THE DISABLED HEIRESS, MY EX-HUSBAND WOULD PAY DEARLY.

Chapter 391

He shook his head again, and this time the gesture carried finality."You are a disgrace, Lovi. Not just to me. To everything you were taught. To everything you could have been."

Master Bushman reached into his jacket and withdrew two more daggers.

The blades gleamed in the dim warehouse light as he held them for a moment, positioning them carefully in his grip, and then - without hesitation, without any change in his expression - he drove them both forward simultaneously into Lovi’s thighs.

One blade buried itself in the right leg. The other in the left. Both penetrated deep enough that Lovi could feel them scraping against bone, and the fresh wave of pain that accompanied the strikes was so overwhelming that his body convulsed violently against the wall despite the nails holding his wrists in place.

He tried to scream but what emerged was barely a sound - more like a strangled gasp, his voice too exhausted and too damaged to produce anything louder.

Blood began flowing from the new wounds immediately, running down his legs in dark streams that pooled on the concrete floor beneath him.

Master Bushman set the daggers aside and reached into the bag again, withdrawing two more nails - each one identical to the ones that had been driven through Lovi’s wrists, long and brutal and purpose-built for exactly this kind of work.

He crouched down at Lovi’s feet.

With deliberate, methodical precision, he positioned Lovi’s legs wider apart - forcing the ankles to spread until they were aligned with points on the wall that would hold them in the position he wanted. Then he pressed the tip of the first nail against Lovi’s right ankle, holding it steady with one hand while reaching for the hammer with the other.

The hammer fell.

Once. Twice. Three times in rapid succession, each strike driving the nail deeper through flesh and bone and into the concrete behind it until Lovi’s right ankle was pinned completely to the wall.

Lovi’s body jerked with each impact, his head rolling weakly to one side as his nervous system tried and failed to process the compounding layers of trauma being inflicted on him.

Master Bushman moved to the left ankle and repeated the process.

Positioning the nail. Raising the hammer. Driving the metal through skin and bone with the same efficient, emotionless precision.

When he finished, Lovi’s legs were spread wide and nailed to the wall in a position that mirrored his arms - crucified fully now, held in place at four points, his entire body weight suspended by the metal driven through his wrists and ankles and the daggers still buried in his chest and thighs.

Blood ran freely from every wound, creating a spreading pool beneath him that glistened darkly in the light.

And in that moment - pinned to the wall, bleeding from eight separate penetration points, his body screaming with a pain so absolute it had moved past sensation into something closer to a constant, numbing roar - Lovi understood with perfect clarity that he was not going to survive this.

There was no version of the next few hours where he walked away.

No possibility of rescue. No chance of mercy. No scenario where his body could endure what was being done to it and remain functional enough to sustain life.

This was the end.

He tried to lift his head but found that he no longer had the strength. The muscles in his neck had given out entirely, and his head hung forward limply against his chest, too heavy to raise, too exhausted to hold itself upright.

His breathing was shallow and irregular - each breath coming in short, pained gasps that barely moved his chest.

His vision was starting to blur at the edges, darkness creeping in from the periphery as his brain began shutting down non-essential functions in a desperate attempt to keep him conscious for as long as possible.

But even that was failing.

He was weak. Totally, completely, devastatingly weak. Weak to the point where even the act of existing - of continuing to draw breath and maintain awareness - felt like an impossible task that his body was no longer capable of performing.

Master Bushman paused before stepping away from the wall where Lovi hung broken and bleeding, and turned to address the two men who had carried out the crucifixion. His voice was completely matter-of-fact, carrying the tone of someone giving instructions about routine logistics rather than discussing the disposal of a human being.

"When he is dead," he said simply, "take the body to our usual location. Do not bother with a burial."

He looked at Lovi’s hanging form one final time, and there was nothing in his expression that resembled regret.

"He does not deserve one."

The two men nodded in silent acknowledgment, and Master Bushman turned and walked away from the scene without looking back - crossing the warehouse floor with measured steps and moving through the exit toward where the cars were waiting outside.

**

The air outside the warehouse was cool and still, carrying none of the violence and blood and desperate screaming that had filled the space inside. Cora was sitting in the back of the car with the door open, her feet on the ground, when Oliver appeared through the warehouse entrance and walked toward her.

She had been trying to prepare herself for this moment - trying to organize her thoughts and her questions and her emotions into something manageable that she could present coherently when he came. She had been trying to regulate her breathing and settle her expression and appear to be someone in reasonable control of themselves.

It was not working.

The moment Oliver came into clear view - the moment she could see his face and his hands and the completely composed, unhurried way he was moving - everything she had been trying to organize inside herself simply fell apart again, and she found herself staring at him with an intensity that she could not moderate or disguise.

She kept staring.