The Sleeper's Wrath and His Wife's Strike novel Chapter 49

She’d rather die than severe the limbs, unable to move, eat, or even use the bathroom by herself. That kind of existence? She’d choose death over that humiliation.

Yves wagged his finger, a bloodthirsty smile curving his lips. “No, Althea. This is a Quigley family matter. If we dragged it to the police, let it become public gossip, we’d be the laughingstock of the whole town.”

“No, please, don’t!” Althea wailed, shaking her head so hard her hair whipped around her face. In that moment, the fear was real—and so was her regret. But she didn’t regret what she’d done. What she regretted was not finishing the job; if she’d just poisoned Yves properly, none of this would be happening now.

She’d been too soft. That bit of misplaced mercy was going to be her downfall.

“Mr. Quigley, please—call the police. I’ll confess to everything, everything I did to Yves!” Althea dropped to her knees before the elderly patriarch, clutching desperately at the leg of his trousers, her eyes shining with tears.

Mr. Quigley jerked his leg free, stepping back with a look of icy indifference. “I told you, I won’t interfere. If Yves believes you deserve the family’s severance punishment, then so be it. You brought this on yourself—no one else is to blame.”

The Quigley family’s infamous punishment wasn’t bloody, nor was it painful in the conventional sense. But it left its victims helpless, arms and legs as useless as dead weight, unable to even lift a glass.

“No, Mr. Quigley, you know my brother—if you do this to me, if you go through with something this brutal, he’ll never let your family go. Not one of you.” Althea tried to leverage her notorious older brother, hoping the threat might give the old man pause.

Her brother, after all, was Zachary Lopez—Zachary of Skyrim’s underworld—a man so feared and respected even the city’s top brass gave him a wide berth.

But Mr. Quigley hated being threatened. His kindly face hardened in an instant, his voice a cold knife: “Even if Zachary himself walked through that door, he couldn’t save you.”

The words struck Althea like a blow. He wasn’t even going to give her brother face? Despair crashed over her, cold and final.

“You can’t do this to me! I’m still young—are you really going to force me to spend the rest of my life in bed?” Althea’s voice broke as she screamed. “Once I divorce York, I’m no longer a Quigley. You can’t touch me with your family punishments!”

Lindsay, arms folded, shot her a look of disdain. “You were Mrs. Althea Quigley when you did these things, and you still are. Even if you filed for divorce today, it’s not going to happen overnight.”

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