Chapter 10
Selene was sobbing uncontrollably, her cries echoing through the hospital room. Kane’s hands trembled as if he were in the midst of a winter chill. He reached out to touch Eleanor one last
time, but a doctor firmly grasped his wrist.
“You can see how fragile she is now. She’s so thin, a single touch might break a bone.”
Kane understood that the doctor might be speaking with some emotion, but he knew it was the
truth.
Eleanor lay before him, heartbreakingly frail.
“Ellie…” Kane’s knees buckled, and he knelt by Eleanor’s side, his voice cracking. “When did you get so thin?”
He recalled the Eleanor of the past, her face with a hint of baby fat, so soft and endearingly chubby.
The doctor spoke again, his tone as cold as ever. “When we tried to resuscitate her, we found her stomach completely empty. Even if she hadn’t succumbed to illness, she would have starved to death.”
Starved?
Kane’s heart sank.
In recent times, all their attention had been on ensuring Lillian received proper nutrition, leaving Eleanor neglected.
Here he was, a man of considerable wealth, and yet he had let his fiancée nearly starve to death!
The thought made his mouth fill with a bitter taste, and he almost retched.
The doctor continued, “Before Eleanor passed, she left a message for you.”
“She said she’d repaid what she owed with her life. From now on, in this world or the next, as a person or a spirit, she has nothing to do with any of you.”
Kane and Selene understood immediately. Eleanor had struggled to make it to the hospital just to have an official confirmation of her death, so they wouldn’t doubt it again.
“Ellie!” Selene screamed, collapsing on the spot.
Kane, too, coughed up a mouthful of blood, and darkness consumed him.
When Kane finally awoke, three days had passed.
Eleanor’s body had long since been removed from the hospital.
In a panic, Kane called the Yates family, only to learn that Eleanor had already been cremated.
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Chapter 10
“What?” Kane’s voice rose with anger and disbelief. “So soon? I haven’t even attended her funeral! How could you…”
“It was Lillian,” Selene gasped through her tears on the other end of the line before the call abruptly ended.
Kane’s head throbbed, a buzzing pain overwhelming him, leaving only one thought: he needed to go to the Yates family and find Eleanor!
But as he tried to stand, he began vomiting blood, his body convulsing as if trying to expel every last drop.
He continued to retch, blood pouring like a relentless torrent, threatening to drain him entirely.
The Quinn family was terrified and rushed to call for doctors. They examined him repeatedly, but no matter how many hospitals they consulted, they couldn’t diagnose the cause of his hemorrhaging.
Every episode felt like being run over by a truck, the pain unbearable, unrelenting even with painkillers.
It reminded Kane of the car accident he’d had as a child.
He remembered being hit by a large truck, left on the cold ground, bleeding profusely, feeling as if his entire body was shattered.
Back then, he thought he was at death’s door.
But somehow, Eleanor had stayed by his side until he lost consciousness.
When he awoke, he inexplicably found himself healed.
Kane couldn’t quite connect the dots between then and now, but deep down, he felt this was his
retribution.
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