Hamish slept for a full 24 hours before waking up. He opened his swollen eyes and stared at the IV bag hanging above him, the liquid slowly flowing through the tubing.
He looked at the steel needle stuck in the back of his left hand and reached over to pull it out directly.
“Mr. Burns, why did you remove the needle before the IV was finished?” Tobias entered the room and saw Hamish’s “self-harm” behavior, quickly reaching over to hold down his hand.
After a whole day of deep sleep, weak and feeble, Hamish struggled but eventually gave up trying to move.
Tobias rang the bell to call the nurse intending to reinsert the needle for Hamish.
Hamish was seriously ill, having not rested well for several days and often staying in the cold room, causing various problems in his body-gastric bleeding, a high fever of 40 degrees, a temperature that, if it rose a bit more, would have driven a person insane.
“Where is Lila?” Hamish’s voice was barely recognizable.
Tobias thought he would continue to pester about Elisa upon waking up, but after a moment’s hesitation, he answered, “She’s still locked in the basement. She’s afraid of dogs, so they’ve chained a dog to her.”
“Keep her alive. A person like her should suffer rather than live,” Hamish closed his eyes, paused, and then said, “Lila didn’t want to marry him that much, did she? To lie and harm innocent people for him. Since she wanted to be with him so much, she should be willing to endure whatever he does, right?”
“I’ll arrange it, but Mr. Burns, you must recover before leaving the hospital.”
Hamish remained silent. Tobias stood by, watching the nurse reinsert the needle, knowing that his words had been taken to heart.
…
Hamish lay in the hospital for three days, until he had recovered enough for Tobias to take him out of the hospital. During this time, he didn’t mention “Elisa” as if he had already forgotten her.
But only the caregiver who took care of him knew that he tossed and turned every night, and occasionally, even in his sleep, he would mutter the name “Elisa.”
Could someone who could call out in their dreams be easily forgotten?
Hamish went directly to the place where Lila was being held after being discharged from the hospital. Before they arrived, they heard barking from inside, accompanied by the desperate screams of a woman. It was chilling in this eerie, cold wind.
It had snowed again in Chiwood today, but compared to the snowfall on Christmas Day, it was much lighter, with small snowflakes dancing in the wind. Tobias stood next to Hamish, holding an umbrella to shield him from the snow.
As they descended, the door guard opened the door, and a putrid, fishy smell hit them. Tobias furrowed his brow, suppressing the urge to vomit. He stole a glance at Hamish and saw that he remained unfazed.
The guard led them inside and pressed a button on the wall, illuminating the dark basement with a sudden burst of light.
Hamish glanced indifferently and saw a huge iron cage, divided into two sections by bars. Lila was trapped in one corner, like a deflated balloon, slumped in the cage.
She was covered in blood, her hair matted into dry clumps of blood. However, the most terrible sight was her legs, dripping with blood from the knees down, faintly revealing a pile of white bones beneath the rotting flesh.
The guards, used to such sights, pulled out a remote control from their pockets. Without hesitation, they pressed a button, and the central bars opened.
The black pit bull lunged towards Lila with its red mouth wide open. Lila trembled in fear, her body almost stuck between the bars of the cage. No matter how she tried to evade, her feet couldn’t escape the dog’s bite, resulting in an extremely gruesome scene.
Tobias gasped. If he wasn’t mistaken, the dog was chewing on something. It was likely Lila’s toes.
Lila had been injected with a substance that stimulated her nerves, keeping her conscious, unable to faint, facing the constant fear of being bitten.
At first, her feet had been chained, and she would run ahead, with the dog chasing from behind, as if teasing a mouse. After the dog bit her, they would throw her into the cage without treating the wounds, as long as she didn’t die.
Later, when her feet were too damaged, she could only crawl forward on her knees. In the pitch-black basement, it looked as if there were two dogs inside.
Pit bulls are naturally aggressive, and an untamed one is even more ferocious, with an inherent fierceness. They become abnormally excited when theysmell blood. So, it didn’t take much imagination to understand what Lila had endured in those three days. Her legs, now full of rotting flesh, were the result of those days.
“Good boy, sit,” the dog’s trainer commanded. The black pit bull immediately sat down, panting heavily, its saliva mixed with blood dripping onto the ground.
Approaching closer, they noticed that Lila seemed to have lost her mind, her dilated pupils constantly shaking her head, saying, “I’m sorry, I was wrong.”
Could one “sorry” absolve all the guilt?
The chain that had originally been around Lila’s ankle had been replaced with one around her neck, due to her injured legs. Taking the iron chain handed over by the guard, Hamish began to pull Lila out bit by bit.
Lila couldn’t even crawl on her own. As she was dragged, she resembled a frightened bird, curling up, trying to return to her original position.
But after a scolding from the pit bull, she instantly stopped moving and began whimpering, not knowing what else to say.
Wearing gloves, Hamish bent down and lit Lila’s hair on fire, revealing a face covered in blood, her legs disabled and her face disfigured.
Even in that moment, Lila regained a glimmer of consciousness. Her foggy eyes regained some light when she saw Hamish, mixed with a trace of hatred. She quickly lowered her head and shivered, “Hamish, I know I was wrong. Spare me, I’m in so much pain…”
She didn’t understand why everything had changed overnight. It felt like just yesterday when she had meticulously planned their engagement banquet, standing with Hamish on a dazzling stage, making vows in front of all the guests.
Just as she was about to reach the peak, she was suddenly struck by thunder. She was thrown into an endless hell. Her every flaw was exposed on the big screen, and Hamish also found out that she wasn’t the one who had saved him all those years ago.
Then came the news of Elisa’s death, such good news. That woman had finally died, the one who had stood in her way had finally disappeared.
She knew Hamish’s vengeful nature. She was about to take the money he had given her, secretly contact Hugo, and leave the country. But she was kidnapped on the way to the airport, leading to endless torment. She felt as if she were living in hell, being bitten by the dog day and night.
At first, she could struggle, but in the end, she had no strength left. She just hoped the dog would go easy on her, not bite too hard.
All the suffering of those long three days was a gift from the man she had once wholeheartedly wanted to marry, the man she had always loved.
She had done many wrongs, always taking advantage of Hamish’s “forgiveness” to act wantonly. She thought, even if he found out that she had conspired with others to harm Elisa, he wouldn’t do anything to her. After all, Hamish had been good to her for seven years.
But she hadn’t expected Hamish to be so ruthless, locking her in a dog cage to be bitten like a dog.
Lila forgot that those seven years were obtained through deceit.
As Lila reached out, Hamish kicked her away.
Unable to control herself, Lila burst into tears, gasping and choking, blood flowing from her mouth, further dirtying her already filthy face.
As much as Hamish had “cherished” her once, now he hated her just as much.
Lila collapsed on the ground, her gaze askew. This version of Hamish seemed like a demon come to take her life from hell.
She knew he wouldn’t spare her, no matter what she said. In these few days, she felt as though she had endured a lifetime of suffering. Since he wouldn’t spare her, then she wouldn’t make it easy for him.
Hoarsely, she panted, “Hamish, you only know how to vent your anger on women. You coward. Yes, I did something wrong to you, but have you ever thought about why I did those things? You promised to marry me, but you were entangled with Elisa. You promised to divorce her for me, but you lingered for seven years. Seven years… how many seven years does a woman have? You broke your own promise. What I did was only to reclaim what was rightfully mine. Did I do wrong?”
Considering these thoughts, Lila felt more sadness than anger. It was all their doing, the one to blame being Hamish. He had wronged her, so she deserved to get something back. She didn’t feel like she had done anything wrong at all. It was Hamish’s greed and arrogance that was wrong, and Elisa shouldn’t have coveted what didn’t belong to her.
Elisa was right about something. Hamish was just scum, and she had treated a dung heap as if it were treasure.
“For Elisa’s death, you torture me like this. But don’t forget who caused the Powell family to go bankrupt. Who sent Koby to prison, leading him to jump off a building to his death? Who pushed Elisa down the stairs, causing her to miscarry, lose trusted loved ones, and suffer betrayal one after another.”
A smile played at the corners of Lila’s mouth, full of disdain and mockery. “I have done some harmful things in secret, but have you ever thought, if you really loved Elisa, why didn’t you trust her? You killed the two children in her womb, even had her uterus removed, deprived her of the right to be a mother. You callously forced her to sign a blood contract, made her kneel in front of the courthouse in shame. When she wanted a divorce, you kept her as a slave in the house to bear children.”
The more Lila spoke, the more she felt she had done nothing wrong. If someone is willing to do something, why should she be locked in a cage and suffer torment?
“You might as well kill me!” Lila spoke with righteousness, and the basement fell into a deathly silence.
In that moment, Hamish’s dark jade eyes closed suddenly, his thin lips pursed, his face turned as silent as the surroundings.
These words haunted him every moment since Elisa’s death, reminding him of the sins he had committed.
What Lila said was nothing compared to the devastating words of Finn and Micah. Hamish thought he had grown accustomed to this pain, but when Lila spoke, his eyes stung for a moment.
When he reopened them, his eyes reverted to their previous deadness as he ordered his men, “Her hands are bothersome to look at, so cut them off. Since she can’t speak, there’s no need for her mouth either. Cut off her tongue and feed it to the dogs.”
Lila, facing this devil, broke out in a cold sweat. Her pupils contracted slightly, and she felt as though a bug had flown into her vision. Unable to move or speak, the thought of that scene made her body go numb.
Hamish added, “But do not let her die.”
That was genuine hell on earth.
Lila couldn’t even kneel, she could only reach out to Hamish, like a dying rat, struggling and pleading bitterly.
“Hamish, if your hands are stained with too much blood, you’ll go to hell after death. You won’t be able to meet Elisa even in death, let alone in the afterlife.” Lila’s voice trembled greatly; she couldn’t believe she was seeking help from a dead person.
Hamish paused for a moment, as if recalling something. He murmured hoarsely, “No, I will meet her after death because she said she would be waiting for me in hell…”