After I Died for Justice, He Chased Me for Years

Chapter 7

"Nathan! What the hell are you rambling about?"

Arthur slammed his chopsticks down hard on the table. "If you so much as dare to change your mind about her, I'll break your legs, you hear me?"

Nathan sat ramrod straight, not a flicker of fear on his face.

Terrified the father and son would blow up at each other, Jillian quickly stepped in to hold back the fuming older man. "Arthur, the breakup is my fault. It has nothing to do with Nathan."

Arthur frowned, clearly skeptical. "Really?"

Jillian squeezed her fingers so tight her knuckles went white, but she kept a small smile on her face as she nodded.

Looking at the two young people who'd once been so in love, now cold as strangers, Arthur wanted to talk them into working things out, but he had no idea where to even start.

The air hung thick and heavy, every person at the table tangled up in their own thoughts.

After dinner, Jillian and Nathan left the house together.

They walked in complete silence all the way, until they were almost at the fork in the road.

Swallowing back the bitter taste in her throat, Jillian typed a line into her phone.

Jillian: [Did you look into Finn?]

Nathan glanced at the screen coldly, his lips parting to speak. Before he could get a single word out, a figure came bounding over.

A girl slipped her arm through his, all bright, giddy smiles. "Nathan! I came to pick you up! Let's go home!"

It was Nina.

Jillian's breath caught in her throat. She stared at their linked arms. Were they really that close?

Her eyes drifted up against her will, and she saw the soft, doting look on Nathan's face. It was a world away from the cold, distant way he'd turned away when she tried to kiss him last time.

The sight twisted like a red-hot knife in her chest.

She dropped her gaze, trying to yank her frayed emotions back together so she could say something, anything. But when she looked up again, all she saw was Nathan and Nina walking away side by side.

She stood frozen to the spot, watching them go, until hot tears came spilling out of her eyes, fast and unstoppable.

Out of nowhere, the previously clear, sunny sky clouded over, and the heavens opened, pouring down so hard it felt like someone was dumping buckets of water from the sky.

In seconds, Jillian was soaked to the bone, a total drowned rat.

Her wet clothes clung to her skin, and the cold seeped right through her pores into bones that had been broken before. The pain was so sharp it turned her face paper-white, and she couldn't stop trembling.

On instinct, she balled her fist and pounded hard at the aching bones, waiting for the numbness to take the edge off the pain before limping back to her rented apartment.

But the second she got to the building entrance, she spotted Finn hurrying toward the street corner.

Ignoring the throbbing in her leg, she quietly followed after him, and soon saw him meet up with Nina.

Jillian pulled out her phone, ready to snap photos for evidence—only to see Nina staring straight at her!

Her heart dropped into her stomach. She stuffed her phone back into her pocket and turned to leave, but Nina grabbed her arm before she could get away.

"Lane Carter," she called out mockingly, "you're already here. Why not stay and chat with me for a bit?"

Lane was the alias Jillian had used when she was undercover.

Nina planted herself right in front of her, that sweet, angelic face twisted with pure, unhinged malice. "Lane, how should I kill you to make myself feel better? Lock you in an iron cage and dump you in the ocean like I did James Raines? Or throw you to a crowd of men to torture, just like Mary Raines?"

At the mention of her parents, white-hot rage boiled up in Jillian's chest, impossible to hold back.

She wrenched her arm free of Nina's grip, then slammed her hard against the nearest wall.

Nina winced in pain and furrowed her brows, but she didn't put up a fight. Instead, she asked, "You care a lot about Nathan, don't you?"

Her question carried a hidden, menacing edge. Jillian's gaze sharpened instantly, but before she could retort, a familiar sharp shout cut through the air from behind her. "Jillian, stop right there!"

Before she could process what was happening, someone roughly wrenched her backward away from Nina.

Nathan shielded Nina behind him, his face tight with worry. "Nina, are you hurt?"

Nina looked utterly wronged, her eyes red-rimmed, on the verge of tears. "Cough... Jillian said she wants me to join her parents in the grave... Nathan, it's all my fault, I owe Jillian..."

"That's not true!" Jillian shook her head so hard her vision swam. "She's lying!"

But no matter how hard she tried to yell, her throat stayed clamped shut, no noise coming out at all.

Panicked, she fumbled in her pocket for her phone, desperate to type out what had just happened and show it to Nathan.

The next second, someone slapped the phone right out of her hand. It crashed to the ground with a sharp c***k, smashing to pieces.

She looked up in stunned disbelief, only to meet Nathan's ice-cold, indifferent gaze.

He pulled out a pair of handcuffs, and they clinked as he snapped them around her wrists. "You're suspected of intentional assault. You're officially under arrest right now."