My Second Marriage with the Mafia Kingpin

Chapter 423: High... very high.

Lucian and Ashley stared at the nurse, watching her beg for mercy.

The nurse rubbed her trembling hands together, her hair a disheveled mess. Tears streamed down her face.

Ashley’s gaze drifted to the woman’s neck. Lucian’s grip had left a dark red handprint—a vivid bruise that stood out against her pale skin.

"Is that all they did?" Ashley asked, her voice quiet but unforgiving.

"Ye—yes!" the nurse cried, slamming her palms against the floor. "They... they sent me this!"

She hurriedly reached into her pocket for her phone. Her hands shook so violently that she kept missing the screen, unable to pull up what she wanted to show them.

Ashley walked over, crouched beside her, and snatched the phone away.

The nurse flinched.

"It’s... it’s in the messages," she stammered. "You can see it there."

Ashley ignored her and opened the message thread. She found it a few messages below the unread notifications the nurse had received that day.

The conversation was short.

The first message contained a photo of a small house somewhere in what looked like a rural province.

The second was a picture of a teenage girl walking with several classmates.

That was it.

Ashley suspected the sender had called afterward to give the nurse the rest of the instructions.

She let out a slow breath before lifting her eyes to the nurse. Without saying a word, she stood and returned to Lucian, handing him the phone.

Lucian studied the photos in silence.

To anyone else, they were harmless.

But he, of all people, understood exactly what they meant. Especially if they had been followed by a phone call.

He slowly looked up at the nurse.

"Lucian," Ashley called quietly.

He gave a small nod.

The couple stared at the nurse for a long, suffocating moment before their attention drifted to Tommy lying motionless on the hospital bed.

Lucian’s lips parted. "He needs to die."

"I guess that’s the only way," Ashley whispered, her eyes still fixed on Tommy. She gave a faint nod. "For him to live... he needs to die."

Slowly, they turned their attention back to the nurse slumped on the floor.

Her brows lifted as her eyes darted between them. She swallowed hard, fighting the overwhelming urge to crawl away.

Ashley took the phone from Lucian again. She tapped on it for a few moments before installing an application. Once she finished, she handed it back to him.

"Make the call."

Lucian rose to his feet and walked toward the nurse.

Holding the phone between his thumb and forefinger, he extended it toward her. His eyes never left hers, cold and utterly devoid of sympathy.

"Tell them you did it," he instructed. "Tell them you administered the drug exactly as they ordered."

He paused.

"In an hour, the doctors will rush in here, and you’ll confirm his death. After that, call them again and tell them the job is done."

The nurse took the phone with trembling hands.

"But I didn’t—"

"Once you make that call, make sure they leave your family alone. We’ll have backup watching them just in case," Ashley said from where she stood. "I don’t care how you do it, but convince them you’ve done your part."

The nurse swallowed as she turned toward Ashley.

"Don’t ever tell them we had this conversation," Ashley continued. "You’ll tell them you came in under the pretense of administering the patient’s medication and left afterward. Some time later, the drug took effect, and the patient was pronounced dead."

She stepped closer before crouching in front of the nurse once more, meeting her eyes.

"You never saw me or my husband. We never had this conversation. None of this happened."

A part of Ashley pitied the nurse for being dragged into this.

Deep down, both she and Lucian knew the woman would have gone through with killing Tommy.

Then again...

Could anyone truly blame her?

If Ashley had to take another life to save Lucian and Primo, she would do it.

Without hesitation.

Without remorse.

But another part of her couldn’t excuse it. Especially when the intended victim was Tommy.

"I’m sorry this happened to you," Ashley said softly. "But if you don’t do this... your situation won’t get any better."

She held the nurse’s gaze.

"The people who forced you into this may leave your family alone. But the victim’s family?" Ashley slowly shook her head. "The outcome will be the same. Maybe even worse."

She leaned in slightly. "Do you understand?"

The nurse clutched her phone tightly against her chest before nodding repeatedly.

"Good." Ashley stood. "Now fix yourself and leave."

"Ye... yes."

The nurse hurriedly fixed her hair and wiped away her tears.

Just as she finished, Ashley spoke again.

"By the way, I installed an app on your phone."

The nurse froze.

"I’ll be tracking everything on it," Ashley said evenly. "I’ll know the moment you try to ruin our plan."

The nurse’s watery eyes trembled.

In the end, she simply nodded.

Silence settled over the room as she slowly pulled herself together. She adjusted her cardigan to hide the bruises around her neck.

Once she’d regained a little composure, she faced them again.

Her shoulders were stiff, her complexion ghostly pale. The dark circles beneath her eyes, along with the swelling around one of them, made it obvious how badly she had been shaken.

Yet despite everything, there was resolve in her eyes.

She lowered her head, clutching one trembling arm with the other.

"I... I’ll leave."

She stood there for another second before turning toward the door.

The moment she stepped outside the ward, she leaned heavily against it and took several deep breaths.

Her heart still pounded violently against her ribs. Her knees threatened to give out beneath her.

Even now, she couldn’t understand how she’d managed to stand up and walk away.

She had just tried to kill someone — a defenseless patient. She had almost injected a fatal drug into a man.

She had become a nurse to save lives.

Yet today, she had almost taken one.

And nearly lost her own in the process.

Her fingers slowly reached for the bruises around her neck before she buried her face in one hand.

"Why is this happening to me?" she whispered between quiet sobs.

*****

Meanwhile, inside the ward, Ashley walked to Tommy’s bedside.

She stared at him, her hands curling into tight fists.

"Lucian," she whispered, never taking her eyes off Tommy.

She could see him from the corner of her eye, standing quietly at the foot of the bed.

A sharp glint flashed across her eyes.

"What are the odds..." she murmured, "that the people behind this are the same ones behind the child abductions... the ones trying to frame Ghost as the main suspect?"

Lucian remained silent for a long moment, his hands buried in his pockets.

When he finally answered, his voice was low.

"High... very high."