?Chapter 1339:


    Go home? Like this?


    With a severed finger, a ruined career, and William breathing down her family’s neck?


    She shook her head, unable to speak.


    Lance’s patience finally thinned. “William still has Ste locked up. You came back with him—do you know why he hates her so much?”


    Nina lowered her gaze and said nothing.


    Lance stared at her for a long moment, frustration simmering under his skin. Finally, he turned and walked out.


    The door closed behind him. Nina stayed hunched on the sofa, swallowing sob after sob, wondering why William couldn’t let go of Ste.


    When they were abroad, she’d watched Arlo’s people whisper in William’s ear day after day, nting seeds, feeding him hatred until he believed every ugly word.


    She had thought it was permanent. She thought William’s heart had finally turned to stone.


    But then Ste appeared again, and the entire facade shattered. His emotions roared back to life, wild and uncontroble.


    All those months of psychological maniption undone in a single moment.


    Ninaughed, soft and broken. She didn’t know whether she wasughing at William… or at herself.


    Lance left her apartment with no answers, only dread. If William could cut off Nina’s finger without blinking, he feared for Ste.


    Since William returned from abroad, something in him had shifted.


    What he did to Nina—cold and merciless—meant there was no telling what he might do to Ste next.


    He couldn’t wait any longer. Sliding into his car, he gunned the engine and headed straight for William’s vi.


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    After William brought Ste back, he locked her in a room. Not a cramped one—spacious, in fact—but a prison all the same.


    She wasn’t allowed into the living room anymore. Not unless William was home.


    When he was gone, servants delivered her meals straight to the bedroom door. And that room? It became her whole world.


    She was only allowed out of the room when William came home from work. A few minutes in the living room. Maybe a walk in the garden—always supervised.


    Previously, she thought she was already living in a cage. Now, she knew better.


    Some nights, she’d wake up breathless, shaken from dreams where he locked her in the bathroom. No bed. No windows. No way out. Just tiled walls and silence.


    A knock came at the door. A servant rolled in a dinner trolley and stopped short of the threshold. “Ms. Russell, this was specially prepared by Mr. Briggs. He said it’s important for your health.”


    Ste nced at the tray. Her eyes settled on a bowl of chicken soup—shiny with grease.


    Her stomach turned. Before the servant could say anything else, she rushed past her into the bathroom, doubling over the sink as nausea surged up her throat.


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