When she hung up, her smile softened once more.
She gently stroked Nolan’s head, her eyes brimming with doting affection.
“The child is fine. You’ve caused enough trouble. Leave now, and don’t come back again.”
Nolan’s eyes were bloodshot as he limped toward the door.
A single dismissive sentence, as if to end everything, far too easy.
I lifted my chin, and the bodyguards instantly blocked Nolan’s path.
Athena shot me a cold glance.
Between us, a single look was enough; our tacit understanding needed no words.
Then her lips curved faintly as she beckoned Nolan over. “Come, apologize to Waylon before you leave.”
He stiffened, resentment and grievance clouding his face. Yet he still obeyed, moving reluctantly to stand before me.
He bowed.
“Mr. Gasper, I was too impulsive. I came at you without knowing the truth.”
“Hurting you was my fault. But you also lost a child, you should understand how I feel, right?”
“A father who can’t even protect his own child, what difference is there between that and trash?”
He called it an apology, but every word was a blade to the chest.
I raised my hand and struck him hard across the face.
“The last person who dared speak to me like that, their bones have long since rotted away!”
“How many lives do you think you have, to provoke me so recklessly?”
Nolan clutched his face, crying like a wounded deer on the verge of death.
I sneered and delivered another backhanded slap, the sharp crack echoing through the room.
Nolan stood unharmed, yet I collapsed to the ground.
Athena stepped forward, her heel grinding mercilessly into my hand. Her coldness was so foreign it pierced straight into my bones.
“I told you, don’t touch him!”
“Waylon, why must you cling to an innocent and refuse to let go?”
My face was swollen from the slaps, my mouth heavy with the taste of blood. A bloody smile spread across my lips.
Over the years, no fewer than a hundred people had fallen by my hands.
She knew I was never one to let things slide, yet she also knew I would never harm the innocent.
Athena gave me no chance to speak. She kicked me aside, lifted Nolan into her arms, and walked away.
When the bodyguards rushed to help me up, pain shook me to the core. Meeting their puzzled gazes, I managed a helpless smile.
Only when I turned did they see the knife buried in my back.