as she quietly tightened her grip on the item in her hand. “Are you trying to force me to obey you again?”
Ryan stopped before her and shook his head with a smile.
“You want to see Kendrick, don’t you?” he suddenly asked.
Niamh widened her eyes in shock when she saw Ryan taking his phone out the next second. Tapping on it here and there, he then turned the phone to Niamh.
Kendrick did not expect Ryan to call him again, let alone another video call.
He answered it without a thought. He was about to question Ryan where Niamh was but was surprised to see the woman who he missed so much that he was moments away from going crazy.
“Nia!”
Hearing the voice she had been dreaming about for every moment of every day, Niamh looked up to stare at the phone in Ryan’s hand. Her eyes widened in shock as she tried to look for the source of Kendrick’s voice.
However, Ryan had turned the phone and Niamh was met with the back of the phone.
‘Is it you, Kendrick?
‘Is this your voice?’
Niamh got up to her feet and walked over to check, but Ryan grabbed her by the wrist before she could make it any further. He pulled her toward him.
He turned Niamh around so that her back was against his chest. Then, he grabbed her jaw to force her to stare into the phone screen.
Niamh struggled frightfully to escape Ryan’s grasp, but Kendrick’s features suddenly entered her line of vision.
“Kendrick…”
“Nia!” Kendrick’s voice echoed clearly into Niamh’s ears.
Niamh stared at the frantic and unsettled man. She felt the corners of her eyes beginning to grow hot.
She knew why Kendrick seemed moments away from going mad. She tried to struggle out of Ryan’s grasp so that Kendrick would not need to see her being tormented by Ryan.
Ryan saw through Niamh’s plan and did not give her the chance to do so. He tightened his grip on Niamh’s jaw and forced her to stare straight at the camera.
The sight tore Kendrick’s heart into two.
He was even more shocked to see that Niamh’s long locks had been cut short.
Her originally flushed and fair complexion was now hollow and colorlessly pale to it at all.
Kendrick’s shattered heart felt like salt had been rubbed into the wounds as he watched Niamh try hard to escape from Ryan’s hold, but it was to no avail.
Words could not describe the ache he felt in his heart.
She was suffering in front of him, yet all he could do was watch as another man tortured her.
Nia.
Kendrick’s fingernails etched crescent moons into his palm, and his alluring eyes grew red.
Niamh’s heart hurt as she watched Kendrick cry with reddened eyes on the other end of the line. She willed herself to ignore the pain she felt and calmed herself to comfort him.
“Don’t worry about me, Kendrick. I’m alright, I really am.”
“I’ll come and save you from that crazy b*stard soon, okay, Nia? Wait for me.”
“I’ll wait for you, Kendrick. I know you’ll come and bring me home—ugh.”
Ryan’s grip suddenly tightened around Niamh’s slim neck before she could finish speaking.
“Ryan!” Red dyed Kendrick’s misty eyes as the man pursed his thin lips. “Stop touching my wife. What kind of coward are you to attack a woman?!”
Ryan’s smile widened as he watched Kendrick being moments away from going mad. He leaned down intimately to hover his face next to Niamh’s. “But this isn’t just any woman, is it? She’s the woman you love the most, Kendrick Waldburg.”
“Leave Nia alone! Ryan! Don’t you dare touch her, do you hear me?”
Kendrick could not find it in himself to remain calm as he watched Ryan lean toward Niamh. Before he knew it, he raised his fist and smashed it hard against the glass table in front of him. A crack appeared on the glass before it crashed and shattered.
“Kendrick!” Niamh’s heart leaped at the sound as it suddenly pulled her nerves taut.
“Hmph.” Ryan chuckled lowly. “You’re already this angry? We’ve only just begun.”
Ryan then moved to press his lips on Niamh’s cheek in front of Kendrick’s eyes.
Niamh summed up all her strength to avoid it, but she still could not as she had not eaten anything for an entire day. Furthermore, she sustained all sorts of torture from Ryan.
“F*ck off!”
Niamh roared, but Ryan was gripping the back of her head to prevent her from running away. Ryan got away with planting his lips on Niamh’s cheek in the end.
The act pierced a thousand arrows through Kendrick’s heart as it broke.
Strands of Niamh’s short hair ended up covering her face amidst her struggle, yet it did not stop Kendrick from seeing that his beloved was crying.
“It hurts, doesn’t it, Kendrick? If you don’t want Eveline to suffer anymore, then transfer all of Waldburg Corporation’s stocks to my name and publicly announce that Waldburg Corporation has gone bankrupt.”
Ryan’s eyes were filled with aggressiveness as he demanded.
Niamh’s wet and tear-stricken face snapped up, her gaze looking firm. “Don’t listen to him, Kendrick! He won’t let me go even if you fulfill all of his wishes. Don’t give the crazy b*stard anything he wants!”
Breathing itself felt like a difficult feat as Kendrick took in Niamh’s hollow features.
Despite being well aware that Ryan could not be trusted to keep his word, Kendrick had no other choice but to do as he said.
He would not let go of any shred of hope that she would be alright.
“I’ll give you anything you want as long as you leave Nia alone, Ryan. Even my life, so stop touching her!” Kendrick replied.
Ryan curled his lips in satisfaction.
Niamh shook her head as if her life depended on it. “No, Kendrick, don’t agree to it! Listen to me. Don’t say yes to anything he asks. He has never planned on letting me go at all. What’s the point of me living if you’re just going to give him your life?”
“Nia!”
Ryan’s expression darkened at Niamh’s words.
“Why do I feel like you’re forcing me to do what I don’t want to again, Eveline?” His sinister tone sounded in Niamh’s ears.
He suddenly pushed Niamh toward the bed. Caught off guard, she fell onto the floor and yelled out in pain.
“Nia!”
Kendrick felt a dull ache that was as if he had been hit as well when he watched Niamh fall weakly onto the ground.
Ryan took the phone mid-call and walked toward Niamh to pull her up.
“I’ll have someone transfer all the stocks now, Ryan! Leave Nia alone! Do you hear me?” Kendrick roared, his furious eyes turning into slits. He could not bear to see the scene before his eyes.
How could he bear to see Ryan tormenting her like that?
Hearing Kendrick roar through the phone, Ryan turned to meet Kendrick’s misty and red eyes with mirthful ones of his own. “You’d better mean what you say, or else…”
Ryan paused meaningfully and pulled Niamh into his arms forcefully.
Just then, Niamh lifted her teary gaze that held the strong glint Ryan had been trying to smooth away and glared at him.
Her gaze stunned Ryan for a moment. Niamh took the chance to push him away while she pressed the clip she had been holding on the entire time against her wrist.
Both Ryan and Kendrick, through the screen, felt their hearts lurch at the sight.
“Nia! What are you doing?” Kendrick was frantic, his heart feeling like it was being held above an abyss by a thread. “Let’s not be rash, Nia!”
Ryan seemed much calmer in comparison, but he was panicking internally. “What are you doing, Eveline?”
Niamh curled her pink lips into a cold smirk that graced her pale and drained complexion. “I won’t give you the chance to threaten the people around me anymore, Ryan.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.