Chapter 852
Phineas was sprawled on the ground, shaking uncontrollably. His eyes, bloodshot, were locked onto the horrifying scene unfolding before him. His heart was ablaze with a furious desire for vengeance, yet he was utterly powerless.
All he could do was lie there, forced to witness his child getting hurt, to see the love of his life being trampled and violated.
He groaned in helpless anger, tears mingling with blood streaming down his face.
This nightmare dragged on from dusk till the wee hours of the night.
Gideon was a monster. He deliberately tormented Phineas by assaulting Kelsey in every conceivable manner, over and over, right in front of Phineas’s eyes.
Kelsey’s screams of hysteria gradually faded into silence. Her fierce resistance dwindled until she no longer had the strength to fight back. Phineas’s eyes went from wide with rage to tightly shut, tears of despair streaming down his face.
What was once a blissful, loving relationship between Phineas and Kelsey had been brutally shattered by Gideon, casting them into a living hell.
From joy to utter despair, their lives were destroyed, leaving them with unresolved anguish.
Kelsey was tortured to death by Gideon, her body left in disarray, her eyes void of tears.
Phineas died of a broken heart. As a man, he could not bear the sight of his beloved being humiliated right before his eyes, powerless to intervene. It would have been a mercy to have killed him instead.
With his dying breath, he was still looking towards Kelsey, the pain in his heart unimaginable.
The Inkster family’s two sons were murdered by bodyguards, their necks snapped on Gideon’s orders.
“Gideon said, “”Root and branch, let’s reunite them in hell p>
With that, he tidied his clothes, not a speck of blood on him, and left as if nothing had happened, even having the audacity to grab a slice of Kelsey’s homemade pie on his way out.
To him, the lives of Kelsey and Phineas were inconsequential, no more significant than insects.
Gideon had no prior connection or grudge against the Inkster family. His vile act was spurred simply because he happened upon Kelsey by chance and was captivated by her beauty.
Because Phineas wasn’t willing to trade his wife for wealth.
Because Kelsey refused to submit.
Because their young children tried to protect their parents.
Four vibrant lives were extinguished.
Quinlan, hidden in a closet, witnessed the fury of his father, the despair of his mother, the terror of his brothers, and the silent grief of his sister through the slits of the door.
His loving parents and brothers were gone, and the warmth of his home had vanished.
What remained in Quinlan’s heart was the despair, helplessness, and sorrow of his family, along with Gideon’s brazen arrogance.
Too young to bear such psychological torment, Quinlan fainted on the spot.
When he awoke, several days had passed, and he found himself surrounded by strangers, his sister nowhere to be found.
He was locked in a dark, damp room with other dirty, scared children.
Any attempt to find his family was met with violence.
Mentioning his family led to beatings. Crying led to beatings.
Some of the children around him were maimed and sent to beg, others had their organs harvested, and some ended up as corpses used for smuggling drugs.
The faces of the children around him changed, but their numbers remained constant.
As some died, new ones were brought in.
In a twisted sense, Quinlan was “lucky” for his looks spared him from worse fates. The traffickers merely beat him, avoiding serious injury, before eventually selling him.
He was traded like merchandise multiple times until he ended up with Maxwell and his wife, who took him to Hill Village.
By then, he was a shell of his former self, having survived the brutality at the art studio and the cruelty of the traffickers. At such a young age, his heart was filled with pain and fear.
So, he remained silent, too scared to speak, unsure of what could be said.
That is until he met Elizabeth Gonzalez.