Elaine White had never been interested in doing business since childhood. She specialized in dicine as she grew up and didn’t know much about the workings of the business world.
She just said, "It seems like Damian Sinclair’s project in Afreia ran into trouble, related to smuggling and dumping, and then there’s his loan with the bank, involving his uncle, Mr. Sinclair."
Eleanor, who had been engaged to Damian Sinclair, knew the Sterling Sinclair family relatives, and had toasted them. His uncle, associated with the bank loan—
She asked, "Is it the one from the province?"
Elaine nodded, catching a glimpse of Ian White standing at the door, she imdiately called him over.
"Dad—I don’t understand business. Co and explain it to Eleanor."
Ian White didn’t co closer, "The situation is about as you described. Involving his uncle makes it more serious; the key is how the authorities investigate it and what conclusion they reach."
Eleanor had been with Cillian Grant for four years, and even if not actively attentive to his affairs, she knew so of his strategies and maneuvers in the business world.
If it involves politics, it ans there is no intention to back down and leave the opponent a way out.
Noises ca from the corridor, growing louder, and Elaine instinctively signaled Ian White, "Shut the door."
The noise stopped at the door.
Cillian Grant walked in against the corridor’s light, with Damon Sharp standing outside the door, gesturing for Ian to proceed.
Ian White understood and called Elaine, "Co out."
Elaine glanced at Cillian Grant and then at Eleanor, but didn’t object, obediently following Mr. White out.
The room beca empty and quiet, and when the door closed, it was even quieter.
Eleanor sat upright in bed, her black pupils were fixedly staring at him, silent to the extre.
Also dangerous to the extre.
Cillian Grant approached, and eting her sharp gaze, sat by the bed, "Elaine told you about the situation back ho. What do you plan to do next?"
Eleanor remained silent.
She didn’t question Damian Sinclair, didn’t accuse him of madness, and certainly didn’t interrogate him.
Cillian Grant gazed at her pale face, the clarity and liveliness of her features had already transford into the edge of a sword for him.
The sword’s tip pointed at him, adding another stroke to his litany of offenses.
"You haven’t made up your mind, have you?"
Cillian Grant suddenly had a hint of a smile, indistinguishable if it was mocking or sad, "Damian Sinclair is too inexperienced. He might know the business lines that cannot be crossed, but his understanding isn’t deep. The smallest slip of the foot is enough for rivals to tear open his defenses."
"As for handling crises like his, I’ve encountered countless tis in the past four years—how to curb the decline, how to lay groundwork, how to counteract—all right before your eyes, never hidden from you."
Eleanor’s face showed only the slightest ripple. She recalled the past, his phone calls on school commutes, the never-dimming computer screen glow at her bedside late at night, all fragnted snippets she didn’t pay attention to and couldn’t fully rember.
"There’s also the White Family." Cillian Grant sat very close, leaning forward, his eyes like dark nests harboring fierce beasts, ready to lash out unpredictably the next mont, but the invisible threat was already binding her.
"Damian Sinclair’s loan move is a breach. The White Family’s fraudulent dical records is also a breach. I’d tear into this breach. At least, the White Family Hospital is subjected to the lowest audit, Elaine losing her dical license, and then the White Family itself. Ian White is much more capable than Damian Sinclair, but I’m indifferent to costs, and he cannot stop ."
Eleanor tensed up completely, veins bulging below the covers almost bursting through her skin.
She felt she’s gone mad.
Yet she couldn’t out-crazy Cillian Grant, that devil.
"Even Auntie King, Stonewell, Tilly, that chubby group leader, and add the butler, I’m the one protecting him right now, otherwise, just by him leaking secrets to Damian Sinclair, my father would be more than enough to make him suffer untold hardships."
Eleanor’s endurance was close to breaking, her gaze frequently landing on Cillian Grant’s neck, her whole being stretched to the limit, an arrow about to be launched.
Cillian Grant’s gaze enveloped her, his face made clear in the bright hospital room light, eye sockets deep as black holes swallowing people, shadows within with chains, yet the temperature was blazing.
"Eleanor, your hatred for is beyond resolution, but I won’t let go of you either. If you managed to escape from , there’s always sothing in this world you care about. In the end, like a bombed-out wasteland, what you care about would go up in flas. By then, I’d be utterly insane, and the golden cage of this world, as old as ti. We’ll battle to the last second."
Eleanor’s nerves snapped suddenly, she lifted the covers, a shard of glass hidden in hand, aid at Cillian Grant’s neck, but he grasped it precisely.
Eleanor’s eyes nearly popped, her body trembling all over.
She knew too well that Cillian Grant had skills, quite formidable. In a match at 1V1, it’s a piece of cake; 1V2, a warm-up; 1V3, he would not fall behind. But she ultimately couldn’t hold out, waiting for his flaw to show and land a fatal blow.
The white light in the hospital room reflected off the pink walls, soft and warm, the atmosphere between them enveloped in a blackened grayness.
Cillian Grant pried open her hand, taking away the glass shard, her palm cut with crimson blood spreading out, like a fla that wouldn’t flicker out, furiously reflected in his eyes, "Elaine gave you this, trying to appease you. Glass cutting a carotid artery, without practice, it’s hard for a novice to hit it in one blow."
He found gauze and alcohol from the nightstand, tending to the wound, wrapping it neatly, Eleanor’s eyes blood-red, half hatred and half despair, rooting and sprouting within her veins.
Cillian Grant tied off the bandage, a perfect bow. He cast his eyes down for two seconds, "But I don’t want you to suffer. I want you to laugh, to be happy, to have the best in the world. So Eleanor, we’ll find solutions through our irresolvable problems."
He pulled out a dagger from his pocket, clutching the hilt, placing the handle in her other unhard hand, "You can only relieve your hatred if I die. Now the knife is in your hand, we’ll settle this ga."
"Stab this knife into my heart, I’ll die, no devil will haunt you. Damon Sharp has your new identity, a Swiss Bank passbook, several companies, and you won’t have to worry about retribution from The Grant Family. I’ve arranged for people."
"If by a small chance, I live. You stay by my side, I won’t touch you, maintaining boundaries between a man and a woman. During this period, I welco you to scrutinize and interpret in every way, analyzing and examining with the rigor used on a criminal, as long as you’re objective."
"If at last, you still hate , you can collect evidence of my cris and confine to life imprisonnt, just like I did with Damian Sinclair."
Eleanor clutching the dagger tightly, her whole body’s tendons, eyelashes, including pores, all constantly trembling.
Cillian Grant released his grip, unbuttoning his shirt, pulling it open to reveal his whole left chest, his gaze like a whip woven of madness, tenderness, mingling with blood and bone, landing on her, one mont a savage lash, the next coiling around her, ready to rge into her marrow.
Unbelievably eerie.
"You’re very familiar with the position of my heart. Over these four years, no matter the storms, I made my way back. In the depth of night till dawn, your ear pressed against it as you slept. Did you find it noisy?"
Eleanor raised the dagger, the tip hovering an inch before his tawny skin, unsure what was shocking her, only feeling hatred, yet feeling the urge to burst, pushing her to scream, "Do you think I won’t dare? Do you think I really won’t dare?"
Cillian Grant’s cheeks still bore her slap’s pink mark, like a pre-applied cloak of blood, "You’re doubting whether I’m playing psychological gas."
He smiled, "I absolutely won’t dodge this stab. I’ll use this stab to make you look at , approach , and understand why I beca a madman, how the madman turned into a devil, all within those four years, co to find the answer."
Eleanor heard of those four years, those four years—
Like a paperclip pricking an imminent-bursting balloon, like the last milliter of a bomb’s fuse, it was her day-and-night unfindable exit of fear, her bone-carving excruciating grief, her shattered four years and completely ssed up life.
There was blood.
So much.
chanically, she put forth the knife hilt, watching the blood-laden sight.
The illness didn’t conquer him, she did.
Insane, he went insane, she went insane too.
Extrely, all were sick.
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